The reader's guide to the Encyclopaedia Britannica

by Inc. Encyclopaedia Britannica

Form and Embellishment

To satisfy the spirit of home-love and house-pride in the making of furniture is an art, and the idea that furniture can only be artistic when it is made by hand, from a design that is to be used but once, is as nonsensical as it would be to say that a beautiful etching is not true art because a press produces it and others like it. “Fine art is everything which man does or makes in one way rather than another ... in order to express and arouse emotion ... with results independent of direct utility.” These words from Sir Sidney Colvin’s delightful Britannica article Fine Arts (Vol. 10, p. 361), and another passage (p. 370), in which he speaks of “the artificers who produce wares primarily for use, in a form, or with embellishments, that have the secondary virtue of giving pleasure,” might well be quoted to the supercilious and superficial critic who condemns every product which machinery has brought within the reach of the less fortunately situated. Furniture, made in one form rather than another, because that one form gives greater pleasure, is artistic furniture whether it is made of machined pine chemically stained or of handworked and hand-polished rosewood. The manufacturer and dealer who ingeniously minimize the cost of production and distribution are benefiting the public just as truly as did Thomas Chippendale, “at once an artist and a prosperous man of business,” or Thomas Sheraton, “the great artistic genius who lived in chronic poverty.” The adaptation and variation of their ideas, under modern conditions of manufacture, have given pleasure to tens of thousands for every one whose home was enriched by the original products.

Related Subjects

We have, then, in the furniture business, the combination of an art with an industry of the most practical and useful kind, and this art is one which does more than any other to “express and arouse” the home-cherishing emotions which solidify family life. The principles which underlie architecture, sculpture, painting, metal work, embroidery and the weaving of patterns all affect the design of furniture, since its contours and surfaces are obtained by the application of the structural and decorative laws of all of them, and it might therefore be said that the only course of reading in the Britannica which could fully justify the title of this chapter would be one which covered all these diverse fields. The reader can, however, with the assistance of other chapters of this Guide, easily find his way to the Britannica’s articles on each of these allied subjects, and an indication of the articles dealing specifically with furniture will at any rate serve his primary purpose.

“Art Nouveau” School

The keystone article Furniture (Vol. 11, p. 363) is by James Penderel-Brodhurst, one of the greatest of living authorities, to whom many of the subsidiary articles are also due. The 37 illustrations on plate paper include two large views of the most famous and resplendent piece of furniture ever constructed, the cylinder desk, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, made for Louis XV by a number of “artist-artificers,” the chief among them Oeben and Riesener, with bronze mounts by Duplessis, Winant and Hervieux. The article explains the scanty attention paid to furniture in ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, and throughout the Middle Ages in Western Europe, as due to the routine of life in centuries during which people spent their days in the open air, and went to bed as soon as it was dark, therefore needing but few household appliances. The Renaissance was the first era of sumptuous and elaborately varied furniture; and it was not until the 18th century that the art of the cabinet-maker was fully developed. The English periods of Queen Anne and early Georgian craftsmanship and the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI brought the development to its high-water-mark. Since then, there has been no really new departure except the “art nouveau” school, which professed to be free from all traditions and to seek inspiration from nature alone. The revolution which was thus attempted was not successful, and the permanent influence of the movement will, in all probability, be less notable for its effect upon style than for the very great service it rendered in reviving the use of oak. Lightly polished, fumed or waxed, this wood, which was so long neglected, is the most effective that can be employed at moderate cost.

Beds

The oldest and most indispensable of all furnishings is treated in the article Bed (Vol. 3, p. 612). The Egyptians had high bedsteads to which they ascended by steps, and the Assyrians, Medes and Persians followed the same custom. The Greek bed had a wooden frame, with a board at the head, and bands of hide laced across, upon which skins were laid. At a later period, as vase-paintings show, the Greeks used folding beds. Another ancient application of an idea commonly supposed to be of modern origin is found in the Roman use of bronze beds, and metal is so much more sanitary than wood for this purpose that it seems strange it was afterwards discarded for many centuries. The bed of the Emperor Eliogabalus was of solid silver, with counterpane and hangings of purple embroidered in gold. In Pompeii wall-niches for beds, like those still used in Holland, are found, and were apparently closed by sliding partitions as well as by curtains. To our modern ideas, this arrangement seems to have been disgustingly devoid of ventilation, but the four-poster, with its “tester” roof and its curtains, which was widely used until the middle of the 19th century, was not much better. Mattresses developed very slowly, for in the 18th century pea-shucks and straw were the stuffing materials employed in houses of prosperous people, and hair had not come into use. The article gives a full and interesting account of the quaint custom, instituted by Louis XI of France, and followed by many of his royal successors, of a sovereign remaining in bed while he received the visits of his ministers and courtiers.

Chests and Chairs

The chair, to us the commonest of objects, did not come into general use until, as the articles Bench (Vol. 3, p. 715) and Stool (Vol. 25, p. 967) indicate, these two had long been the usual seats. The Chest (Vol. 6, p. 106) was also used as a seat, and was the original form of wardrobe before hanging space and drawers were provided. The ecclesiastical chests, of great length in order that they might contain, without folding, church vestments stiff with embroidery, are the most ornate of all the models of furniture which have been preserved from the 13th and 14th centuries. The article Chair (Vol. 5, p. 801) shows that chairs were everywhere uncommon until the middle of the 16th century; and it was not until the 17th was well advanced that upholstery began to be employed for them. The typical Louis XVI chair, with its oval back and ample seat, descending arms, round-reeded legs and gay tapestry was the most beautiful and elaborate model that has ever been devised. But it was the original Chippendale design and the still lighter patterns of Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Adam that gave us the slender, compact and easily moved chairs which will always be the more numerous. It is interesting to observe that the revolving chair, commonly regarded as an office convenience of modern origin, has a pedigree of no less than four centuries.