Repose

Definition

Repose is Christopher Dresser's name for the indispensable art quality of decoration: the restfulness a room affords the eye and nervous system when its surfaces manifest knowledge and harmony and withhold excitement. In Studies in Design (1876) he demands that "our achieving 'repose' in all our decorations" is required "as repose is an indispensable art quality" (p. 86), and supplies the means: "In the absence of a manifestation of knowledge, and in the absence of harmony, there cannot be repose" — though the reverse does not hold, since "there is such a thing as a harmony of lights, of bright spots, of glitters, and all glitter is antagonistic to rest" (p. 86). The concept's deepest formulation is quasi-phenomenological: "Repose is attained by the absence of any want" — a plain wall of dingy colour "reveals a want" and fails to give rest, while "a wall may be covered with the richest decoration, and yet be of such a character that the eye will rest upon it and be satisfied" (p. 87). Repose is thus not a property of plainness or dullness ("the highest sense of repose – i.e., dreamy, soothing repose, may be realised where the brightest colours are employed," pp. 86–87) but of sufficiency: the surface that leaves nothing demanded, so the eye "will rest upon it and be satisfied."

The concept has a physiological edge that makes it a theory of decoration's effects on the occupant rather than a rule about appearances: glazed tiles and varnished surfaces are "rarely satisfactory, for the reflections which they of necessity throw out are exciting, and excitement is antagonistic to rest," because "the constant endurance of excitement is exhausting" (p. 86). The reposeful room is one that does not drain the nervous system of its occupant. And repose is positively compatible with opulence: "By our decorations we must ever seek to achieve repose, but we must always remember that repose is compatible with richness, subtlety, and radiance of effect" (p. 88). The Intimus editors generalize the historical weight of such texts: they are "a testament to written discourse of the late nineteenth century where effect and experience were regulated by prescriptions of taste and decorum," and they "situates interior design finishes and linings as significant contributors to spatial effect" (editors' headnote) — repose as the Victorian design-reform name for what later discourse calls atmosphere.

Key Thinkers

• Thomas Hope — the criterion's first appearance in the wiki's sources (1807), sixty-nine years before Dresser's codification: "breadth and repose of surface" named as the first of the ornamental qualities mechanically produced furniture failed to exhibit (pp. 153–154) — repose not yet as doctrine but as the leading term in a list of ornamental excellences (breadth, contrast of outline, opposition of plain and enriched, harmony of accessories, accord).
• Christopher Dresser — the concept's author: the "indispensable art quality" whose conditions (knowledge, harmony), enemies (glitter, reflection, excitement), and chromatic means (small masses, neutral mingling, dark grounds) the 1876 chapter codifies; repose "compatible with richness, subtlety, and radiance of effect" (p. 88).
• Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston — the editors who position repose in taste's discourse: working definitions of tasteful room design show judgements "vacillat[ing] between unifying space via harmony and repose and charging the space with an array of eclectic objects" (Proximities, p. 12) — repose as one pole of taste's order/eclecticism vacillation.
• Elsie de Wolfe — the neighbouring decorator-concept: her rooms are designed for "tranquillity" and the "restful commonplaces" (1913), the secularized descendant of Dresser's art-quality (see comfort, simplicity).

Related Concepts

• Neutral Colour Effect — the concept's chromatic engine: strong colours in very small masses, mingled primaries producing a neutral yet glowing general effect.
• Comfort — repose's bodily twin: where comfort specifies the room's provision (light, heat, seat), repose specifies its effect on the eye and nerves; both judge the room by what it does to its occupant.
• Atmosphere — the later name for what Dresser's prescriptions regulate: the "spatial effect" to which finishes and linings "significantly contribute" (editors).
• Taste — the regulatory regime the editors diagnose: "effect and experience were regulated by prescriptions of taste and decorum" — repose as the criterion those prescriptions serve.
• Domestic Interior — the concept's site: the Victorian room as a system of surfaces (walls, dados, cornices, ceilings, grounds) engineered for rest.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (Hope 1807/2006) — the criterion's earliest appearance in the wiki's decoration discourse: mechanically wrought furniture offered "in its decoration no approach towards that breadth and repose of surface, that distinctness and contrast of outline, that opposition of plain and of enriched parts, that harmony and significance of accessories" (pp. 153–154) — repose as the first item in a catalogue of ornamental qualities whose whole list, "calculated to afford to the eye and mind the most lively, most permanent, and most unfading enjoyment," anticipates Dresser's doctrine by sixty-nine years. Where Dresser will define repose physiologically ("the constant endurance of excitement is exhausting," 1876), Hope names it as a compositional quality of well-made ornament — breadth of surface, the restful relation of plain and enriched parts — whose loss he attributes to mechanical production (see mechanization).
• On the Means by which Repose is Attainable in Decoration (Dresser 1876/2006) — the primary and codifying source: repose as "an indispensable art quality" (p. 86); its conditions ("manifestation of knowledge," harmony) and its non-guarantee ("a harmony… of glitters"); glitter and reflection as its enemies ("all glitter is antagonistic to rest"); the physiological claim ("the constant endurance of excitement is exhausting"); the anti-dingy definition ("Repose is attained by the absence of any want"); the chromatic prescriptions (small masses, neutral mingling, radiance as "richness to neutrality"); the anti-white-ceiling and dark-ground doctrines; and the closing maxim ("repose is compatible with richness, subtlety, and radiance of effect," p. 88).
• Proximities (Taylor & Preston 2006) — the concept's placement in interior design's theory: taste's vacillation "between unifying space via harmony and repose and charging the space with an array of eclectic objects" (p. 12); the Dresser chapter chosen to represent the technological/late-nineteenth-century wing of the matrix in which "effect and experience were regulated by prescriptions of taste and decorum" and finishes/linings contribute to "spatial effect."

Open Questions

• Is "the absence of any want" a definition of rest as satisfied perception rather than low stimulation? The formula sits oddly beside the anti-excitement doctrine: the eye rests on the richest decoration, yet constant excitement exhausts. What exactly is the difference between the glow that "gives richness to neutrality" (desirable) and the glitter that "is antagonistic to rest" — luminous saturation versus specular reflection? Is repose the difference between absorption and reflection?
• Dresser judges rooms by their drain on the occupant's nervous system ("the constant endurance of excitement is exhausting") — does this make the prescription of repose a disciplinary regime of nervous management (the editors' "prescriptions of taste and decorum"), the domestic counterpart of the metropolitan blasé attitude's protective apparatus, or both?
• White ceilings are "almost fatal" to repose in 1876, and the International Style codifies whiteness in 1932. Does repose's history show the white interior as a contested convention rather than an inevitability — and does the Intimus selection of Dresser serve the editors' chromophobia critique (see chromophobia, whiteness)?
• Can repose coexist with the everyday's liveliness? The concept prescribes the room that settles the eye and spares the nerves — but Lefebvre's and de Certeau's everyday is animated, tactical, excitable. Is a reposeful interior a condition for everyday life, or its dampening?