Household Furniture and Interior Decoration

Author: Thomas Hope Year: 2006 (Intimus reprint; original excerpt 1807) Source type: chapter Raw file: raw/chapters/hope-2006-household-furniture.md

Reprint note: An excerpt from Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration: Executed from Designs by Thomas Hope (Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, London, 1807; excerpts pp. 1–16), reprinted in Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader (sic — the raw file's OCR reads "Intumus: Interior Design Reader"), eds. Mark Taylor and Julieanna Preston (sic — OCR: "Juleanna Preston"), John Wiley & Sons, 2006, pp. 153–155, under the editors' headnote. The elision markers "(… p 2)", "(… p 7)" and "(… p 16)" refer to the original 1807 pagination. Pagination below follows the Intimus pages (153–155) shown in the raw file's page markers.

Summary

The earliest voice in the wiki's decorating tradition — now sixty-one years older than Eastlake's 1868 polemic — and the source that pushes the upholsterer-attack back to 1807. Thomas Hope, the British art collector who "published a volume of his own furniture sketches and interiors that ultimately proved to be influential in changing period perceptions of upholstery and interior decoration" (editorial headnote), states the two-tier theory of furniture design on which the whole later lineage rests: every article of furniture must hold "the more essential requisites of utility and comfort" while uniting to them "a certain number of secondary attributes of elegance and beauty, which, without impeding the chief purpose of the object, may enable its shape and accessories to afford additional gratification, both to the eye and to the imagination" (p. 153). His indictment is that English furniture has been "abandoned, till very lately, in this country, to the taste of the sole upholder" — the upholsterer in its archaic spelling — "entirely ignorant of the most familiar principles of visible beauty, wholly uninstructed in the simplest rudiments of drawing"; its products, "wrought by the most mechanical processes only," are either ornamentless or ornamented without "breadth and repose of surface" and without "apt accord" between each detail's meaning and the object's destination. The remedy is the union-program: "the association of all the elegancies of antique forms and ornaments, with all the requisites of modern customs and habits" (p. 154) — the antique adapted to modern convenience, yielding forms whose "timeless quality" (headnote) outlasts fashion. The economic climax is a proto-theory of fashion-driven obsolescence: fashionable furniture, "through the paltriness of its materials" and "the poverty of its forms," is "usually broken or discarded, long ere it has had leisure fairly to serve its time," yet — "by means of the incessant change of fashion which it stimulates and supports" — "on the whole, occasions a much greater expense" than durable furniture; while the well-designed alternative "may be preserved in families, from generation to generation, as a valuable portion of the patrimonial estate" (pp. 154–155). See patrimonial-interior, design-reform.

Key Claims

The two-tier theory of furniture design: "the more essential requisites of utility and comfort, for which it is most immediately framed, and with which it can consequently, on no account, dispense" are united, in each article, with "a certain number of secondary attributes of elegance and beauty, which, without impeding the chief purpose of the object, may enable its shape and accessories to afford additional gratification, both to the eye and to the imagination" (p. 153) — comfort and utility are indispensable, beauty secondary but essential to "the extension of our rational pleasures"; gratification runs "both to the eye and to the imagination."
The furniture inventory as the interior's material field: under "Household Furniture" are comprised "an infinite variety of different productions of human industry, wrought in wood, in stone, in metal, in composition of various descriptions, in silk, in wool, in cotton, and in other less usual materials" (p. 153) — the designed interior as an economy of materials, each "however mean its destination" a site of design judgment.
The upholsterer-attack in its first form (1807, sixty-one years before Eastlake): furniture was "abandoned, till very lately, in this country, to the taste of the sole upholder, entirely ignorant of the most familiar principles of visible beauty, wholly uninstructed in the simplest rudiments of drawing, or, at most, only fraught with a few wretched ideas and trivial conceits, borrowed from the worst models of the degraded French school of the middle of the last century" (p. 153) — the trade's double illiteracy (principles of visible beauty; drawing) and its French-model degradation, against which Hope's "upholder" is the archaic trade-name Eastlake will attack as "upholsterer" in 1868. See upholsterer.
The mechanical-production indictment: "Furniture of every description, wrought by the most mechanical processes only, either remained absolutely void of all ornament whatever, or, if made to exhibit any attempt at embellishment, 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) — the earliest mechanical-production critique in the wiki's interior sources, sixty-nine years before Dresser's repose doctrine and a century before Giedion's mechanization history. See mechanization, repose, architectural-ornament.
The accord criterion — suitability in its 1807 form: ornament must exhibit "that apt accord between the peculiar meaning of each imitative or significant detail, and the peculiar destination of the main object, to which these accessories belonged" (p. 154) — detail judged by its fit to the object's destination ("things so humble in their chief purpose and destination as a table and a chair, a footstool and a screen," p. 154), the fitness-doctrine the later lineage will call suitability.
Ornament that costs without pleasing: "The article only became, in consequence of its injudicious appendages, more expensive, without becoming more beautiful" (p. 154) — the "insipidity of the outline, and the unmeaningness of the embellishments, even in the most costly pieces" (p. 154) — expense and beauty severed, the reform's founding distinction between price and design value.
The disgust-obsolescence mechanism: costly fashionable furniture is discarded "long even before the extreme insolidity and flimsiness of their texture could induce material injury in them from the effects of regular wear and tear," because "the inanity and tameness of their shapes and appendages already completely tired the eye and mind; and left these no other means to escape from the weariness and the disgust which they occasioned, than an instant change for other objects of a more recent date and a more novel construction" (p. 154) — furniture replaced by aesthetic fatigue, not wear: "inanity and tameness" drive a faster mortality than "regular wear and tear." See aesthetic-fatigue, obsolescence.
The designer-competence claim: "I found no one professional man, at once possessed of sufficient intimacy with the stores of literature to suggest ideas, and of sufficient practice in the art of drawing to execute designs, that might be capable of ennobling, through means of their shape and their accessories, things so humble in their chief purpose and destination as a table and a chair, a footstool and a screen" (p. 154) — the double warrant for furniture design (literary cultivation + drawing practice), the absence of which justifies Hope's own designs; "ennobling" humble objects as the designer's office.
The union-program: the difficulty of the new style is "the union of the different modifications of visible and intellectual beauty which were desirable, with the different attributes of utility and comfort which were essential; the association of all the elegancies of antique forms and ornaments, with all the requisites of modern customs and habits" (p. 154) — antique form + modern convenience, beauty + comfort, as the design problem the ancients-decorating lineage will inherit. See the-antique, comfort.
The house-versus-stable inversion of values: "In England much more attention is generally paid to the perishable implements of the stable than to the lasting decoration of the house" (p. 154) — those who lavish yearly sums on "the trifling and imperceptible changes" of "the transient vehicle" object to the expensiveness of "the more permanent fixture" — the interior's low priority as a cultural diagnosis (see domestic-interior).
The false-economy argument — fashion as expense-multiplier: the fashionable mode, "through the paltriness of its materials, and the slightness of its texture… subject to experience such speedy decay, and (what is worse) through the poverty of its forms, and the unmeaningness of its embellishments… liable to occasion such rapid disgust… is usually broken or discarded, long ere it has had leisure fairly to serve its time, though at first its cost be less, yet, by means of the incessant change of fashion which it stimulates and supports, on the whole, occasions a much greater expense than the style of furniture here set forth" (pp. 154–155) — cheap fashionable furniture costs more in aggregate because the cheapness funds the fashion cycle: the earliest economic argument against fashion in the wiki's lineage.
The patrimonial alternative: well-designed furniture, "little susceptible of experiencing premature destruction, for want of due solidity of form, and less liable… to suffer merited disgrace, while yet in all its freshness of youth, for want of intrinsic power to please, may be preserved in families, from generation to generation, as a valuable portion of the patrimonial estate" (pp. 154–155) — permanence designed twice over: solidity against physical decay, "intrinsic power to please" against disgrace; furniture as transgenerational estate. See patrimonial-interior, tradition.
The headnote's historical verdict: Hope's book was "influential in changing period perceptions of upholstery and interior decoration"; his argument — "an appeal to recall the ways of the ancients, not only for their conceptions of beauty and utility, but as a search for form that is conducive to adapting contemporary modes of convenience" — is "a now familiar argument," implying that such forms "would acquire a timeless quality, the expense of which outweighs the cheap but poorly made fashionable decorations prevalent at the time" (editorial headnote, p. 153).

Connections

Concepts: upholsterer · the-antique · patrimonial-interior · aesthetic-fatigue · fashion · obsolescence · comfort · suitability · repose · taste · beauty · design-reform · advice-literature · mechanization · architectural-ornament · the-decorative · domestic-interior · tradition · style · authorship · interior-design

Authors: hope-thomas · taylor-mark-preston-julieanna (editors) · eastlake-charles-l (the attack's re-statement, 1868) · dresser-christopher (repose's later doctrine, 1876) · de-wolfe-elsie (the professional inheritor, 1913) · beecher-catharine-e & stowe-harriet-beecher (the American contemporaries in the Intimus sequence)

Debates: ornament-vs-purity (the union-of-utility-and-beauty position — ornament judged by accord and repose, against both the ornament-void of mechanical production and "injudicious appendages") · interior-design-vs-architecture (the gentleman-designer prehistory: the knowledge-claim for the design of the interior's objects, made before any profession existed)

Direct Quotes

"Under the general denomination of Household Furniture are comprised an infinite variety of different productions of human industry, wrought in wood, in stone, in metal, in composition of various descriptions, in silk, in wool, in cotton, and in other less usual materials." (p. 153)

"Each of these different articles, however simple be its texture, and however mean its destination, is capable of uniting to the more essential requisites of utility and comfort, for which it is most immediately framed, and with which it can consequently, on no account, dispense, a certain number of secondary attributes of elegance and beauty, which, without impeding the chief purpose of the object, may enable its shape and accessories to afford additional gratification, both to the eye and to the imagination." (p. 153)

"Almost every one of these various articles however, abandoned, till very lately, in this country, to the taste of the sole upholder, entirely ignorant of the most familiar principles of visible beauty, wholly uninstructed in the simplest rudiments of drawing, or, at most, only fraught with a few wretched ideas and trivial conceits, borrowed from the worst models of the degraded French school of the middle of the last century, was left totally destitute of those attributes of true elegance and beauty, which, though secondary, are yet of such importance to the extension of our rational pleasures." (p. 153)

"Furniture of every description, wrought by the most mechanical processes only, either remained absolutely void of all ornament whatever, or, if made to exhibit any attempt at embellishment, offered in its decoration no approach towards that breadth and repose of surface, that" (p. 153)

"distinctness and contrast of outline, that opposition of plain and of enriched parts, that harmony and significance of accessories, and that apt accord between the peculiar meaning of each imitative or significant detail, and the peculiar destination of the main object, to which these accessories belonged, which are calculated to afford to the eye and mind the most lively, most permanent, and most unfading enjoyment." (p. 154)

"The article only became, in consequence of its injudicious appendages, more expensive, without becoming more beautiful." (p. 154)

"long even before the extreme insolidity and flimsiness of their texture could induce material injury in them from the effects of regular wear and tear, the inanity and tameness of their shapes and appendages already completely tired the eye and mind; and left these no other means to escape from the weariness and the disgust which they occasioned, than an instant change for other objects of a more recent date and a more novel construction." (p. 154)

"If thus great were the advantages which the adoption of the totally new style of decoration here described seemed to promise, the difficulties with which its execution was to be attended appeared not less considerable." (p. 154)

"the association of all the elegancies of antique forms and ornaments, with all the requisites of modern customs and habits" (p. 154)

"I found no one professional man, at once possessed of sufficient intimacy with the stores of literature to suggest ideas, and of sufficient practice in the art of drawing to execute designs, that might be capable of ennobling, through means of their shape and their accessories, things so humble in their chief purpose and destination as a table and a chair, a footstool and a screen." (p. 154)

"In England much more attention is generally paid to the perishable implements of the stable than to the lasting decoration of the house." (p. 154)

"many, even among those most disposed yearly to lavish enormous sums in the trifling and imperceptible changes which every season produces in the construction of the transient vehicle, may most strongly object to the expensiveness of the infinitely more important and more palpable improvements, of which is susceptible the more permanent fixture." (p. 154)

"the mode of decorating apartments, hitherto in vogue, which, through the paltriness of its materials, and the slightness of its texture, is subject to experience such speedy decay, and (what is worse) through the poverty of its forms, and the unmeaningness of its embellishments, is liable to occasion such rapid disgust; and which, consequently, is usually broken or discarded, long ere it has had leisure fairly to serve its time, though at first its cost be less, yet, by means of the incessant change of fashion which it stimulates and supports, on the whole, occasions a much greater expense than the style of furniture here set forth." (pp. 154–155)

"[The new style of furniture], little susceptible of experiencing premature destruction, for want of due solidity of form, and less liable, it is presumed, than the former, to suffer merited disgrace, while yet in all its freshness of youth, for want of intrinsic power to please, may be preserved in families, from generation to generation, as a valuable portion of the patrimonial estate." (pp. 154–155)

"British art collector Thomas Hope published a volume of his own furniture sketches and interiors that ultimately proved to be influential in changing period perceptions of upholstery and interior decoration. In this excerpt, he attacks the loss of beauty and line, denouncing mechanical processes that result in furniture that is flimsy, lacking solidity and inelegant. Central to his argument is an appeal to recall the ways of the ancients, not only for their conceptions of beauty and utility, but as a search for form that is conducive to adapting contemporary modes of convenience. Exposing a now familiar argument, he implies that such forms would acquire a timeless quality, the expense of which outweighs the cheap but poorly made fashionable decorations prevalent at the time." (editorial headnote, Taylor & Preston, p. 153)

Open Questions

Hope attacks the upholsterer's ignorance to justify designing his own furniture — but his remedy (the cultivated collector-designer) is an aristocrat's answer, while Eastlake's (1868) was the reform manual's. Is the lineage's earliest authority-claim a class claim — design competence as the property of literary cultivation and drawing practice — and how did that claim survive its democratization in the advice literature?
Hope's "breadth and repose of surface" (1807) predates Dresser's repose doctrine (1876) by sixty-nine years. Is Dresser's "indispensable art quality" the codification of a criterion Hope names in passing — and does the wiki's repose genealogy need re-dating to 1807?
The false-economy argument — fashionable furniture "occasions a much greater expense" because of "the incessant change of fashion which it stimulates and supports" — treats fashion as an economic engine funded by cheap goods. Does this make the fashion-cycle's first theorist an economist of the throwaway interior (the planed-down ancestor of obsolescence and Walmart's seventeen-year "useful life"), and what does it do to fashion's usual gendered reading (Gordon) that the cycle here is driven by male-purchased furniture?
Hope's remedy is furniture "preserved in families, from generation to generation, as a valuable portion of the patrimonial estate" — permanence through transmission. Does the patrimonial solution merely relocate fashion's cycle to the timescale of generations (the heirloom as slow fashion), or is "intrinsic power to please" a genuine escape from the disgust-cycle he diagnoses?
The Intimus editors place Hope's excerpt between Hillier & Hanson's social logic of space and the reader's closing texts — why did the theory reader's design-reform prehistory need a 1807 document at all, and does the selection signal that the lineage's origin is the collector-designer rather than the reformer or the tradesman?
Hope denounces "the degraded French school of the middle of the last century" (the mid-eighteenth-century rococo) while borrowing the ancients' forms — is the appeal to antiquity itself a fashion-position (the Greek Revival as the new taste of 1807), and how does the "timeless quality" claimed for ancient-derived forms square with its own historical fashionability? See the-antique, style.

Notes

Original publication: Household Furniture and Interior Decoration: Executed from Designs by Thomas Hope (Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, London, 1807); the excerpt runs original pp. 1–16, with elisions at "(… p 2)", "(… p 7)" and "(… p 16)".
This is now the earliest source in the wiki's decorating/advice-literature lineage: Hope (1807) → Eastlake (1868) → Beecher & Stowe (1869, American) → Dresser (1876) → de Wolfe (1913) → Baldwin (1972). It is also the earliest upholsterer-attack ("the sole upholder," the archaic trade-name) and the earliest appearance of "repose" in the wiki's decoration discourse.