"What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face? - and
is there any harmony of tints that has such stirrings of delight as the sweet
modulation of her voice?" Here, Daniel Deronda compares Mirah to
furniture, placing her beauty above the aesthetic value of furniture in a room.
This comparison may sound absurd to the modern reader however; it proves just
how much value furniture had in the 19th Century.
The Victorian era is consumed with lavishness and opulence. The Victorians are
known to want to show that they are well positioned in society, even if that
means putting themselves through suffering!
I am interested to find out why there was such a huge insistence on
desiring to prove one’s place in society through the use of furniture?
The
popular belief is that due to the industrialisation of the 18th and 19th centuries, masses moved out of the
countryside to live in big, happening cities where they could have a better
income as well as be part of the thriving scene. Hence, a new wave of
middle-class families enjoyed aiming to replicate the aristocratic lifestyle,
in order to look and feel valued and important. And if they could not afford to
copy them, which happened most of the time, well at least they knew about the
aristocratic lifestyle and forged their own conception of how they should lead
their lives based on this knowledge.
Mrs Beeton suggests “the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought
upon men and women by household mismanagement [moved me]. I have always thought
that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's
badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways.’
The Victorian era was also a time when leisure spots such as tearooms and eating-houses
started to establish themselves. These were fairly new and therefore were to be
feared by some. For the Victorian woman, the fear of losing her husband to the
charms of all the upcoming clubs and taverns made her strive to perfect her
cooking and taste in household goods and household management. Therefore, I
believe considering the aesthetic value of furniture in the Victorian homes to
be indubitable.
Furniture - like clothing, jewellery and postcode – was a
means of showing off to your ‘friends’, the society. It was there mostly to
impress and the Victorians definitely wanted to have that effect on others in
their social circle in order to keep face. Such a huge importance was given to
appearance, that, as Beeton mentions, not only does it avoid a marital rift, but
it also makes entertaining guests a lot better. Better to impress. Living rooms,
parlors and dining rooms had to be crowded with wealthy looking furniture and
decoration. However, private rooms such as the bedroom or the servants’ hall
had the minimum furnishings because there was no need to boast about those rooms,
as no guest would enter them.
The increasing demand for furniture led to the booming of factories. New
methods of manufacture meant that the machine had taken over craftsmanship and
was able to produce Victorian furniture
in mass amounts to satisfy the vast demand by the middle class people that
desired it. Thus, manufacturing had to go at a fast pace and therein laid a
reason for why quality had started to become poor, because furniture started to
be designed around what the machine could make. There was no more artistic
contact between the designer and the craftsmen and no contact between designer
and client, as the former were too busy trying to keep ahead of each other.
By the end of the first half of the Victorian era, (circa 1840’s), everyone
wanted flamboyant furniture that showed a lot of detail and work mainly in the
curvatures and the ornaments. However after 1850, poor construction meant lower
prices and lower standards of the finished pieces.
In the later Victorian era, the shift from bad quality to good standards
was mainly due to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in 1888. At
the top of their thinking was a new appreciation of the artistic skills of the workers
and the belief that they should feel satisfied with their craftsmanship. This
school of thought opposed the idea of mass factories and supported the opening
of small workshops that were often in the countryside. The situation is
somewhat similar today, with the presence of mega furniture and DIY stores like
IKEA producing furniture en masse, thus overshadowing little artisanal
craftsmen.
Artists who followed this new movement valued the natural beauty of
materials. The new fashion they set was to simplify forms and use ornaments to
enhance construction in lieu of masking it. However, it goes without saying
that furniture built in small workshops was more expensive; again, only a
certain kind of people could afford it.
The influential designer, manufacturer and writer William
Morris was an avid supporter of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It is even argued that Morris influenced the creation of this movement. Penned
as an innovative decorator, he set up Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co in 1861, replacing it
with Morris & Co in 1875. His firms provided all the furnishings used in
his decorative schemes. He aimed to show through his work the superiority
of quality handmade furniture. The simplicity in his work reflected the furniture of the 18th
Century, which led to the practice of purchasing second hand furniture in
antique shops.
 |
| The ‘Rossetti’ armchair (circa 1863) based on the early 19th Century French country chairs. Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - the renowned poet, illustrator
and painter, designed this armchair that was produced by Morris, Marshall,
Faulkner & Co in 1863. Even before Morris met Rossetti, he was inspired by
his visions of medieval design. The two artists met in the summer of 1857 in
Oxford while painting the ceiling of a debating hall, and in 1861 Rossetti
became a founding partner of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Morris, Marshall,
Faulkner & Co.’s most popular product however, was designed by the
architect Philip Webb who was penned ‘the Father of Arts and Crafts
Architecture’.
 |
| The ‘Sussex’ armchair (circa 1860) based on early country designs. Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
This popular armchair was part of a range of modest
furnishings available from the Morris shop. Given its over-simplistic style, it
became a must-have piece in households because it was versatile, affordable and
was from a famous brand: it came from Morris’s firm.
Overall, what I learned from my research visit to the
Victoria & Albert museum, the online resources I consulted as well as
issues raised in Victorian books regarding domesticity and appearances, is that
it looks as though human history keeps repeating itself. Whenever a new social class
is born and some people become more affluent, their need to boast about it
arises and it makes others dream of reaching them. Some even become poorer in
their pursuit. In the Victorian era, boasting meant throwing lavish parties to
show off one’s house and all the opulent objects of decoration and pieces of
furniture it stored. In order to match the high demand for furniture, the Victorian period
saw the introduction of labour saving machinery. Unfortunately, the machinery
was misused because it could not keep up and caused a serious deterioration in
design and construction. Hence why artists such as Morris, Webb and Rossetti
rebelled against this ‘mass consumerism’ with their artistic movement, which
took furniture back to basics.
Works cited:
Beeton, I. The
Book Of Household Management.
Styles and Periods of Interior Designs. Victorian
Furniture. <http://styles-and-periods.interiordezine.com/furniture-history/victorian-furniture/>. 10 March 2014.
Victoria and Albert Museum. Style Guide:
Gothic Revival. <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/style-guide-gothic-revival/ >. 2 March 2014
Victoria and Albert Museum. Victorian
Furniture Styles. <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/victorian-furniture-styles/>. 2 March 2014
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