eishiya reviewed Victorian and Edwardian Decor by Jeremy Cooper
The movers and innovators of decor
3 stars
"Victorian and Edwardian Decor" profiles the leading designers of the era, starting with Pugin's early Gothic Revival and ending on Ambrose Heal and Liberty's mature Art Nouveau. It goes into a surprising amount of detail about their professional lives, considering the space available; this makes for a somewhat fatiguing read.
Because it focuses on the innovators and leaders in the field, it should not be taken be taken as representative of the appearance of Victorian spaces. Many of the images depict the designers' own homes or showrooms, or spaces they were hired to design and decorate, a world away from the off-the-shelf decor available to most people. Of course, these stylistic innovations and fashions made their way to the more humble shops as well, the catalogues being used as copybooks, but more typical interiors would have lacked the grandeur and cohesion of the ones on display here. The text is …
"Victorian and Edwardian Decor" profiles the leading designers of the era, starting with Pugin's early Gothic Revival and ending on Ambrose Heal and Liberty's mature Art Nouveau. It goes into a surprising amount of detail about their professional lives, considering the space available; this makes for a somewhat fatiguing read.
Because it focuses on the innovators and leaders in the field, it should not be taken be taken as representative of the appearance of Victorian spaces. Many of the images depict the designers' own homes or showrooms, or spaces they were hired to design and decorate, a world away from the off-the-shelf decor available to most people. Of course, these stylistic innovations and fashions made their way to the more humble shops as well, the catalogues being used as copybooks, but more typical interiors would have lacked the grandeur and cohesion of the ones on display here. The text is clear about the items that were or were not available to the masses, however, so this book should still be helpful in designing stylish interiors that weren't necessarily at the very forefront of fashion.
The book is thoroughly illustrated with high-quality modern and period photos and drawings, many in colour. Some of the photos of furniture are isolated to clearly show the object, while some provide context at the expense of clarity, this is an effective mix. The colour images are separated from the black and white pages, but are generally close enough to the pertinent text to not require any bookmark gymnastics. Dates for the designs and/or production are typically included in the captions.
The layout of the book is a little unusual - in each chapter there is a text-heavy section with illustrations throughout, followed by several shorter sections where individual designers or different periods from a single designer's work are highlighted with a multitude of images, accompanied by short text that functions as a group caption. I suppose this made it easier to group related images without overwhelming the narrative portion of the chapter with images or details, but it makes for an odd reading experience.