From Louis Seize to Thomas Sheraton

from the book "The Practical Book Of Period Furniture", by Harold Donaldson Eberlein And Abbot McClure.

In the Louis Seize period there was a noticeable return to rectilinear principles in the design of furniture. Vertical and horizontal lines were emphasised and some of the cabinet-work possessed a distinctly perpendicular aspect. While curved surfaces did not altogether disappear from cabinet-work, carcases were in the main rectilinear. Although the amenity of curves in the shapes of chair seats, backs and arms and in the rounding of corners was not disdained, the legs of tables, chairs, sofas, stools and cabinets were almost altogether straight, and the same may be said of stretchers where they occur. Legs and stretchers displaying curves were only the exceptions that proved the rule. Had it not been for the grace of well-placed embellishment, not a little of the furniture might have been open to the charge of angularity. As it was, however, ornament was so adroitly disposed that it enhanced the classic purity of structural lines without the loss of distinction resulting from superfluity.

The representative Sheraton type of furniture, as we are accustomed to understand it, was based entirely on his first book and richly deserves all the distinction and originality he claims for it. In his later books there is a marked and rapid deterioration in the quality of the designs given. Whether it was because Sheraton was failing in inspiration, or because he was trying to accommodate his designs to a popular taste that clamoured loudly for the latest French forms, it would be hard to say. It was probably the latter, for one who had produced types of such artistic excellence a few years before could scarcely sink to such depths of impoverished invention independently of some extraneous cause. This inference is supported by the pathetic laments he utters, as early as 1802, that "a clumsy four-footed stool from France will be admired by our connoisseurs in preference to a first-rate cabinet of English production" or that the British public has brought to pass this deplorable state of affairs by "foolishly staring after French fashions" instead of giving "suitable encouragement to designers and artists" in England. "Instead of this," he says, "when our tradesmen are desirous to draw the best customers to their warerooms, they hasten over to Paris, or otherwise pretend to go there, plainly indicating either our own defects in cabinet-making, or extreme ignorance, that we must be pleased and attracted by the mere sound of French taste."So bad were his later designs, so jejune in character and so impregnated with a debased French feeling that it seems almost unfair, and is certainly prejudicial to a clear understanding of types, to attach Sheraton's name to them. We shall, therefore, pass them by with scant notice.

Sheraton's "Drawing Book," the publication upon which his claims to a distinctive style are wholly based, was a most important and valuable addition to the literature of cabinet-making. Unfortunately a fair-minded reader cannot fail to be annoyed and repelled by the disparaging and acrid attitude he assumes towards the designs and achievements of his predecessors and contemporaries, of whom he speaks uncharitably and contemptuously. Chippendale's designs he brands as "now wholly antiquated and laid aside;" Manwar-ing's book contains nought "but what an apprentice boy may be taught by seven hours' proper instructions;" for some of Shearer's work he did, indeed, express measured admiration and proved the sincerity of his admiration by adopting and really improving some of his designs; but of Hepplewhite, the designer between whose plans and his own there was the closest similarity, a similarity positively perplexing at times, he says, while grudgingly conceding that a few of the designs in his book "are not without merit," "if we compare some of the designs, particularly the chairs, with the newest taste, we shall find that this work has already caught the decline, and perhaps, in a little time will suddenly die in the disorder." This of a volume published but five years before his own

Manet

From: The Judgment of Paris by Ross King

p 52

the viewing public was accustomed to standing close to paintings and studying them minutely and marveling over the delicacy of the handiwork. ... But manet's apparently clumsy brushstrokes and lack of clarity did not lend themselves to this sort of appreciation. The work looked lackadaisical and incomplete because inplaces the undercoat of white primer and the weave of the canvas could clearly be seen. Elsewhere the marks of the paintbrush were visible. Most other painters used thin glazes and fine brushes made of sable to cover their traces, in effect brushing themselves out of their work.

The vast majority of pigments sold in France were no longer mixed with linseed oil which yellowed with age, but rather with poppy oil whose use resulted in more buttery, textured pigments than the smooth ones produced with linseed oil.
Painters using pigments bound in poppy oil therefore needed to work harder to eliminate the bristle marks from their canvases, though a number of them, notably Delacroix and Couture had been leaving behind the visible sign of the brush as a kind of signature of their individuality and workmanship. They were following in the tradition of painters of the Italian Renaissance, such as Leonardo and Tiotian, some of whose works showed how they even smeared paint with their fingertips. But by the nineteenth cetury this seemingly spontaneous approach had disappeared.

On "upstairs gods"

From "South Wind":

You seem to have a quarrel with Moses and his command- 
ments, which we are taught to regard as the keystone of 
ethics. I don't want to discuss things. I want to listen 
to the opinions of a man so different from myself as you 
are. It may do me good. And I think I could stand 
almost anything," he added, with a laugh, " in this 
landscape — in this clear pagan light, as you call it." 

" I used to be interested in such things as a boy. I 
suppose all respectable boys are ; and I was respectable 
even at that tender age. Nowadays, though I still pick 
up an Oriental rug now and then, I have no further use 
for Oriental gods." 

" What is your objection to them ? " 

Mr. Keith paused before replying. Then he said : 

" The drawback of Oriental gods is that they have 
been manufactured by the proletariat for the use of the 
aristocracy. They act accordingly ; that is, they distil 
the morality of their creators which I consider a noxious 
emanation. The classic gods were different. They were 
invented by intellectualists who felt themselves capable 
of maintaining a kind of comradeship with their deities. 
Men and gods were practically on a level. They walked 
hand in hand over the earth. These gods belonged to 
what one might call the horizontal or downstairs 
variety." 

" And those others ? " 

" Oh, they are the upstairs or vertical type. They 
live overhead. Why overhead ? Because they have 
been created by the proletariat. The proletariat loves 
to humiliate itself. Therefore they .manufacture a god
who approves of grovelling, a god who can look down 
upon them. They exalt this deity to an infinite degree 
in point of goodness and distance, and in so doing they 
inevitably abase themselves. Now I disapprove of 
grovelling. 7'hat means I disapprove of upstairs 
gods." 

" Upstairs gods " 

" If you walk into my front door as a distinguished 
visitor I am happy to show you the place. You can 
prowl about the garden, poke your nose into the pantry 
and learn, if it amuses you, all about my private life. 
But if you rent a high attic overlooking my premises and 
stare out of your window all day long, watching my 
movements and noting down everything I do, why, 
damn it, I call that vulgar. Staring is bad form. Vertical 
gods are inquisitive. I don't like to be supervised. I 
don't care about this dossier business. My garden is for 
you and me to walk about in, not for outsiders to stare 
into. Which reminds me that you have not been to see 
me lately. You ought to come and look at my cannas ; 
you really ought ! They are in magnificent bloom just 
now. When shall it be ? " 

Mr. Keith seemed to be already tired of the subject. 
In fact he was as near being bored as ever he allowed 
himself to be. But the other refused to let the conversa- 
tion be side-tracked. He wanted to know. 

" Vertical and horizontal gods. . . . Dear me. Sounds 
rather profane." 

" I have not heard that word for quite a long time." 

" You don't feel the need of any kind of superior 
being to control human affairs ? " 

" Not up to the present. I can find no room in my 
Cosmos for a deity, save as a waste product of human 
weakness, an excrement of the imagination. If you 
gave me the sauciest god that ever sat on a cloud or 
breakfasted with the Village Idiot — 'pon my word, I
shouldn't know what to do with him. I don't collect 
bric-a-brac myself, and the British Museum is dreadfully- 
overstocked. Perhaps the Duchess could make some use 
of him, if he specialized in lace vestments and choral 
mass. By the way, I hear that she is going to be admitted 
into the Roman Church next week ; there is to be a 
luncheon after the ceremony. Are you going ? " 

" Vertical and horizontal gods, ... I never heard 
that distinction made before." 

" It is a difference, my dear Heard. Mankind remains 
in direct contact with the downstairs variety. That 
simplifies matters. But the peculiar position of those 
others — perpendicularly overhead at a vast distance — 
necessitates a cumbersome code of verbal signals, un- 
intelligible to common folk, for the expression of mutual 
desires. You cannot have any god of this kind without 
some such cumbersome contrivance to bridge over the 
gulf and make communication possible. It is called 
theology. It complicates life very considerably. Yes," 
he pursued, " the vertical-god system is not only vulgar ; 
it is perplexing and expensive. Think of the wastage, of 
the myriads of people who have been sacrificed because 
they misinterpreted some enigmatical word in the code. 
Why are you intent on these conundrums ? " 

More from Nepenthe

A directory to the springs of antiquity:

The Fountain of Saint Calogero, described as one of the most famous,
was lukewarm, of ammoniacal and alkaline flavour; a glassful of it
produced the most violent retchings and vomitings. Properly applied,
however, the water had been found to relieve the gout, the discomforts
of child-bearing, leprosy, irritation of the mucous membrane of the
nose, impetigo, strabismus and ophthalmia. If the patient observed care
in his diet, avoiding articles of calorific nature such as fried fish
and boiled lentils, he would find himself greatly benefited by its use
in the case of cornucopic hydrocephalus, flatulence, tympanitis and
varicose veins. It was useful, furthermore, as a cure for the stings of
scorpions and other venomous beasts.

The so-called "Fountain of Paradise," of nitrous ingredients, spurted
forth with a prodigious hissing noise at a temperature of boiling lead,
from so inaccessible a fissure in the rocks that little had been done
to investigate its peculiar properties. It was held none the less to be
efficacious for the distemper known as PLICA POLONICA, and the peasant
folk, mixing its spray with the acorns on which their pigs were
fattened, had observed that these quadrupeds prospered vastly in health
and appearance.

The Fountain of Hercules, laxative and tartaric, had proved its
efficacy in cases of enlarged spleen, hare-lip, vertigo, apoplexy,
cachexia, cacodoria, cacochymia senilis and chilblains. It was also
considered to be a sovereign remedy for that distressing and almost
universal complaint, the piles.

The Fountain known as "La Salina," of arsenical nature, was frequented
chiefly by women who found in its waters an alleviation for troubles
which Monsignor Perrelli does not specify. It was recommended,
moreover, as a sheep-dip.

The Fountain of the Virgin, purgative and blastopeptic, had given
relief to sufferers from the quartan fever, herpes, elephantiasis, and
to all persons of atrobiliary and lunatick temperament.

The so-called "Old Fountain," of sub-acidulate and vitriolique flavour,
chalybeate and cataplastic, was renowned for removing stains from
household linen. Taken in minute doses, under medical advice, it gave
relief to patients afflicted with the wolfe, NOLI ME TANGERE,
crudities, Bablyonian itch, globular pemphlegema, fantastical visions,
koliks, asthma and affections of the heart. It also "fortifies the
stomach, comforts the bowels, reduces the gallstone to sand, the sand
to mud, the mud to water--water which can be passed out of the system by
the usual channels."

The Fountain of Saint Vulcan, anti-blepharous and amygdaloidal, was
charged with such potent minerals that a single spoonful produced a
diarrhoea more distressing to witness than cholera. None the less,
applied externally, it was a wondrous remedy in cases of jaundice,
toothache and open wounds.

The Fountain of the Capon, sedative and scorbutic, was indicated for
rheumatisms of every kind, not excluding sprained limbs, hydrophobia,
lycanthropy, black choler, oppilations and procrastinating catapepsia.

The Fountain known as "Spina Santa" was resorted to by all persons
suffering from maladies of the alimentary canal, such as dysentery,
cloven palate, follicular hepatitis, and trabulated hyperaemia of the
Bivonian passage.

The Fountain of Saint Feto had, by virtue of its smell alone, applied
to her nose as she lay in her coffin, raised from the dead a certain
Anna da Pasto.

The Fountain popularly called "La Pisciarella" was peculiarly adapted
to those ailments which are incidental to childhood and youth--to wit:
chlorosis, St. Vitus' Dance, constipation, ringworm, otootitis and
other perimingeal disturbances, urticaria, moon-sickness, scrofula and
incontinence of urine.

Lastly, the Fountain of Saint Elias, sulphurous and saponaceous, was
renowned for its calming influence upon all who suffered from abuse of
lechery or alcohol, or from ingrowing toe-nails.

This concludes the list.