The National Trust Book of Furnishing Textiles
Author: Pamela Clabburn
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9780140079081
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
Faded and Threadbare Historic Textiles and their Role in Houses Open to the Public
Author: Margaret Ponsonby
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-15
Total Pages: 402
ISBN-13: 1317136896
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMany historic houses that open to the public in England and Wales - particularly those owned by the National Trust - preserve their contents rather than restore them to a particular period. The former owners of these houses often retained objects from various periods and this layering of history produces interiors that look aged and patinated. Although the reason for this preservation and lack of fashionable renewable can be attributed to declining economic fortunes in the twentieth century, there are many examples of families practising this method of homemaking over a much longer period. Taking National Trust properties as its central focus, this book examines three interlocking themes to examine the role of historic textiles. Firstly it looks at houses with preserved contents together with the reasons for individual families choosing this lifestyle; secondly the role of the National Trust as both guardian and interpreter of these houses and their collections; and finally, and most importantly, the influence of textiles to contribute to the appearance of interiors, and their physical attributes that carry historical resonances of the past. The importance of preserved textiles in establishing the visual character of historic houses is a neglected area and therefore the prominence given to textiles in this project constitutes an original contribution to the study of these houses. Drawing upon a range of primary sources, including literature produced by the National Trust for their sites, and documentary sources for the families and their houses (such as diaries, letters and household accounts), the study takes a broad approach that will be of interest to all those with an interest in material culture, heritage, collecting studies and cultural history.
The Significance of Fabrics in the Writings of Elizabeth Gaskell
Author: Amanda Ford
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2022-12-30
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 100081629X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKElizabeth Gaskell’s writings abound in references to a cultural materiality encompassing different types of fabric, stuffs, calicoes, chintzes and fine-point lace. These are not merely the motifs of the Realist genre but reveal a complex polysemy. Utilizing a metonymic examination of these tropes, this volume exposes the dramatic structural and socio-economic upheaval generated by industrialization, urbanization and the widening sphere of empire. The material evidence testifies to the technological and production innovations evolving diachronically for the period, and the evolution of Manchester as the industrial ‘Cottonpolis’ that clothed the world by the 1840s. This volume analyses Gaskell’s manipulation of the materiality, arguing its firm roots lie in the quotidian of women’s domestic and provincial life within the growing ranks of the middle classes. Exploring Gaskell’s tactile imagination, an embodied relationship with fabrics and sewing, a function of her daily life from an early age, this volume provides insight into the sensory aspects of cloth and its ability to stir affective responses, emotions and memories, whereby worn fabrics and even the absence of previous textile treasures, is poignant, recreating layers of recollection. This book aims to restore the pulsating, dynamic context of ordinary women’s dressed lives and presents innovative interpretations of Gaskell’s texts.
Architecture and Interior Design Through the 18th Century
Author: Buie Harwood
Publisher:
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 616
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor courses in History of Architecture, Interior Design, Furnishings, and Decorative Arts. Exceptionally comprehensive, this single-source text/reference allows students to compare and contrast architecture, interior design, interior architectural features, design details, motifs, furniture, space planning, color, lighting, textiles, interior surface treatments, and decorative accessories through many centuries from antiquity to the 18th century from the many regions of the world. Additionally, it includes later interpretations of architecture, interiors, and furniture to illustrate the evolution of each stylistic influence, and examples of costumes. The volume is extensively illustrated and features many diagrammed illustrations with explanatory notes highlighting specific design features.
Encyclopedia of Interior Design
Author: Joanna Banham
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1997-05-01
Total Pages: 3392
ISBN-13: 1136787577
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom ancient Greece to Frank Lloyd Wright, studiola to smoking rooms, chimney boards to cocktail cabinets, and papier-mâché to tubular steel, the Encyclopedia of Interior Design provides a history of interior decoration and design from ancient times to the present day. It includes more than 500 illustrated entries covering a variety of subjects ranging from the work of the foremost designers, to the origins and function of principal rooms and furnishing types, as well as surveys of interior design by period and nationality all prepared by an international team of experts in the field. Entries on individuals include a biography, a chronological list of principal works or career summary, a primary and secondary bibliography, and a signed critical essay of 800 to 1500 words on the individual's work in interior design. The style and topic entries contain an identifying headnote, a guide to main collections, a list of secondary sources, and a signed critical essay.
Luxury
Author: Peter McNeil
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-05-19
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 019164028X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWe live in a world obsessed by luxury. Long-distance airlines compete to offer first-class sleeping experiences and hotels recommend exclusive suites where you are never disturbed. Luxury is a rapidly changing global industry that makes the headlines daily in our newspapers and on the internet. More than ever, luxury is a pervasive presence in the cultural and economic life of the West - and increasingly too in the emerging super-economies of Asia and Latin America. Yet luxury is hardly a new phenomenon. Today's obsession with luxury brands and services is just one of the many manifestations that luxury has assumed. In the middle ages and the Renaissance, for example, luxury was linked to notions of magnificence and courtly splendour. In the eighteenth century luxury was at the centre of philosophical debates over its role in shaping people's desires and oiling the wheels of commerce. And it continues to morph today, with the growth of the global super-rich and increasing wealth polarization. From palaces to penthouses, from couture fashion to lavish jewellery, from handbags to red wine, from fast cars to easy money, Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello present the first ever global history of luxury, from the Romans to the twenty-first century: a sparkling and ever-changing story of extravagance, excess, novelty, and indulgence.
Eighteenth-Century Furniture
Author: Clive Edwards
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780719045257
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe eighteenth century has been seen as a Golden Age of design and craftsmanship. This book goes well beyond these ideas and investigates the various developments in the infrastructure of the eighteenth-century furniture world.
The Age of Homespun
Author: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2009-08-26
Total Pages: 514
ISBN-13: 0307416860
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThey began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America–ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock–relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history. In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.
The Key of Green
Author: Bruce R. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010-02-15
Total Pages: 353
ISBN-13: 0226763811
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster” to the “green thought in a green shade” in Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden,” the color green was curiously prominent and resonant in English culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among other things, green was the most common color of household goods, the recommended wall color against which to view paintings, the hue that was supposed to appear in alchemical processes at the moment base metal turned to gold, and the color most frequently associated with human passions of all sorts. A unique cultural history, The Key of Green considers the significance of the color in the literature, visual arts, and popular culture of early modern England. Contending that color is a matter of both sensation and emotion, Bruce R. Smith examines Renaissance material culture—including tapestries, clothing, and stonework, among others—as well as music, theater, philosophy, and nature through the lens of sense perception and aesthetic pleasure. At the same time, Smith offers a highly sophisticated meditation on the nature of consciousness, perception, and emotion that will resonate with students and scholars of the early modern period and beyond. Like the key to a map, The Key of Green provides a guide for looking, listening, reading, and thinking that restores the aesthetic considerations to criticism that have been missing for too long.
