A House Painter's Guide, from 1840

All Illustrations this article from the book by Henry William Arrowsmith (published 1840), called The house decorator and painter's guide; containing a series of designs for decorating apartments, suited to the various styles of architecture. 

I posted a complete set of illustrations from this volume on my Flickr page, here.

These wonderful illustrations make me smile. I can't imagine the economic system that existed where it was conceivable even to publish a book such as this. I mean, who's house is this that they're supposed to be painting? Not mine! It reminds me of this funny article from The Onion:

Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization

"According to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, the recent influx of exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats into the nation's gentrified urban areas is pushing out young white professionals, some of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for as many as seven years.

"When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete," Kennedy said. "If this trend continues, these exclusive, vibrant communities with their sidewalk cafés and faux dive bars will soon be a thing of the past."

"Around here, you used to be able to get a Fair-Trade latte and a chocolate-chip croissant for only eight bucks," said Getz, who is planning to move back in with his parents after being forced out of the lease on his organic grocery store by a harpsichord purveyor. "Now it's all tearooms and private salon gatherings catered with champagne and suckling pig. Who can afford that?"

"It's just a terrible shame," Getz continued. "There was this great little shop right across the street from my duplex apartment where I bought my baby daughter a Ramones onesie a couple of years ago, just after she was born. That whole block is an opera house now."

"These accusations are pure, slanderous rubbish," said Lord Nathan Dunkirk III, the owner of a prodigious manor house that, along with its steeplechase course and topiary garden, sits on what was once the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. "If anything, the layabouts and wastrels have been afforded a veritable glut of new and felicitous opportunities as bootblacks and scullery maids."

Other aristocrats have echoed Dunkirk and have additionally deflected blame onto regification, a process by which they say they were priced out of their vast rural holdings by kings who wished to consolidate property and develop monumental palatial estates."

Treillage

Well, I was going to start this post by asking who hasn't painted a trellis? But then I realized that I hadn't painted a trellis.

I know they've been done a bazillion ways, but somehow I'd never done one before this project (pictured above) came along. There are examples of painted trellis dating as far back as Pompeii. I love how loosely the trees were painted here.

I also looked at Renzo Mongiardino for reference material, among others. His work is amazing. Here's his watercolor design for a trellis room. I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of his book, though it's gotten quite pricey.

Figuring out those measurements in the semi-circular niche looks like a headache!

 Of course, there's the excellent trellis-work in the murals at Schloss Schonbrunn too:

These next few hardly qualify as 'trellis', but I loved them so much I wanted to show you.

Then I looked through my books at hundreds of Historic ironwork references to find a nice central motif for the curved coves. Here are a couple of great reference images I looked at. I also posted a huge set of reference material here. You may find them useful!

Finally, I settled on this one...

I thought that the frame might look nice without all the central elements. I knew the designer would think it too fussy with the additional detail (and I didn't feel like painting it), so I removed the detail.

Next, I then created this image in Photoshop to suggest an idea for the curved cove of the ceiling.

The designer went for it.

At this point it occurred to me that I should do the whole job in Photoshop, print it on canvas and just paste it up on the ceiling. In retrospect, if I'd made a good paper template I probably could have. I made an important judgment call; I felt that my trips to the chiropractor were worth it for the extra exposure I gained by working on-site as opposed to hidden away in my artist's garret. And so I decided to paint this ceiling on site. Doing so much painting over my head, I realized the importance of being comfortable while you work: it's just a simple fact that you can't do your best work if you're in pain.

Here's how I laid out my design on the ceiling. First, paint the ceiling with the color of your trellis. In most cases, beige or green. Then glaze roughly over the surface (as your Step Two), with a lighter shade. Don't finesse or worry too much about this layer, as you won't see too much of it in the end. Make it quick (think 'money').

Now lay down your trellis pattern in blue tape.

Once you've gotten your trellis design laid in in tape, paint the entire surface with your base sky color.

If you want to do a simple or clouded sky, now's your time. In my case, I wanted a blank sky with trees peeking through the trellis. I didn't care about clouds in this case; it was more about the trellis than the sky. Before peeling off my blue tape lattice, I scumbled in some background foliage, then added some rough edges to give a sense of dimension to the leaves. 

Here's the sequence spelled out a little more clearly: First, paint the entire wall surface with your trellis base color.

Now add a scumbled glaze layer on top.

 Now add your trellis design in blue tape.

Then paint the entire surface with your sky color, right on top of the blue tape. At this point you could just add a scumbled light layer on top of your base sky tone, like this...

If you wanted to end it here, you could just peel off your blue tape, which would give you a look like this;

Instead, I wanted a trellis that showed foliage behind, so I started painting leaves and plants before I pulled my blue tape;

Once you're satisfied with the background, pull your tape. You're now ready to start painting your shadows and highlights on the trellis itself.

I like to paint a drop shadow, though I know it's not strictly accurate in this case because there wouldn't really be a shadow thrown onto the foliage like that. Still, I feel that it gives my trellis extra dimension.

As a finishing touch, you could paint some leaves or blades of grass coming through the lattice work. This will bring your background forward, and make it feel a little more integrated. A unifying over-glaze on the entire surface at this point will also help to soften the overall look of your mural.

And there you have it!

Palazzo Farnese

I always wanted my own map room. Frescoes all over the walls, and a floor that slides open to reveal a secret 3D James Bond diorama of all the nuclear installations in the world, with blinking red lights. I would also like guys in black suits to run alongside my motorcade, and believe that the only way to enter a cocktail party is to rappel through the window in an orange jumpsuit, but now I'm off topic.

The Palazzo Farnese; what's not to love?

The contributions of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo della Porta and in particular, Michelangelo, tend to take center stage when speaking of this wonderful Palace. No less spectacular though is the grottesque ornamentation (pictured above). this absolutely stellar work received the spotlight in an issue of FMR magazine. For those who would like to dig deeper, I posted a set of large images of grottesca from the Palazzo Farnese here.

By the way, If Italianate painted ornamental ceilings are your thing, take a look at these amazing 3-D panoramic tours of the Quirinal Palace (Palazzo del Quirinale), the Italian Presidential home. Scroll down the page and click on any one of the thumbnails for a breathtaking trip to Italy.

 You may also like to view this post on my blog about Italian painted interiors, with large images.

The World of Ornament

This is from the Taschen website regarding their book, The World of Ornament:

"Imagine having an opulent compilation of history's most elegant and beautiful patterns and designs at your fingertips - to use, peruse, admire, and be inspired by. World of Ornament brings together the two greatest encyclopedic collections of ornament from the 19th century chromo-lithographic tradition: Auguste Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome Volumes I and II (1875/1888) and M. Dupont-Auberville's L'Ornement des tissus (1877). Adapted from historical items dating back to antiquity, such as jewelry, tiles, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, textiles, and ceramics, these ornamental designs encompass a wide range of cultural aesthetics including classic Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan motifs, Asian and middle-Eastern patterns, as well as European designs from medieval times through the 19th century."

Okay, now imagine having that entire collection available online, completely free. Don't believe me? Check out this link. Use the top menu bar on the webpage to search through the different chapters. Pick one you like, then scroll over the large thumbnail on the left to see which filename to download. Right-click and save!

What an incredible resource the internet is!

Edward Lear

"I long to return to Sorrento,
To the lonely sea and sky.
I left my vest and socks there,
I wonder if they're dry."
Spike Milligan

Edward Lear (1818-1888) will forever be known mainly as the nonsense poet. I came across his poetry years ago through Spike Milligan, another mad genius. Lear traveled widely, eventually settling in San Remo, Italy in 1871.

He is less known as an artist, and yet he published many travel writings and illustrated many books. These images are from a beautiful set of lithographs by him, drawn on stone from life. I find these really charming.

Combine this reference material with the Schloss Schonbrunn murals or an Orientalist scene, and you have the makings of a classic mural.

Murals: Helping the Aristocracy get lucky for Centuries.

Chimpanzees have been known to use a leaf to attract a mate. A dried leaf to be exact, because it makes a nice crunchy sound when you crinkle it. The male will sit with his legs spread, and crunch leaves until someone takes notice, puts two and two together and decides that yes, he's the guy they want to get with.

Bowerbirds will dress up their homes with everything from mushrooms to poop in an attempt to seduce a partner.

Insects, next in line for World domination, give their abodes the Royal treatment in the work of Artists like Jennifer Angus and Jan Fabre, who re-decorated Belgium’s 19th century royal palace. It took four months and 29 assistants to glue 1.6 million iridescent green beetle carapaces to the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors.

It seems that using tools as a sexual strategy is not limited to humans, but we seem to use a variety unseen in any other species. A woman (or man) in a pretty red dress, a flashy car blasting music at 120 decibels, or the walls of our homes decorated with books (why else do we keep books we'll never re-read?) or fancy artwork.

The effectiveness of each depends only upon which market you're in.

European nobility used decoration in their own seductive way. High-walled residences were often placed at the front of the property, with the large gardens at the rear, visible only to the chosen few (as opposed to American homes that tend to sit in the center of their land, without walls, and display their treasures conspicuously as you enter the home - a less subtle, but obviously effective strategy). The public spaces of stately European homes were often the least ornamented. As you were lured further into the private sanctuary, you'd find the rooms increasingly lavish until you finally arrived at the perfumed jewel box of the boudoir.

This method backfired a bit on the Hapsburgs, who practically inbred themselves into extinction. Inbreeding might actually explain some of their more bizarre priceless booty, but that's a story best explained by Darwin.

UglyHousePhotos gives us this marvel. I don't even want to know if this worked as an aid to procreation.

It's amazing how straight the line is between Homo Habilus tying a feather on his loincloth (what am I, an anthropologist?) to me painting a Chinoiserie mural for a wealthy client.

So here's to Decorative Art! Glad to be of service.