| designer87 | Date: Friday, 2013-02-15, 4:35 PM | Message # 1 |
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| THE ARTISTIC
INTERPRETATION
OF INTERIORS
We seem to have a natural fascination with the way people
choose to decorate and furnish their homes, as is borne out by
the multitude of interior magazines that grace the shelves of
every newsagent. This is in part nosiness – to catch a glimpse of
a private sanctuary that usually remains behind closed doors –
and in part an aesthetic appreciation of interior design, from
which personal styles can be developed or copied. The extent
to which this is successful depends on the confidence of the
designer and stylist to create aesthetically appealing interiors,
and the ability of the artist or photographer to express these
three-dimensional atmospheric experiences as mere twodimensional
images. This chapter begins with a look at how
artists and photographers have chosen to depict interiors, and
concludes with a brief history of interior decoration as useful
background knowledge.
Seventeenth-century interpretation
The artistic interpretation of interiors has a long historical
tradition, perhaps best exemplified by the Dutch masters of
the seventeenth century. The exaggerated realism of the
contrast of light and shade in their paintings stimulates in the
viewer a sense of magic, romance and nostalgia.
The oil painting by Pieter de Hooch in Figure 1.1, An
Interior, with a Woman Drinking with Two Men (1658), is a
fine example, and his work is described by art historian
Mariet Westermann in The Art of the Dutch Republic
1585–1718 (1996) in the following way:
De Hooch, and the majority of painters represented in
this book share one of the uncanniest realist strategies: a
fine meticulous handling of oil paint that makes the
Message edited by designer87 - Friday, 2013-02-15, 4:47 PM |
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