Irene Preston's Historical Writing
THE EMPIRE STYLE - 1804 to 1815
The Empire Style originates with Napoleon's expedition to Egypt
1795-1799 which served to enrich the classical period with themes and
designs drawn from Egyptian and Greco-Roman antiquity. The Empire style
is one of the grandest and most opulent in the history of decorative
art. Designs were enlivened with bold, rich colours and costly
elaborately worked materials into items of jewellery, silver and bronze,
porcelain, textiles, wallpapers and paintings.
A dominant motif of all the ornament of the Imperial era was the famous
capital letter N enclosed in a laurel wreath. It appeared on thrones,
chairs, carpets and cloths; along with others such as Napoleonic bees,
an eagle with wings displayed and stars. The Empress Josephine was very
fond of the swan emblem, which became an ornamental element on chair
arms, lamp brackets, carpets and curtains. Birds, griffins, dolphins and
centaurs complete the lexicon of animal inspiration.
Crowns or wreaths of laurel and rosettes were very common on materials
and keyhole surrounds. These wreaths were often supported by branches,
stylized palm leaves, sphinxes with bare feet and Egyptian figures.
Countless bronze motifs were copied from classical art or taken from
Mythology. Fortune mounted on a globe, seahorses, battle trophies,
swords, lyres and various kinds of antique musical instruments.
Napoleon aimed to promote the style as the embodiment of his reign,
establishing France as the leaders of art. He commissioned the erection
of the Arc de Triomphe in 1806 and it was completed in 1836. Beneath the
arch is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the 20th century. It stands
at the centre of 12 radiating avenues, one of the main attractions of
Paris.
Napoleon was born in 1769 and made himself Emperor of France in 1804. He
died a horrible death due to arsenic poisoning in 1821 whilst living at
Longwood House on the island of St. Helena. Many thought this was
deliberate but modern chemistry explains it as a sad result of the green
pigment used to colour wallpaper.
In the 18th century it was common practice to use Schaler’s green to
obtain this pigment. It is produced by combining copper sulphate with
sodium arsenite providing the green colouring in the compound.
In the damp climate of Longwood House a mould would have formed on the
paper which would have been contaminated with arsenic giving off a
poisonous vapour.
Napoleon spent a lot of time in the garden when its effects disappeared
but upon returning to his bedroom he became ill again breathing in the
vapour. He was old by this time and soon became very ill.
The Roman sites of Herculaneum had been excavated in 1738 and Pompeii in
1748. This brought a new interest in Classicism which lasted about a
hundred years from 1750 to 1850. It helped to provide a symbolic link
with the democracy of Greece and the Republican ideals of early Rome.
The Neo-Classicism designs were suitable for Napoleon's new French
Empire. European kings and emperors saw themselves as inheritors of
classical civilization.
Baroque is a Portuguese word for irregularly shaped pearls, and Rococo
is a French word for rock, rocaille and coquille meaning a shell.
Baroque stands for anything ‘over the top’ in design; mirrors, cherubs,
floral, stucco. It symbolized greatness as seen in the grand buildings
and stage productions.
‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players’
A puritan outlook began to find the Baroque style vulgar and adopted the
Classical with an element of Rococo behind the facade.