American Home Furniture
Introduction
In American Home Furnishing all should be with the Propriety Elegance. It should always be joined with a peculiar neatness through the whole house, or otherwise an immense expense. It may be thrown away to no purpose, either in use or appearance; and with the same regard any gentleman may furnish as neat at a small expense, as he can elegant and superb at a great one.
Improvisation of American architecture
An unprecedented boom followed the American independence, and with the periodic fluctuations it carried the new nation through the first half of the next century. Architecture was the most important of the arts, and for wealthy merchants and large landowners the house and its furniture presented a means of exhibiting their good taste and consequently raising their social status.
It was the owners of these impressive houses who created the demand and set the standard for fashionable furniture. The taste was associated with simplicity of shapes, designs and an instinctive sensitivity to proportion allied to a devotion to reason and good sense. The period was characterized by an obsessive attempt to arrive at the golden mean. The model for the furniture was of a pronouncedly architectural character, and the architectural model was the classical world. Broken pediments, pilasters, and cornices were the order of the day.
The main features of Americans furniture were extreme simplicity of outline, large uninterrupted surfaces that emphasized horizontal and vertical lines, the subordination of ornament to a minor role, and a stress on solidity.
Conclusion
The American Home Furniture was basically influenced by the traditional styles of furniture. Most of the Americans have lived in a time where they need to decorate their home on by exclusive furniture. The most important thing in home is the furniture decor. The Americans probably borrowed the items from the traditional style of architecture and purchased cheap furnishings that we eventually threw away. Sooner or later, however, the taste of the American Home Furniture has begun to mature and the eclectic uncoordinated furniture we once thought was cool might now look like just a mish-mash of old stuff.
There are many more articles in our Fixtures, and Furniture sections.