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Theory Of Decoration

The picturesque element in English art is more usually associated with the early "Renaissance" and this term is often applied only to the period during the introduction of the classic arts into the British Isles. The term "Baroque" and "Rococo" are also sometimes applied to the later periods, but generally the English styles are designated by the names of the reigning monarchs or families. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the names of the leading cabinet-makers are used as a designation. Much overlapping naturally occurs.

Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean (1500-1649)

Though Henry VII was the first Tudor monarch, it was after the notable meeting of Henry V11I and Francis I in the tournament of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" that the Renaissance influence is first seen to affect English taste. Henry VIII sought to emulate the magnificence of the French court and summoned to England the German artist Hans Holbein, the Italian architect, John of Padua, and a host of continental designers and craftsmen. Not until the days of his high-handed daughter Elizabeth do we find a broad use of the so-called Tudor styles. Gothic architecture gave way slowly and the engrafting of the Italian, Dutch, Flemish and French Renaissance produced a picturesque and naive result, which with all its lack of proportion and scale, charms us in Tudor and Elizabethan work more than accurate attempts to reproduce Italian design.

The period of Henry VIII, Elizabeth and James I, closely resemble each other in decorative detail and should in general be grouped together. We find greater employment of the Gothic elements in the earlier years while Classic features predominate toward the end. In the gems of English literature produced at this time by Bacon. Milton and Shakespeare, we also see much of the Italian influence.

The domestic arts are seen in their greatest magnificence in the oldest portions of Hampton Court Palace, built by Wolsey, with its 280 silken hung beds in nightly use. Visitors approached Wolsey's Presence Chamber through eight large rooms hung with tapestries.