 imple colours embody a system of psychological
values related to the traditional symbolism of France, and to the perceptual rapports
of a people with the environment. The effects of imitation grain-painting, trompe-l'oeil,
and fanciful surfaces propose values that are essentially decorative tied to
fashion, to changing tastes, to social and foreign influences. Finally, figurative
surfaces represent, through the use of painted motifs, traditional symbolic values
of popular origin. In opposition to architecture, which declares its distance and its independence vis-à-vis the body, movable furniture assumes the contours and workings of human anatomy. In contrast, furniture for storage identifies with architecture and participates passively in this process as object, rather than agent and material extension of a human will. At the surface, however, this distinction between furniture as tool and furniture as object disappears beneath the coloured and unifying effects of a protective and decorative surface charged with meaning. It is in this way that one must read through the furniture around us, and its original colours, a psychological content that all too often escapes us because of its very familiarity. |
  Armchair Second quarter of 18th century Canadian Museum of Civilization  his armchair is an
exceptional and perhaps unique example of the Régence style in French Canada.
The imposing proportions, the curves of short radius, the back-to-back Cs of the crest
rail and the overall symmetry of the curves come from the Louis XIV style, while the
multiplication of the curved line (legs, skirt, arms, supports, crest rail) anticipates
the curvilinear dominants and more human characteristics of the Louis XV style. Wood
identification by the Canadian Conservation Institute (birch, butter-nut) makes clear the
Canadian origins of the chair. The blue-green paint was found to contain Prussian blue,
white lead and calcium carbonate (chalk) in a drying-oil medium.  Click here for a 360° view of the chair. |
