Biedermeier vs Empire Style
ビーダーマイヤー / アンピール様式
Furniture of the same years in mahogany with large plain surfaces, alike down to the outline and the set of the legs.
How to tell them apart. Empire studs its pieces with gilt mounts and lion paw feet. Biedermeier works from the figure of the wood alone and carries no mounts.
Biedermeier
%20-%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts%20-%20Montreal%2C%20Canada%20-%20DSC09349.jpg)
Biedermeier is a satirical label pinned on Central European art and interiors of the 1820s to the 1850s, which then stuck as the name of the style. The Getty vocabulary ties it to middle class taste, to uncomplicated and modest forms, and to emotional depictions of people and nature. The name came from those mocking the taste rather than from anyone who made the work.
Empire Style
Empire is the style of interiors, furniture and dress that spread out of France during and after Napoleon's empire of 1804 to 1814. Large plain veneered surfaces carry gilt metal mounts placed as isolated points rather than as continuous carving. Lions' paws, winged sphinx heads, lotus and round rosettes arrive in symmetrical pairs, which is what makes it read heavier than the neoclassicism before it.
| Biedermeier | Empire Style | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1820s–1850s | 1804–1814 |
| Family | Furniture and Interiors | Furniture and Interiors |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Furniture whose outline stays simple, with no carving or inlay laid over it / Plain figured wood facing forward, standing in for ornament / Subjects drawn from people close at hand and from nature, treated with feeling / Modest sizes made for a citizen's room rather than a court hall | Gilt mounts sit as evenly spaced points on plain mahogany surfaces / Front legs end in a lion's paw below and a winged sphinx head above, which carries the arm / A row of round rosette mounts runs along the lower rail of the back at equal spacing / Chairs come in matched pairs, with seat and wall covered in the same dark silk |
| Best used for | Finishing domestic furniture or fittings with plain wood surfaces and outline alone · Setting the subjects and tone of illustration or photography about middle class life | When a room has to declare authority through the size of its plain surfaces and a few gilt points, not through more carving · When matched pairs of furniture are used to set the axis of a room |
| Type | Keep lettering quiet, using a plain roman at small size and never a heavy display face. | Keep lettering off the furniture and on the textiles or the wall. Set Roman capitals in one line with wide spacing and add no decorative strokes. |
| Composition | Symmetrical, with one subject at the centre, and spacing that keeps the density of a lived-in room. | Place furniture in pairs against the axis of the room and divide the wall into three horizontal zones. Gather the empty space into a few large plain surfaces instead of scattering it. |
| Material | Pale figured wood with an even sheen, small metal fittings, and a palette held to about three colours. | Lay mahogany veneer across broad surfaces and fix gilt bronze mounts onto it. Cover seat and wall in the same silk, with a dark blue or red ground so the gold reads as points. |
| Caution | Stripping every last ornament in the name of simplicity leaves work indistinguishable from later functionalist furniture and drains out the domestic warmth that defined the style. | Add mounts until they fill the surface and the plain ground vanishes, taking the style back to rococo busyness. |