Biedermeier vs Shaker Design
ビーダーマイヤー / シェーカー・デザイン
Both sit in Furniture and Interiors, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Biedermeier
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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.
Shaker Design
Plainness practiced as an article of faith by the Shaker communities of the United States. With ornament refused, their furniture and rooms were arrived at through use and honest workmanship alone, anticipating functionalism and Scandinavian design.
| Biedermeier | Shaker Design | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1820s–1850s | 1780s–1900s |
| 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 | Ornament fully renounced / Peg-rail walls / Light, precise furniture / Perfection as labor |
| 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 | Clearing a small home by planning walls and storage as one · Making undecorated wooden furniture meant as a model of long use |
| Type | Keep lettering quiet, using a plain roman at small size and never a heavy display face. | Pare members thin and let chamfers and proportion carry the expression |
| Composition | Symmetrical, with one subject at the centre, and spacing that keeps the density of a lived-in room. | Run a peg rail high around the walls and keep floors clear |
| Material | Pale figured wood with an even sheen, small metal fittings, and a palette held to about three colours. | Solid timber, thin finish, minimal hardware, the same precision behind |
| 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. | Copying the plain shapes while lowering the standard of joinery and finish yields cheap furniture without the belief behind it, reading as poor rather than modest. |