This anthology contains significant writings on the theory of the decorative arts from the mid-18th century to the 1940s. It offers a history of decorative art as it emerged in the west, and reconstructs the debates over how to define this type of art and distinguish it from fine art.

The Theory of Decorative Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750-1940

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Bard Center

Thriving centers of artistic and cultural activity, Rome`s Baroque palaces of the seventeenth century were magnificently furnished. This beautifully illustrated book presents examples of carved furniture, silver, textiles, paintings, and other items that filled these palaces. The authors explain what the furnishings reveal about the aristocratic families of the period, their social lives, and patronage of the arts.

Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome

The book traces the development of Bloomsbury's domestic aesthetic from the group's influential promulgation of Post-Impressionism in Britain around 1910 through the 1930s. In detailed studies of rooms and environments created for Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes, among others, by Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell, and her artist colleagues Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry, Reed challenges the accepted notion that these artists drifted away from modernism. He presents their work as an alternative form of modernism, later suppressed by sexist and homophobic attitudes that disparaged the decorative arts and domesticity in general, as well as Bloomsbury in particular. The aesthetic and ideological implications of the Bloomsbury interiors were international in scope, Christopher Reed argues, and constitute important episodes in this history of modernity. Contemporary photographs, paintings and surviving interiors, notably at Grant and Bell's Sussex farmhouse, Charleston, illustrate the remarkable creativity of the Bloomsbury domestic aesthetic.

Bloomsbury Rooms: Modernism, Subculture, and Domesticity

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Reed, Christopher

Crafts & Hobbies

This book centers around the Metropolitan Museum of Art€™s preeminent collection of embroidered objects from England€™s late Tudor and Stuart eras. These seventeenth-century embroideries, some eighty works in all, include samplers, gloves, headgear, purses, raised work panels, boxes and mirrors, portrait miniatures, lavishly embroidered Bibles, and a spectacular burse made to hold the Great Seal of England. In a series of essays the book explores the important role of embroidery in the history of textiles and decorative arts and also offers new insight into the role of women in the production of decorative arts. Expert scholars discuss embroidered furnishings, fashion accessories, biblical narratives, and pastoral imagery, to create a superb and comprehensive overview of embroidery during this tumultuous period in English history.

English Embroidery From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature

Watt, Melinda

Morrall, Andrew

The late nineteenth century was a period of rapid colonization and dramatic change for the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of America. Objects of Exchange approaches the material culture of the period as visual evidence of shifting intercultural relations. Drawing on the collection of the American Museum of Natural History-from decorated clothing to containers, ceremonial regalia to trade goods-this book reveals the artistic traces of dynamic indigenous activity whereby objects were altered, repurposed, and adapted to meet the challenges of the time. Rather than treating the period as a climax of traditional art and culture, the authors suggest that we view its objects as witnesses to the dawn of an indigenous modernity. This remarkable book includes an intimate family portrait of the renowned Haida artist Charles Edenshaw; a discussion of the use of silver in economic and ceremonial contexts; and an exploration of the ways in which Tlingit women adapted be

Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast; Selections from the American Museum of Natural History

Glass, Aaron

Founded in 1951 by visionary textile designer Armi Ratia and her husband, Viljo, the Marimekko Corporation in Finland not only sparked a revolution in pattern making but also pioneered a new definition of fashion that embraced the entire home environment. This book presents more than one hundred examples of the exuberant Marimekko fashions and home furnishings that gave the company a definitive presence on the world design stage.
The book considers the history of the company from its founding through today and examines Marimekko’s impact on design in Finland and around the world. The company’s most important designers, including Maija Isola and Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi, their contributions, and their stylistic development are also discussed. In addition, the book examines Marimekko home and office interiors and how they reflected the lifestyle envisioned in Armi Ratia’s broad, radical definition of fashion.

Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashion, Architecture

Georges Hoentschel (1855–1915) was a leading French interior designer in historic styles, head of a decorating firm, and ceramicist during the Belle Epoque. He found inspiration for his designs in medieval and 18th-century French art, which he avidly collected, amassing more than 4,000 pieces of furniture, woodwork, metalwork, sculpture, paintings, and textiles. After visiting Hoentschel in Paris, the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan acquired the collection and bequeathed it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1906 and 1916–17. These works greatly enriched the museum’s medieval art department and became the nucleus of its decorative arts department, profoundly influencing American tastes in the early 20th century. Through texts, early documentary photographs, and images of newly conserved works, Salvaging the Past goes behind the scenes to explore the history and influence of this remarkable collection.

Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1907-2013

Kisluk-Grosheide, Daniëlle O.

Leben, Ulrich

Krohn, Deborah L.

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Books by Bard Center

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Bard Center publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Theory of Decorative Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750-1940

Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome

The Theory of Decorative Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750-1940

Bloomsbury Rooms: Modernism, Subculture, and Domesticity

English Embroidery From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature

Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast; Selections from the American Museum of Natural History

Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashion, Architecture

Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1907-2013