Design Fuel

our regular contribution to the ASID website and newsletter

How do you support your creative side? This feature aspires to fuel ideas, not by supplying designs to copy, but by offering related experiences to free the artist inside the designer.

Design Fuel for December '07:
Murals: or In a Fragonard Mood

Click to enlarge.

The other week I was on the internet half of every night searching for images of eighteenth century gardens and interiors to make into murals, not for a client, but because I couldn't sleep for the desire to do so. Another 'design fuel' was surfacing, one that clips onto the former themes as if an image-clock were dialing slowly forward.

The 18th century content continues (classic Roman architecture/grotto) but now the mural format is highlighted. It isn't far from the Italian fresco theme of last summer that led to the cloud wallpaper panels installed on every wall in my central showroom. (top left) While I want to contain repeating wallpaper motifs in panel frames, these huge non-repetitive expanses of image spill over into the room or rather the room spills into them.

Like the damask of the last Design Fuel, murals are also a hallmark of courtly interiors. Even more than the stately views of ships-in-harbour or trellises found in Connecticut dining rooms, this realist-poetic adjoining world infuses its qualities into the room. The resulting environment requires minimal furnishings to elaborate its theme. Moreover, a mural can spell out the theme that led to the choice of furnishings, thereby making visible the idea in the mind of the designer. "Why have I chosen stoney white, the labyrinth fabric and the Louis XV sconces?! Can't you see the 18th C garden influence?!?!"

This kind of mural is artwork in large format, which follows the modernist cry of simplify and enlarge.

Here are some of the images I found in those wee hours:

Click to enlarge. Sansoucci Oval Hall - a table and pair of chairs with a settee (daybed) against the opposite wall could transform a small sitting room (bedroom) into a place that satisfies even my cravings for grandeur.	Fragonard Fetes Champetres - I will be carrying this as a print on fine linen, with three companion images, to use as wall murals. It is charming and perfectly suited to entry hall powder room, dining room, child's room, granny suite...
Click to enlarge. Fragonard L'amour - a green and luxuriant mood, an ideal background for aqua upholstery; could be a large, elaborately-framed painting to hang opposite a gentleman's bed.

You may have noticed that there are several Fragonards. He was a far more talented artist than the famous "swing" painting portrays. Fragonard was criticized for providing fashionable paintings for the elite of his day. So what is wrong with décor for society? A poetic beauty was poured out over all his paintings, even the more serious mythical and religious works. One of the Google searches revealed that, at this very moment, in Paris, there is a major retrospective of his work!

Most of all, I would have to say, "I am in a Fragonard Mood!"