Principles of decorative design . upon the construction of a chair, and especially upon the proper means ofgiving due support to the back. I have given, in an axiomatic form, those principles which should guide us inthe construction of works of furniture, and endeavoured to impress the necessity ofusing wood in that manner which is most natural—that is, working it with thegrain (the manner in which we can most easily work it), and in that way whichshall secure the greatest amount of strength with the least expenditure of wish to impress my readers with the importance of these consid
Principles of decorative design . upon the construction of a chair, and especially upon the proper means ofgiving due support to the back. I have given, in an axiomatic form, those principles which should guide us inthe construction of works of furniture, and endeavoured to impress the necessity ofusing wood in that manner which is most natural—that is, working it with thegrain (the manner in which we can most easily work it), and in that way whichshall secure the greatest amount of strength with the least expenditure of wish to impress my readers with the importance of these considerations, for theylie at the very root of the successful construction of furniture. If the legs of chairs,or their seat-frames, or the ends or backs of couches, are formed of wood cut acrossthe grain, they must either be thick and clumsy, or weak; but, besides this, therightly constituted mind can only receive pleasure from the contemplation of workswhich are wisely formed. Daily contact, as we ha\e before said, with ill-shaped. Fig. 28. FURNITURE—CTTATRS. 55 objects may have more or less deadened our senses, so that we are not so readily-offended by deformity and error as we might be; yet, happily for us, directly weseek to sej^arate truth from error, the beautiful from the deformed, reason assists thejudgment, and we learn to feel when we are in the presence of the beautiful or incontact with the degraded. My illustrations will show how I think chairi should be constructed. Fig. 26is essentially bad, although it has traditional sanction, hence I pass it over withoutfurther comment. Fig. 27 is in the manner of an Egyptian chair. It serves toshow the careful way in which the Egyptians constructed their works. The curved
Size: 1662px × 1504px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookdecad, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectdecorationandornament
