Interior Design 101- Ancient Egypt

Okay boys and girls, time for our next visual history lesson! Egyptian art, furniture, architecture and accessories were and are beautiful! Some adjectives here- massive, solid, perpetual, protected, repetitive, colorful, representative, and developed. There is obviously plenty of info to go with each of these themes but it's far too much to cover here so feel free to read up. In the end, Egyptian culture was so protected politically, geographically and environmentally that we have so much to study. They had the means to grow as artisans, thus stretching their crafts to the limit of tools and invention. It was always inwardly focused, always celebrating Egypt and always brillaintly excessive.

Interior Design 101

I have been thinking for awhile that I'd like to brush up on my history of interior design, so I've decided that I'll make you do it with me! I do love that about having your own blog-self directed conversation. It seems like everyone is concentrating on current deisgners and not much is being paid to the history of interior design. I hope to fill that vacuum here and I'd love your feedback! Periodically I'll throw in a post to make us smarter and prettier and ready to discuss prehistoric art at our next playdate ....ummmm, I mean the next swanky cocktail party we attend. I think I will work through Interior Design and Decoration by Sherrill Whiton, which is a text book that I used in my History of Furniture class about a million years ago. So, for our first lesson "let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start..." Man, I'm already jerking around in class- sorry.

Part One- Period Decoration and Furniture
The Styles of Antiquity



After reading the first section on prehistoric art, I can safely reduce the information down to a couple of facts:
1. Prehistoric man cared about what his cave looked like right along with how warm it was and well fed he was. This makes me feel warm and fuzzy, not to mention less concerned that I care so much about design.
2. Prehistoric man paid just as much attention to breasts and the good china as much as men do today. Please reference Venus of Willendorf above. Nothing changes.
3.In between prehistoric man and ancient Egypt, we have several historic periods worth mentioning- Mesopatamia and Palestine, which include Babylonia, Chaldea, Sumeria, Assyria and Phoenicia. *Read about Nebuchadnezzar's hanging gardens in Babylon or Solomon's Temple in the Bible (book of Kings) for detailed descriptions of architecture and interior design. It seems even God cares about design. Another little warm and fuzzy happening!
The bottom line is that design is as old as the foundations of the earth and you should use that as ammo the next time you need to justify a purchase!