The interior decoration and design of a home often express the living style of those who own it. In modern times, the way one decorates their house is usually a representation of their wealth and their status within society, however this is a trend that has developed over time in America, beginning with the plain lifestyle of the Puritans. From 1630 to the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Puritan religion, centered in Massachusetts, was “centered on sermons and Bible study with few rituals and little religious art.” This led to the belief that Puritans also enforced plainness in their homes and through their clothing. The plainness of homes in seventeenth century colonial America supports this belief and visitors can see models of …show more content…
In the seventeenth century, again seen in the Brown-Peal House at the MFA, houses walls were not painted and floors were not carpeted. In fact, the woodwork of the house was usually exposed. Walls tended to simply be wood panels and were never painted, which relates back to the idea that during this time, houses were not meant to be extravagant. However, by the eighteenth century, homeowners began to take pride in the way that the rooms were decorated and they began to use wallpaper and carpets as well as paint to add color and sophistication to the rooms. The Oak Hill exhibit is the best example of the new type of interior decoration at the MFA. Each of the three room, the bedroom, the dining room, and the parlor each have their own distinct color scheme that is prominent through the wallpaper and the carpeting. The walls and doorframe also have ornate trim and most of the windows have extravagant curtains that also match the color scheme of the room. In the Oak Hill parlor, the couches are also upholstered in pink, which matches the wallpaper and the curtains in the room. This type of decoration call also be seen in the Shepard House exhibit at the MFA. Again, this exhibit shows a parlor and it features a Grecian-themed wallpaper and painted floors as well as upholstered furniture and decorative trim on the walls. This type of interior decoration was used to show status and to impress guests. Clearly, through the use of paint, wallpaper, curtains, and the addition of trim to the walls in homes, there was a transition in the way colonial homes were decorated in from the seventeenth to the eighteenth
Then, when the readers are convinced that the England the Puritans left behind was utopian during that era, Hawthorne goes on to describes the Puritan marketplace as “colorless”, “diluted”, and overall boring in comparison to England. This provides a strong contrast, which is necessary to convey Hawthorne’s ultimate message. Also, while describing the beauty of Old England’s celebration, Hawthorne says, “Nor would it have been impractical, in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state” (lines 10-11). In this way, he combines words, such as “brilliant”, “mirthful”, and “majestic”, with words such as “solemnity”, and “grotesque”, to provide a blatant contrast, enforcing the obvious differences between the two cultures. Through his use of juxtaposition, Hawthorne creates an environment where readers are able to see a more enhanced view of both established cultures, and at
She is widely credited with developing the style of interior decoration known as “American Country Style”. Sister never knew her grandmother because she died shortly after she was born, but she recalls her grandparent’s house as “large, dark and musty and full of polar bear rugs, moose heads and antlers everywhere”. Her parents were wealthy and spent a considerable amount of money on trips to Europe, in hope that the exposure of art and architecture would improve their children’s education. Her style has been called baroque and freewheeling.
Edmund S. Morgan's The Puritan Family displays a multifaceted view of the various aspects of Puritan life. In this book, we, the audience, see into the Puritans' lives and are thereby forced to reflect upon our own. The Puritan beliefs and practices were complicated and rather "snobbish," as seen in The Puritan Family.
In 1624, the early 17th century, the religious group called the Puritans, settled for the first time in the New England territory. Once there, they chose to inhabit the Massachusetts area. The Puritans were a varied group of religious reformers who emerged within the Church of England during the middle of the sixteenth century, but didn’t come to the United States until decades later. They escaped the Catholic Church and shared a common Calvinist theology, common criticisms of the Anglican Church, English society and government. In 1632, John Warham, a Puritan minister from England, took with him, a great deal of followers to America, and once there, they settled in Massachusetts. They received and area that was assigned to them and they named it Dorchester. Once in Dorchester, which was located six miles south of Boston, a group of faithful Puritans built a crude church, assigned lots and farms and began to serve God in the wilderness of North America. Dorchester had game-filled forests, fish-filled streams, clear fields, and lush meadows for grazing stock. Even though, the winters were exceptionally inhospitable, the Puritans still thought Dorchester was their promise land. But, as many people noticed, the land was filled up with native people like pilgrims and Indians, and so people like John Mason thought they stood in the way of the Puritan “errand ...
Puritans in the colonies had established communal and family hierarchal orders to govern themselves. At the top of the power structure was the village Pastor who over saw all community grievances and disputes, being either spiritual or worldly in nature. In the family structure the power belonged to the father or the male elder of the household. David Goldfield said, women in Puritan New England were held in high regard and given great responsibilities though they were assumed to be legally and economically dependent on the men of the families. Women’s economic contributions were indeed central to the family’s success. In addition to caring for children, cooking, sewing, gardening, and cleaning, most women engaged in household p...
The church and Christian beliefs had a very large impact on the Puritan religion and lifestyle. According to discovery education, “Church was the cornerstone of the mainly Puritan society of the 17th century.”( Douglas 4). Puritan laws were intensively rigid and people in society were expected to follow a moral strict code. And because of Puritans and their strict moral codes, any act that was considered to go against this code was considered a sin and deserved to be punished. In Puritan theology, God h...
For Upton, “architecture is an art of social story telling, a means for shaping American society and culture...” (11), and it is up to the historian to choose which of many possible stories to tell. In his approach, he refused a chronological order and relied instead on five thematic structures: community, nature, technology, money and art. In the very first chapter, Upton introduces the symbol of the house in the United States; it represents the American dream and the concept of social mobility. He analyzes one of the most famous houses: Monticello, designed by Thomas Jefferson. In describing how this house served as a home for not only family members and numerous visitors, but for slaves as well, Upton proposes that Jefferson “organized Monticello to convey his sense of himself as the patriarch at the centre of his universe” (28).
The Puritans were English Protestants, mostly Protestant extremists, who fled England to escape religious persecution. Most were raised with extremely strict morals and values. Puritans were also known as “Precisionists” for being precise in their sermons and studies. The process in which Puritanism developed was primarily caused by King Henry VIII; he transformed the Church of Rome into a state of The Church of England. In outrage, angered English men and women were determined to continue their faith and way of life; this just so happened in the New World. Across the pond, this region became commonly known as “New England”. The puritan people were distinguished by the clothes they wore and their opposition the episcopal system. Now-a-days most people would think the Puritan way of life would be radical by any sorts. What the Puritans did in their era was completely and utterly wrong, as we now know. As we look back on their way of life, most come to not respect the people as a whole.
The customs and beliefs of the Puritans, were highly based on religion. They believed in two very different worlds; the Natural World, that includes everything we can see or touch, and the Invisible World, that includes everything that cannot be seen or touched. However, there are two separate parts of the Invisible World. As Rosalyn Sc...
The Colonial Period, beginning in the early 1600 's with the founding and settling of Jamestown, signaled a new era in the New World. The Spanish had already conquered and colonized a great deal of Central America, and the French had established a strong fur trade and relatively good relations with the Native American 's of North America. Native American 's were succumbing to diseases in alarming numbers, and growing more wary of the arrival of even more Europeans. It is true that during the 1600 's to almost the end the Revolutionary War in 1781 was a time of “many mixtures of powers, conflict, and rivaling interests,” but the “dominant narrative” of that time varies from culture to culture and generation
Puritans are generally viewed as religious extremists. Their religious beliefs were extended to all areas of life, and were zealously enforced. This is true for the most part, especially the way they conducted themselves publicly. They believed in public piety to the extent that once, “a young married couple was fined twenty shillings for the crime of kissing in public” (Kennedy, 45). This couple was already married, so one can imagine the people would come to feel that rules like this served no purpose. As Albion’s Seed reads, Puritans “believed that costume should not be a form of sensual display” (140). Their finickiness even included their refrain from wearing the color black because it was too stylish for anyone but the elect. It would be difficult to see how this relates to any scriptural laws of God, therefore, one can imagine how people would grow tired of such pointless restrictions on every trivial choice and action.
The Puritans believed in the basis of family and social harmony. Their homes were the center of their livelyhood and were relied upon for their food and income. All members of the family were expected to work to provide for the family. Aside from the normal household duties, women and children often worked their own fields and crops or contributed to making supplies that were needed for the household or to sell outside of the home. The Puritans believed that women, children and servants should be obedient to males or the head of the household and subservient to their husbands authority. In exchange for a safe haven and a roof ...
To obtain and understanding of the current state of American Architecture and its development, we must first briefly establish the origin of architecture in America. Much of the 17th-century English colonial architecture resembled late medieval forms that had survived throughout much of rural England. The first American architecture houses were built in a wide range of sizes, gables, and overhangs. They also had a lack of symmetry that was reflected in the late medieval style throughout Europe. However, unlike rural England’s architecture, in Virginia and Maryland; brick construction and a symmetrical facade were preferred for one story homes. Upon the idea of domestic homes, cities began to be founded in the 17th century. Cities such as Boston, were chaotic in plan and with the turn of the 18th century, colonies began to take on a more permanent role, often establishing individual character. Newly founded cities, such as: Williamsburg, Virginia; Annapolis, Maryland, and especially Philadelphia began to be laid out in a logical organization of regular grids. This eluded planners in London during the same period and thus the diverse seed of American architecture was planned. Continuing the development of unique American architecture, American in the early 1890s began to value their own heritage and architectural language featuring larger neighborhood tracts. In the 19th century, the Colonial Revival style took a more eclectic style, and columns were often seen.
of the structure itself. This class "took immense pride in their homes which they saw as a reflection of status" ("BBC Homes"). The styles were excessively ornamental and took their influence from Gothic styles, rococo, styles, the Orient, and developments from their own industrialization. With owning such ornately decorated residences they had to show them off; this was done so through dinner parties and balls. People of course could not be outmatched by the rich styles of their houses and therefore doled out large amounts of money for clothes and transportation.
“When it comes to interior design styles, give yourself the permission to think outside the box. There are so many wonderful ways to define who you are by creating a magnificent living space. Allow yourself to be creative. Be stylish. And when I say outside the box, I don’t necessarily mean go crazy, I simply suggest you take some steps to create the type of home that you really want or that your client is asking you to create” (Yule 1). Looking into interior design there are many elements that contribute to the way people view the room or area, such as the color, flooring, furniture, fabrics, and accessories in every room. Within the following research paper, interior design will be discussed by the interior design styles, the effects of color, and the trends of bathrooms.