The Biedermeier period lasted from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 until the Revolution of 1848. During the Biedermeier period, the continent of Europe saw a great awakening in its desire to infuse interior design with a new elegant simplicity. Delicate furniture, exotic textiles, an influence from Napoleon’s campaign, and masterful works of silver and porcelain added to the overall Biedermeier interior environment. It is within these interiors that Biedermeier design reveals its origins.
"Neoclassicism and the Biedermeier Style: the impact of Classical antiquity and the taste of the new bourgeoisie in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries"
"Clean, simple lines and honest, functional form characterize Biedermeier furniture. The pieces are generally designed on a small scale with graceful and elegant forms. Devoid of unnecessary embellishment Biedermeier draws your attention to the beautiful wood veneers that comprise the surface areas. Early pieces were traditionally crafted from dark mahogany woods with a tendency towards Empire styling. In later years, Biedermeier furniture was generally fashioned from lighter woods such as birch, grained ash, pear and cherry, and exhibited a clearly more whimsical styling."
Biedermeier
by Angus Wilkie, John Hall (Photographer)
ANNOTATION
Biedermeier--the style prized by the avant-garde of central Europe in the 19th century and in America today. An unrivaled sourcebook for those interested in the furniture and decor of an era that has uncanny parallels with our own. 180 illustrations, 135 in full color.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
After many years of undeserved neglect, Biedermeier furniture, painting, textiles, and decorative arts are enjoying renewed popularity. The Biedermeier era (1815--48) was a period of tranquility following the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars and a fertile time for the design and production of household furniture and accessories. The furniture of the Biedermeier period is characterized by architectural simplicity and the use of light-colored fruitwoods offset by contrasting bands of ebony and maple inlay. It is this timeless sophistication that has once again brought Biedermeier to the attention of collectors and designers around the world.
Biedermeier, with its newly revised introduction, serves as an unrivaled sourcebook for the furniture and decor of this period. Angus Wilkie traces the era's complex history, giving a broad cultural and social background to the work itself. Providing an overview of the astonishing variety of furniture produced by local cabinetmakers from Germany to Scandinavia, this text showcases candlesticks, secretaries, and spittoons crafted in rich fruitwoods and decorated with inlays and sunburst veneers. With the aid of photographs of actual pieces and previously unpublished drawings, the regional designs are compared to one another, giving a rare view of the world of the nineteenth-century craftsman and of the design philosophy underlying the elegant aesthetics of the Biedermeier style. Wilkie's pioneering research is accompanied by over 160 specially commissioned color photographs, as well as watercolors of Biedermeier interiors, sketches, original textile designs, and original drawings of furniture and draperies reproduced from the Imperial Archivesin Vienna. With its display of entire rooms as well as individual pieces, Biedermeier has garnered a wide audience among decorators, homeowners, collectors, dealers, and historians.
SYNOPSIS
In large format and sumptuous color, this volume surveys a nineteenth century European style that has become the rage in contemporary interior decorating.
"Biedermeier furniture is gaining a greater appreciation among today’s collectors, as these pieces are especially well suited for our modern homes. With petite proportions, Biedermeier antiques work well in small spaces and fulfill our desire for furniture that is both functional and beautiful." "Biedermeier is a symbiosis of reason and sentimentality, of sobriety and fantasy combining a variety of fundamental attitudes toward life." "The term Biedermeier was coined after a fictitious poet, who was sarcastically describing the current style of clean lines and spare shapes that could be found in almost every home of the time. The name bieder, meaning unpretentious or plain, and Meier, which is a common German surname, became Biedermeier. "Biedermeier furniture is an expression of the living culture of the epoch and simultaneously the reflection of a social structure in transition, in which the contours of the present times were already taking shape."
It is interesting to note the term Biedermeier originally carried with it negative connotations.
The Cause of the Biedermeier Period
The onset of the Biedermeier period in Vienna was almost exclusively determined by external circumstances. In an effort to avoid a repeat of the French revolution, the now re-established monarchies of Europe reigned with steel-fisted precision and secret intelligence agencies. The counterrevolutionary practices of Emperor Francis and his minister of state, Matternich, reached legendary proportions. Lodges, clubs, and societies were shut down; members were imprisoned. This effectively forced people from the coffee houses and meeting halls into the privacy of their homes. Heindl tells us, “The world outside was politically dangerous, so private life, home, and social contacts were restricted to a circle of true and reliable friends.”
It was this distinction of focus that separated Biedermeier from High Romanticism. In the Romantic, individuals were concerned with themselves and their own experience. The Biedermeier brought a shift of focus to relationships. Deep and meaningful friendships took on a significant importance that had hitherto been neglected. It is these satisfying friendships we see Schubert engage in over the course of his short lifetime.
Biedermeier Style
The defensive roots of Biedermeier were also visible in architecture; houses were drawn back from the street, signifying a far more private existence than had existed decades before. Art was severely affected as Metternich acted as the president of the Vienna Academy of Fine Art. Only works that were positive to the Viennese culture and society were allowed, causing an abundance of family portraits, landscapes, and still-life’s to come about by default [they were the only things permitted!]. Among artists, men such as Peter Fendi, a master of watercolors, rose to prominence.
The Social Class of the Biedermeier Period
The Biedermeier culture was primarily a middle-class phenomenon. Unlike the French, the German aristocracy and administrative / middle classes did not mix. This goes a great deal in explaining how Beethoven and Schubert managed to live and work in Vienna at the same time without ever running into one another.
Much of the Biedermeier was the middle class attempting to emulate the nobility. The emphasis on family life was an emulation of the royal family of Austria. The newly designed furniture style previously mentioned, allowed an up and coming administrator or professional to feel as if they were really “making it”. Salons were opened by the middle class women, who demonstrated their education and social talents. Friends, family and other middle-class music lovers were invited into intimate social gatherings where lieder and art songs were performed by amateurs in the home.
ANNOTATION
"Biedermeier furniture is gaining a greater appreciation among today’s collectors, as these pieces are especially well suited for our modern homes. With petite proportions, Biedermeier antiques work well in small spaces and fulfill our desire for furniture that is both functional and beautiful." "Biedermeier is a symbiosis of reason and sentimentality, of sobriety and fantasy combining a variety of fundamental attitudes toward life." "The term Biedermeier was coined after a fictitious poet, who was sarcastically describing the current style of clean lines and spare shapes that could be found in almost every home of the time. The name bieder, meaning unpretentious or plain, and Meier, which is a common German surname, became Biedermeier. "Biedermeier furniture is an expression of the living culture of the epoch and simultaneously the reflection of a social structure in transition, in which the contours of the present times were already taking shape." 