You know those big, white, wooden fireplaces that were the background to almost every Obama communication to the Globe? Well, I’d better say Trump, now...
Well, those mantels are close relatives of the fireplace I am presenting to you, with one very important difference that I am now going to tell you about below:
The stylism of our fireplace is the “right” one, and not because I say so (who might be considered an interested party), but because the History of Art affirms it, without a shadow of a doubt, which tells us how, from the Renaissance onward, European stylism (and consequently that of the entire Western world, including England and America) has been rightly dominated by French stylism (Ateliers des Arts docent).
Try yourself to list all the names of styles you know (Louis XIV, XV and XVI, Empire, Second Empire, Louis Philippe, Directory, Regency etc.. etc..) and you will not find one that has a different birthplace from the Frankish land. In contrast, the White House fireplaces have a, shall we say, “Anglo-Saxon” stylism, which was almost always a clumsy copying of princely stylism.. In fact, the British (and while I'm at it I'll also add the Germans, their more or less close relatives in their Nordic capacity..), as far as good taste is concerned, are not at fault; Decorative Art is not in their DNA, either in the study of decorative details or architectural proportions. And proportion, let us always remember, is the foundation of the “Lightness” that Art must always have, in whatever form it develops.
An example, only seemingly trivial, for all: Take a good look at the capital of our fireplace. It is a Corinthian capital, with all the trappings that a Corinthian capital must have, such as inverted acanthus leaves and a precise relationship between its physical size and that of the column of which it is a decorative cymatium...
Now, as soon as you see the Obama on duty speaking on television sitting in front of such a fireplace, in lieu of concentrating on his words, focus your attention on that white artifact behind him and then tell me if its proportions seem right to you (the capitals of the White House fireplaces, for example, are, how shall we say, “lanky,” that is, badly narrow and high, and its decorations, banal and repetitive, in a word elementary).
Whatever, now I realize I'm exaggerating, but what can you do, I just can't stomach those “Nordic” fireplaces, and above all it bothers me a lot that the English, after stealing stylistic and decorative elements in France and Italy, appropriated them by coining even the names of their “new styles” while they were just copying...
COMING BACK TO US, SOME DESCRIPTIVE ELEMENTS OF OUR FIREPLACE:
IT IS CERTAINLY FROM THE NAPOLEON III ANTIQUE PERIOD (PROBABLY 1860-80, A PERIOD WHEN PLASTER FINISHING OF WOODEN SURFACES WAS VERY MUCH IN VOGUE).
EVERYTHING HERE IS CARVING ON WOOD (I THINK IT'S PINE, BUT I HAVEN'T HAD TIME TO EXAMINE IT THOROUGHLY YET, SO I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DEFINE ITS ESSENCE WITH CERTAINTY), NO PLASTER OR STUCCO PARTS, ALL HAND AND ARTISTIC CARVING BY A MASTER SCULPTOR.
ITS SURFACES ARE STILL THE ORIGINAL ONES, WE ONLY CARRIED OUT A THOROUGH CLEANING AND REPAIRED SOME (FEW) DAMAGED PARTS.
ITS PROVENANCE IS PARISIAN, AS IS ITS PERFECT STYLISM.
