Beatrix Potter Blog

I visited a friend’s house fairly recently and, even though I don’t usually take note of such things, I became interested in his decor. The style is known as steam punk, a type of futuristic Victorian, which sounded as if it arrived right from Jules Verne, a kind of Captain Nemo meets Robur the Conqueror, all shining brass, leather, futuristic technologies, and clockwork. My friend’s variation was much more ‘Indiana Jones’, with his steamer trunk table, assortment of fascinating artifacts, sculpture and intriguing ancient wall reliefs.  It went together with his home, originally constructed in the 1920′s and made a comfortable, interesting inside well suited to his huge collection of books.

My home is somewhat more contemporary, so when I thought about options for decorating my den (something I had been advised was ‘up to me’) I turned down the steam punk concept. While I am no interior designer I can tell that a certain harmony between interior and outside is beneficial. While contemporary homes tend to be open they are often really bland, then i noticed this gave me more scope to stamp my personality on the room, and that notion gave me the concept to use wall art and wall sculptures to provide my room some character, but what would work best?

Ancient Greek structures were not what we see today. Most people understand that they were beautiful buildings which stood, oftentimes for centuries, before suffering deterioration we see now, but do you  know that they had been multi-colored?  You probably would not think so to look at the remains inside a museum. I used to take my lunch while appreciating the huge Assyrians gateways in the British Museum in London,  just along from room 18, home of the ‘Elgin marbles’. These famous sculptures were taken off the Parthenon in the first years of the 19th century by the Earl of Elgin,  the Greek government is still trying to get them back again.  The sculptures tend to be stark, white and incredibly beautiful, precisely what we think of when we think ‘classical art’ but what would the ancients have thought of these? Euripides provide us with a clue in his play ‘Helen of Troy’ when Helen says ‘If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect, the way you wipe paint off a statue’. Those spectacular marble statues in their sparkling white were once vibrant and multi-colored. So totally different from what we observe today and associate with the ancient world, that it’s really difficult to imagine.

We all look at the ancient gods as abstract, as a result ancient wall sculptures such as Poseidon in his chariot are ‘classical’ and also completely at home in the modern room. It was only at the Renaissance that, finding ancient sculpture removed of their paint by time, the sculptors thought they’d originally been white marble, and attempted to emulate them.   In antiquity the Greeks believed in living breathing Gods;their statues had been colored brightly to indicate that. While we appreciate the awesome workmanship of the Parthenon statues the ancients adored their realistic quality so much so it had been said that at certain times of the day it was as if the gods in their friezes actually moved. The sculpture and painting methods had been made to bond and enhance the three dimensional quality of the natural stone, bringing the subject alive. Archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann is working hard to analyse ancient statues and create authentic reproductions. These, detailed with intricate paint techniques and colors are as near as possible to those found in ancient times and the results are intriguing; the ancient world won’t ever appear the same again.

What exactly should I do? I could choose classical Greek wall art and create a modern room, making my personal choice on the basis of meaning. Hercules wrestling the lion might remind me that even when my todo checklist can be a tad long, it’s not the Labours of Hercules, while Dionysus on a donkey would certainly help remind me that the point of work is always to pay for the pleasure in the future. As an inhabitant of the New World I could utilize Mayan wall reliefs, but I think my choice could be more ancient still. From Ramses who drove out the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh, to the idea of Maat,  goddess of justice and order, the wall sculptures from the Ancient Egyptians have a limitless fascination. We are much more accustomed to coloration in relation to Egypt, and therefore observe these more as they really were, bold and dazzling in the desert sun.  Egyptian decor could definitely work.

For my Bedroom the main options are obvious; Thoth, the god of writing and wisdom, to help keep me right all the time!