Darya Girina Interior Design & Architectural Visualizations: Antic gold interiors and furniture in interior design

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Antic gold interiors and furniture in interior design

From time to time working on interior design we need to add a specific gold accent or create whole interior in one soft gold color gamut (perhaps dusty gold or antic gold or patina gold). In previous article we talked about frank golden furniture and vivid gold elements in design of furniture and in interior design: "Gold in interior design (gold furniture, gold lighting and gold accessories". Well, let's talk about antic gold interiors and furniture in interior design etc.

Gold has a special status in material culture. Peoples of different historical ages left a tremendous heritage of remarkable masterpieces of applied art and religious artifacts made of gold: pre-Columbian precious relics of Great Incas Empire, Aztecs and Mayas; Ancient gold artifacts of Scythian and Scandinavian archaeological cultures; handicraft wares from Crete and Mycenaean civilizations (from ancient Etruria, Greece and Rome) and from the Byzantine Empire; remarkable crafts from East, Asia and Africa (ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Iran, Turkey, India and China). In every culture gold were used in metalwork and applied art techniques to create orbs and fasces, jewelry, attributes of ritual practices and in easel arts as well. Gold was also used as separate elements in glyptics decoration, armors, details of garment, dinnerware, vases and bowls, furniture and lighting and as refinements of temples and nobles houses interiors. Hyperfine gold leaf was used for gilding for thousand years in order to create the illusion as crafts made of pure gold. This technology was used in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and in Ancient Greece. For example in Ancient Egypt gold leaf was used for covering stretchers of Pharaohs and monuments which looked like made of pure gold. In Russian Orthodox art and architecture of churches gold leaf (and gold chemical compounds) are used for gilding tops of a church, iconostases, in monumental painting, iconography and in manuscript painting. In secular interior design plaster moldings and sculptures were covered by gold leaf (the most striking effect has interiors with Baroque and Empire style). Besides, gilding and gold painting were applied in carriage craft, furniture production, tapestries and expensive fabrics of gold embroidery.

In addition we have to tell about large degree of semiotics saturation with archaeological gold artifacts due to the fact that close correlation with religious ideology, mythology and cults, aesthetic ideals, scientific and philosophical worldviews as system of viewing to transcendental and daily life. Thus golden treasures with memorials of literature and folk epics had a very specific function in transferring knowledge and culture of different archaeological ages.

Gold always excited the irresistible impulses to surround oneself with gold wares completely, to contact with it, to imitate it’s color and shininess. All languages of the world use the word "gold" in phraseological units and idioms with positive emotions context. For example: «as good as gold», «a heart of gold», «worth its weight in gold» etc. But gold is not only used in art and rituals, it becomes a universal economic equivalent, it’s used in science intensive technologies and industries, even in cooking and cosmetology. Throughout human history, gold was a symbol of the Sun, light, it was a metaphor of Divinity and beauty, perfection and supremacy, energy, an attribute of wealth and well-being, glory and triumph, power and might, luck and enjoy.

I would like to show an uncommon works and lovely patterns of antic gold furniture, patina gold gold lighting, soft color golden decor and accessories in context of modern industrial design of furniture and interior design of public and home interiors. Among them Aqua Creations, Fernando Humberto Campana, Tom Dixon, Barbara Barry, Baker, Bonaldo, Savio Firmino, Anna and Carlo Turati, Worlds Away, Hooker Furniture, Arteriors Home, Visual Comfort, Aerin, Gabby Furniture, Layla Grayce, Emporium Home, John Richard, John Brauer, Hinkley, Dwell Studio, David Wiseman, Boca Do Lobo, Koket, Graham & Brown, Kelly Hoppen, Cole & Son and more over. I hope you'll get a real aesthetic pleasure and use this beautiful samples in your future creative projects ))