Empire (from French empire, literally "empire") is a style in architecture and decorative art of the first third of the 19th century that completed the development of Classicism. The Empire style originally took shape in France under Napoleon and served as the embodiment of the ideas of state power.
Empire was meant to symbolize the grandeur and might of the great power created by General Bonaparte. The Roman Empire became not just an ideal of beauty but a program of action. If before that antique motifs had been used organically, now they were directly imitated. Empire becomes the first style officially imposed "from above". The decoration of rooms in the Empire style produces an impression of amazing integrity. Identical gilded ornaments covered a cabinet, a casket and a book cover alike. A peculiar masquerade reigned in the interior. Objects seemed to be dressing up — a marble casket turned out, on closer inspection, to be made of cardboard, a jasper flask — of porcelain or glass. At the same time, the craftsmen did not strive to make a cheap thing look expensive. On the contrary, they often passed off valuable materials as more modest ones. Entire rooms changed roles. Bedrooms were decorated to look like a military tent, while in the boudoir of the French empress Marie Louise at the Compiègne Palace near Paris, the fireplace served as a storage place for a portable bathtub.
Unlike Baroque and Rococo, Empire is almost indifferent to sophisticated, intricate ornament, preferring more rigorous linear ornamental compositions in the form of the geometric Greek key pattern, laurel garlands and interlacing flowers — the favorite decoration of the ancient Roman civilization. Furniture surfaces are finished predominantly with mahogany veneer combined with lighter woods — thuja, rosewood and other exotic species. Classicism is characterized by a striving for multicolored furniture finishes. The leading decorative colors of the Empire style are gold and black, the latter obtained by coating surfaces with black lacquer. Mosaic inlay of flat surfaces with glossy plates painted in colors so unusual for furniture as red, blue and green is widely used.
The interiors of Empire are dominated by calm, orderliness, strict symmetry and complete balance of parts. The lightness and refinement of the previous era give way to cold solemnity; fantasy — to cold calculation.
But the main oddity of the Empire interior was due to mirrors, of which there were extraordinarily many. Besides the usual places — above the fireplace or between the windows — they appeared above beds, on door panels, hid at floor level between the legs of furniture. A cheval mirror resembling a human-height arch was placed in the middle of the boudoir. A whole illusory world was composed of individual mirror reflections. Empire furniture was far from so comfortable: comfort was deliberately sacrificed for majestic forms. Massive, with smooth polished surfaces, decorative applied bronze reliefs, details in the form of cornices, columns and lion's paws, it was akin to Empire in the architecture of buildings.
Interior objects served primarily for presentation and resembled exhibition exhibits: bedside tables in the form of pedestals, washstands in the form of tripods, silk upholstery woven with gold. Even the most modest and cozy beds of that time were majestic and strict. On a high mahogany pedestal rose a couch crowned with a lush canopy. It stood along the wall and had no ordinary legs, resting instead on cubes or flattened spheres. The couch was "guarded" by sphinxes or lions carved at the corners. The Empire-style bed was a kind of luxurious pedestal elevating man above the rest of the world, which corresponded best to the spirit of the Napoleonic era. A heavy low chest of drawers was a favorite item of furniture makers of that time.
French Empire
Splendor and spectacularity are the two main characteristics of Empire as an architectural style. Having proclaimed himself emperor, Napoleon sought to exalt his reign by creating a ceremonial style, as once, long before him, Louis XIV had done. The new imperial style develops the traditions of French Neoclassicism, but with an emphasis on solemnity. Furniture becomes heavier, acquiring massive rectangular forms. Preference is still given to mahogany. The main decoration of tables, chests of drawers and cabinets are symmetrical bronze appliqués. All seating furniture is rather hard — outward effect is valued in Empire more than comfort. The backs of armchairs straighten, the armrests rest either on herms turning into legs with lion's paws, or on carved figures. Consoles and round tables with a tabletop of solid marble or porphyry, or inlaid with mosaics, become widespread. The fascination with Egypt and Rome reaches its peak in this period. Many pieces of furniture look like an allusion to ancient Roman interiors. Columns and caryatids often serve as table legs. Empire furniture is, rather, an architectural-sculptural phenomenon — there are columns, pilasters and friezes, griffins, chimeras, sphinxes, swans, Nikés and lions, behind which the furniture itself is almost invisible. Along with the already traditional wreaths, laurels and palmettes, craftsmen include military motifs in the ornaments — a helmet, a sword, a shield and arrows. To these is added imperial symbolism — an eagle, a bee, a star and the letter N framed by a wreath. The military rhythm of the emperor's life gave us folding stools with X-shaped legs, the prototypes of our camping and country versions. Another innovation: an inclined mirror appears on the tabletops of dressing tables, with candles in candelabra placed on both sides of it. On the whole, the Empire style remained a style for ceremonial receptions. When you need to impress and emphasize the importance of the moment, doing it at a royal level, nothing better than Empire can be devised for a study and a living room.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire style, which is sometimes called the Alexandrian Empire, had a short but important prehistory that began even before Alexander I ascended the throne — under Emperor Paul.
The development of domestic furniture production was stimulated by the autocrat, who hated France, in a simple way — he banned the import of anything French into Russia. Nevertheless, some example to follow was necessary for Russian craftsmen. And such a model was provided by the extremely fashionable Parisian furniture maker Georges Jacob. At the same time, Russian Empire differed from the French in the simplicity and monumentality of its forms. For the first time in Russia, furniture began to be made of mahogany and Karelian birch. The decor, as a rule, was very simple and consisted of stamped brass strips laid in the simplest geometric figures. An important feature of the new interior style was its "architecturalness". Later it was this trait that became the main distinction of Russian Empire, which came into fashion after the end of the Napoleonic wars.
Under Alexander I, the import of foreign furniture was also not encouraged, although France remained the arbiter of fashion. In the Russian version, Empire-style furniture acquired a strict architectural articulation of form, which is quite logical if we remember that its design was actively practiced by Russian architects Voronikhin and Stasov or by foreign ones — Rossi and Thomas de Thomon. Cornices, columns, architraves and friezes turned all sorts of cabinets, étagères and mirrors into majestic buildings, so that a city of its own arose in the interior, rhyming with the view from the window.
Russian Empire furniture is usually divided into three categories. The closest to the French original was the expensive furniture made in the best St. Petersburg workshops by order of the imperial court. Furnishings for country estates were already an imitation of the capital's fashion. Finally, around the 1840s, the cold imperial Empire style was finally "domesticated" in the modest dwellings of poor landowners and officials. For luxurious palace interiors, mahogany, rosewood or Karelian birch were used, decorated with massive bronze appliqués or gilded and toned carving. Very characteristic was the combination of white as the main tone and gilding on the carved details. For simpler furniture, linden, ash or birch were used, often painted to look like valuable wood.
As upholstery, plain striped or floral silk was used for expensive furniture, and calico and rep for cheaper furniture. A one-legged round or octagonal table resembling a pedestal was usually placed next to the sofa. Practicality and convenience were not of primary importance for Empire. After all, for a true empire, grandeur is far more important than comfort. Which is fair today as well, when the demand for Russian Empire clearly exceeds the supply. And when it comes to status, there can be no argument.
