Chinese style does not reject the minimalism typical of Japanese style, and does not follow that principle strictly — a Chinese interior — is a distinctive culture, a way of thinking and a worldview.
Chinese style in the interior — a trend in home decoration rapidly reviving after a long period of neglect. Unjustly forgotten in the last century, Chinese style, despite our habit of treating all things Chinese as something mass-produced and cheap, is making an active comeback. Attention to Chinese-style design in Russia began as early as the eighteenth century. It was then that many palaces, or else individual halls, began to be decorated in the manner we now broadly call Oriental style.
Elements of Chinese style in the interior, even in the pre-Petrine era, spoke of the owner’s wealth and of his high cultural development. And the traditional Russian style of interior decoration allowed for the introduction of accessories in which a Chinese interior is so rich.
In a room decorated in the Chinese style, a greater quantity of furniture and accessories is permitted than in other countries of the Far East. A distinctive space is created in the room, one that invites contemplation and relaxation, a quality underscored by every element of the interior without exception.
A Chinese interior always uses individual decorative elements such as a Chinese vase, carved sculptures, and paintings on the walls. These objects can decorate the entire house or turn a single living room into a Chinese-style space. Niches, so popular in the East, make it possible to display many objects: porcelain vases, lacquer boxes, figurines.
Furniture in a Chinese home — comfortable low sofas and low tables to match. The dining table, however, may be large and wide, for by Chinese tradition the whole family gathers there. Besides black lacquer, furniture upholstered in textiles whose patterns carry traditional Chinese motifs and ornaments is also popular.
The Chinese ability to divide and use space correctly implies that even decorative elements should serve some practical function. For zoning space in a Chinese interior, painted screens are used, which can easily be moved from place to place.
CHINESE INTERIOR — color matters
A highly characteristic feature of the Chinese interior is a careful attitude toward the color of the home. Far from every cultural tradition ascribes such deep symbolic meaning to color; even the epochs of the Celestial Empire have long been designated by colors by Chinese historians. The active use of color symbolism has not bypassed the Chinese interior today. The combination of warm and cool colors, pastel tones with bright ones, as well as large chromatically saturated parts of the interior, monochrome areas, smooth wavy lines of azure, and red corners of ornamental elements — all of this carries the deep, innermost meaning of Chinese style.
Among the colors of a Chinese interior, two have special significance. Yellow — the color of the emperor and an almost official symbol of Chinese statehood. A true Chinese style always contains this color in its palette. Azure — the color of nobility; it underscores a person’s high social standing or, at the very least, the aspiration to a higher social position. Interestingly, while azure is obligatory in a Chinese interior, there is never much of it; as a rule, this color appears only in light strokes, almost as hints. Thus, in the quantity of color, the now classic Chinese restraint and modesty reveal themselves.
It is impossible to imagine Chinese style in the interior without red as well, a color that symbolizes not only fire, as one of the natural forces, but also health, and therefore prosperity. Oriental style, with its seeming abundance and chaos of colors, is in fact ordered and symbolic, and the Chinese interior is perhaps the supreme embodiment of the idea of color harmony in the decoration of the home.
CHINESE STYLE — working with space
Chinese style in the interior is characterized by a careful and sensitive attitude toward the space in which a person rests, enjoys a meal, or receives guests. A design in the Chinese style cannot be created without observing feng shui — the rules of organizing space.
An interior in the Chinese style must take into account a particular configuration of space that fosters the harmonious interaction of yin and yang and the free flow of qi energy, as feng shui prescribes. Straight or simply sharp lines are inadmissible. In contrast to them, the Chinese interior is based on smooth, curving forms. Even a square table should be covered with a round or oval tablecloth, which will compensate for the sharpness of its corners. The entrance hall should be made as open as possible — so that the inflow of living qi energy can enter the home unimpeded. Even empty and inexpressive straight wall lines can be enlivened by draping them with silk fabrics or silk wallpapers decorated with flowers traditional to China — chrysanthemums and peonies. Columns help to get rid of dull straight walls — an element traditional to Chinese style. It is not necessary to build monumental load-bearing columns into houses; a mere hint of them, or simply a raised contour on the wall, is enough.
Only after the space has been shaped does it become clear how well the formal requirements of feng shui rules are justified in practice — a Chinese interior turns the home into a true “magnet” for fresh living air; the dwelling is ventilated effectively, and nothing obstructs the circulation of qi energy and the inflow of oxygen. Thanks to the effec
tive and harmonious organization of space, even the lighting of the home becomes different.
CHINESE INTERIOR — in the glow of paper lanterns
Lighting in a Chinese interior plays, at first glance, a secondary role. However simple and obvious the requirements for the distribution of light in the home may be, there are a number of rules that a designer recreating Chinese style in a home interior design project must take into account. The principal stylistic canon — light must be natural. That is why soft color shades and smooth forms dominate in a Chinese interior: light spreads across them naturally and then fills the space. During the day every room in the house is bright even without lamps, but how is one to light the dwelling in the evening, when the light of an incandescent bulb can hardly be called natural?
The difference between natural and artificial light lies mainly in intensity. Artificial lighting can be brought closer to natural by covering the lamps, for example, with shades painted with flow
ers or decorated with images of traditional subjects. A Chinese interior is lit softly yet brightly enough; light in it is an intangible substance that is passed from one smoothly curved surface to another, filling the space.
Design in the Chinese style also implies the use of the well-known Chinese lanterns — even the light of the most powerful lamp, passing through the paper of the shade, becomes soft and pleasant to the eye.
CHINESE STYLE — contemporary trends
Chinese style and the Chinese interior are not only a fashionable contemporary trend, but also an impulse that widens the circle of people seized by the desire to live as if in a traditional Chinese home. Interest in Chinese style in the interior is our response to ever-increasing urbanization, which also shows itself in the decoration of homes. If in the 1980s one could afford only a few living plants that might somehow diversify the interior, today there are far more possibilities. Recreating a Chinese interior at home is not too difficult and not very expensive. Just a few inexpensiv
e pieces of furniture and accessories, along with observance of simple feng shui rules, will allow you to “settle” Chinese style in the interior of the home, and thus make the house cozier.
In our time, design in the Chinese style is in extraordinary demand. The combination of austere asceticism and elegant, fanciful details, of mythology and real life, attention to the symbolism and practical purpose of every object — that is what Chinese style is today.
Contrary to popular clichés, design in the Chinese style is a mark of refinement, as it was centuries ago, speaking of the prosperity and exquisite taste of the owners.
On the whole, Chinese style makes it possible to achieve highly interesting, original results in the interior. Thanks to its individuality, comfort, and simplicity — Chinese style has won widespread popularity; one need only know and understand the traditions of this great country, which will soon show once again “who is master of the house.”
