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A good novel gives one a sense of being in the place that the author is describing. I think, for example, one of the triumphs of "Ulysses" is Joyce's description of Dublin. Oddly, at least for me, it's both similar and dissimilar to the sense one gets from a good painting. Interestingly, the decorative arts usually need a written explanation, not always but often--to make whatever the item is, more interesting. (Some paintings do, as well.) In other words, most people need to told that the silver spoon you are about to use was made by Paul Revere. It is, after all, just a spoon. Those of us that sell decorative art, I believe, need to give context to place items in history. What I've found is that the more English history I read, the more the objects of the era speak to me. It's a sense that is really very hard to translate into words--I have a familiarity with 18th century furniture because I have both handled it and learned so much of the history behind it. A walnut armchair from 1740, a set of Chippendale dining chairs from 1755 or an Adam daybed from 1790, for example, can and often do reflect a moment both politically and socially that has nothing to do with what you might get from a history class.
I am currently reading a book entitled, "The Strangest Family", which is about the four Georges, or collectively the Georgians, the British rulers from 1712 to 1830. The title says a lot, but in such a general way that it is almost impossible to know what is meant by the word, strange. If you are aware of English 18th century history, you will understand that the first George was German and never spoke English--he was the stop gap cousin called upon to prevent a resurrection of the Jacobean line, to wit Catholicism, manifested by Bonnie Prince Charlie. George I was strange long before he got to be the King of Great Britain. He was jealous of a rival who he thought was going to run off with his wife and so locked her in a castle and never saw her again and never allowed her to see her children nor have any guests and was never referred to by anyone in his court. It was probably a good thing that he didn't speak English as he never had to defend himself for such behavior--at least in Britain. He also disliked the children he had by her and preferred to be in Hanover whenever he could.
It follows that one bad deed often engenders ensuing bad deeds and as fathers who happened to be Kings of England, the Georges readily fell into that trap. Pathologies may seem strange and impossibly dense, but their fertilization and early gestation in the successive Georges was almost a choice, reinforced by the relationship of King to heir. I can't say that I wish to understand the Georges personal lives all that much, but the furniture made in their eras is something I am interested in and they do tie together. It was during George I's rule, 1715-27, for example that English furniture began to free itself from the overt imitation of continental models. Up to that point, English furniture had aspects of uniquely Englishy bits here and there, but the earliest English style was birthed during George I's rule. He had nothing to do with it save for having a Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, enrich himself to the extent where he could build Houghton House in Norfolk and hire his friends, Lord Burlington (Robert Boyle), William Kent and some of the very finest craftsmen anywhere and let them go to town--and they most certainly did!
Why then was George I's absence so important to the birthing of a style? Contrast Louis XIV and XV with George I and you can see immediately the tight grip the French kings had on all manners of the decorative arts--all to ensure the world of the supremacy of their domain. George, on the other hand, kept returning to his beloved Hanover leaving Britain to Walpole and his able peculation. Among other things, Britain did not have monarchical edicts of style--they had a raft of oligarchs expressing their own personal style--resulting in a freedom to experiment and a recognizable dissimilarity to the essential but slightly codified continental influences. Yes, the English style relied on what had gone before, let alone plenty of foreign craftsmen, but the results are British! Just as George I, a strange dude from Germany who in an offhand way became the British King, so too did the sausage grinder of style, in almost what I'd way was in a magical way, transform furniture into a recognizable British style. How, you ask? That question is a good one.. The answer, however, may sound a little convoluted because, like most things British, it's really complicated.
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