PREVIEW: Simple and Sumptuous

By: Amy Gale

September 2006

This month’s antiques buzzword is “Biedermeier,” the influential style that is the subject of a blockbuster exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM). “Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity” is attracting worldwide interest. Comprising more than 300 German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian paintings, furniture, decorative arts and works on paper—many on view in this country for the first time—the exhibition will travel to Vienna, Berlin and Paris after its January 1 close in Milwaukee.

Biedermeier is long overdue for a big show in the United States, and the MAM, with its strong reputation for 19th-century German and Austrian paintings, is a natural venue. Over the past decade, the museum has been building up its holdings in the decorative arts. These acquisitions, in turn, inspired the idea for an exhibition, says Laurie Winters, curator of Earlier European Art. The style, which was predominant in Central Europe and Scandinavia from 1815 to 1830, was an

Viennese writing cabinet,
c. 1810, varied woods.

important development in Neoclassicism. With its emphasis on simple forms and the natural beauty of materials, it had, moreover, an enduring influence on modern design. And although it is characterized as honest and unpretentious, it’s not exactly meek. “The best Biedermeier is amazing and shocking,” says Winters. A case in point is the circa-1825 settee whose natural walnut grain contrasts with sculptural orange upholstery—a functional design that stands out due to its striking color and tiered form.

A sense of fantasy might seem a paradox in a style whose name was derived from “Gottlieb Biedermaier,” a pseudonym used by two journalists in the 1840s to caricature a naive everyman with a plodding and provincial world view. The term “Biedermeier” came to evoke the rural and pre-industrial world that was fast disappearing. Later generations made fun of its seeming parochialism and insularity, and the furnishings also came in for a strong dose of contempt. “A ridiculous style of infinite dryness and unredeemed tastelessness” was one critic’s dismissal.

Biedermeier’s hallmarks—proportion, simplicity and utility—reflect the domestic life of the urban middle class, during the years that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was a time of limited political freedom and cultural progress. The bourgeois home reflected this quiet prosperity with plain walls and floors made of sanded boards. Gray and green were the preferred colors and the simple furnishings were lined against the wall. (“Woman Embroidering,” 1817, by Georg Friedrich Kersting, a painter who specialized in such homely scenes, is emblematic of this sober taste.) Not all households were so inward looking, though. As the exhibition makes clear, Biedermeier also could be quite worldly. “The best pieces were commissioned by the aristocracy,” Winters says. An example of the style at its most fashionable and innovative is the lightwood writing desk, circa 1810, which has a dramatically curved body and stepped pediment outlined in ebonized wood.

Biedermeier was less imposing and monumental than Empire, the style that was unfavorably associated with the pretensions of Napoleon I. Nonetheless, the influence of early 19th-century

Courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum, gift of Rene von Schleinitz Memorial Fund, by exchange

Danhauser'sche Mobelfabrik, settee,
c. 1815, mahogany, gilding
and reconstructed upholstery.

French design is evident in the clean lines and the absence of decorative carving. But whereas Empire furniture was made of imported mahogany, Biedermeier furniture was typically made from native woods like cherry and walnut. Another difference was ornamentation: Biedermeier furniture was not often decorated with the elaborate gilt mounts that are a characteristic of Empire furniture. They sometimes were used on high-end pieces, like the circa-1815 settee made in the factory of Josef Danhauser. A successful furniture maker and businessman, Danhauser owned a home-furnishings business in Vienna. The settee, with its classical gilt frieze and draping folds of white silk, evokes the luxury of imperial Paris, though the arched mahogany frame is pure Biedermeier.

In developing suitable forms, designers recalled the 1780s and ’90s, when furniture was becoming both more informal and archaeologically precise. A representative example is an 1805–10 chair designed by Prussian architect David Gilly. It was inspired by the Greek klismos chair that had been revived in England by designers like Thomas Sheraton. Reclining furniture, which also had its origins in the antique taste, was part of the Biedermeier repertoire. On view is the 1825–30 daybed that demonstrates the style’s innovative use of classical motifs. The curved walnut veneer frame terminates in two Ionic scrolls for the base.

Less familiar are the other decorative arts from this period—the glass, textiles, metalwork and ceramics that are an important part of the show. Porcelain was one of the industries revived after the restoration of peace in 1815. Although floral patterns and landscapes were popular, there were also simpler designs, like the set of bright coffee bowls, each one painted a different color, by the Wiener Porzellanmanufaktur. Here the gilded rims belie the plain form, illustrating how Biedermeier could be both restrained and sumptuous.

By the 1890s, avant-garde designers were studying Biedermeier design for its emphasis on comfort and functionality, and its absence of superfluous ornament. There was a renewed appreciation for objects, like the 1817 water jug by Lorenz Wieninger, which had been viewed with derision by tastemakers partial to the Rococo revival. The austere vessel with its practical but exaggerated handle was just the sort of piece that inspired modern silversmiths—and that is reviving interest among collectors who appreciate a style that combines the fanciful with the sober.

Amy Gale, a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, 2004, teaches in the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology.