The Modern Interior

article in International Studio magazine caricatured the difference
between the German/Viennese developments and those of the French
claiming that, ‘the German and Austrian work [is] the result of intellectual
activity, and the French work [is] instinctive, intuitive.’ 25 From the
early years of the century the ensembliers had been developing an
approach towards the modern interior which was rooted in the eighteenth
century, and which had sought to bring the benefits of the past
into the present. Moving away from the ambitions of the Art Nouveau
designers to break completely from the past, André Mare, Francis
Jourdain, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, André Groult, Maurice Dufrêne,
Leon Jallot, Louis Sue and others, inspired by the progressive designs
they had seen at the German exhibition at the 1910 Salon d’Autumne,
had begun to develop a more holistic approach to the decoration of the
interior, with an emphasis on the ‘ensemble’, and to combine the Empire
style with French provincial references. As Katharine Kahle pointed out
two decades later, ‘the decorators began to make drawings of complete
interiors and the architect was forced into second place.’ 26 The ensembliers
developed a soft, decorative, feminine, brightly coloured interior
aesthetic which was at its best in small spaces such as studies, small salons,
boudoirs and bedrooms. In that respect Art Nouveau’s commitment to
modernity, privacy and interiority was sustained. 27 Like the Art Nouveau
protagonists as well, however, the French ensembliers aligned themselves
enthusiastically with the commercial sector, several of them joining forces,
as we have already seen, with the new department stores. In addition
Ruhlmann, Louis Sue and André Mare formed La Compagnie des Arts
Français, Joubert and Petit formed dim (Décoration d’Intérieures
Modernes) and Robert Block established the Studio Athelia.
The Exposition of 1925 had been anticipated for many years but it
was postponed because of the advent of the First World War. When it
finally happened it showcased the achievements of the ensembliers,
signalled their pre-eminence to the rest of the world, and made a clear
statement about France’s commitment to a luxurious, craft-based, highly
eclectic, but eminently modern approach to the interior. It received mixed
reviews, however. Looking back from 1939 Emily Genauer recalled it as a
moment when ‘decoration was at last unloosed from the bands of period
slavery’, whereas a decade earlier Dorothy Todd and Raymond Mortimer,
in search of a ‘satisfactory modern idiom of ornament’ had found it
‘as brilliant, as noisy and as disconcerting as a parrot show’. 28 In Paris
the decorators found an outlet for their new aesthetic which combined 101