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How to Make a Modern Home (with Antiques), featuring Thomas Jayne
35 Plays4 years ago
Time was, many top interior designers sought to conjure a perfectly seamless décor—whether it be all Louis XV furniture, all early American, or all modern. The results could be beautiful—but also somewhat boring, and certainly impersonal. Interior decorator Thomas Jayne suggests another way to put together the spaces we live in: by using creative combinations of striking art and objects from across time to derive a style that’s endlessly evocative, livable, and fresh. In this episode, Ben Miller gets the goods from Jayne on the history of interiors (from the Greeks to the present day); what to budget first; and the spirit of “democratic decoration,” that, historically, has animated American interiors.
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Transcript
Introduction and Preview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi Curious Objects listeners, we've got a great show coming up for you today with Thomas Jane, but first I want to give you a quick sneak peek of another podcast that I think you'll love called The Object.
00:00:09
Speaker
This is an award-winning podcast from the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
00:00:13
Speaker
They tell stories of art and artists throughout history with style and wit.
00:00:17
Speaker
You can hear new episodes of The Object every month.
00:00:21
Speaker
And stay tuned at the end of this episode to hear a little bit of the object where they dig into a story of mystery and discovery around the famous bronze horses on St.
00:00:29
Speaker
Mark's Basilica in Venice.
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
00:00:32
Speaker
This episode is also brought to you by the Decorative Arts Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes and fosters the appreciation and study of the arts through visual and in-person programs and grant making.
00:00:43
Speaker
For more information, visit decorativeartstrust.org.
00:00:57
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Optics, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:01:00
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:01:01
Speaker
We spend a lot of time on this program talking about old things, where they came from, why they are the way they are.
00:01:07
Speaker
We've spent a lot less time talking about what you actually do with them right here, right now.
00:01:13
Speaker
Now, you've heard me preach about using antiques rather than letting them languish in the storage closet because they're too precious.
00:01:20
Speaker
Well, my guest today is Thomas Jane, and he is an expert in how to do just that, to take old things and deep knowledge about them and put it into practice.
00:01:31
Speaker
In other words, he is an interior designer.
00:01:34
Speaker
He is the namesake of Jane Design Studios and the author of a really beautiful book from Monticelli Press called Classical Principles for Modern Design, Lessons from Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman's The Decoration of Houses.
00:01:48
Speaker
And if you're not already familiar with Thomas and his work, the first thing to be aware of is just how seriously he is committed to understanding decorative arts in design history and fitting his work into the context and frameworks established by centuries of study and tradition, while at the same time not being mindlessly chained to them.
Design Philosophy of Thomas Jane
00:02:09
Speaker
His resume includes Winterthur, Historic Deerfield, and the Getty.
00:02:15
Speaker
He is really my kind of designer.
00:02:17
Speaker
And to be honest, if you're listening to this show, he is probably your kind of designer too.
00:02:23
Speaker
Thomas Jane, welcome to Curious Objects.
00:02:26
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me.
00:02:28
Speaker
I never thought of myself as an antiques user, but you have to have a substance that you use.
00:02:35
Speaker
I think antiques is a good one.
00:02:36
Speaker
I advertise antiques like I advertise patent medicine.
00:02:39
Speaker
It's good for your health.
00:02:41
Speaker
It might contain a little alcohol and it'll make you happy.
00:02:46
Speaker
Not to mention green.
00:02:49
Speaker
Very environmentally conscious.
00:02:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
So, OK, we have a lot to talk about today and we're going to take a deep dive into the world of home design and decoration over the last hundred years and specifically at the roles that antiques have played in that story.
00:03:07
Speaker
But I want to start by just clarifying one thing.
00:03:10
Speaker
You talk a lot about historical inspiration.
00:03:13
Speaker
Your book is called Classical Principles of Modern Design.
00:03:16
Speaker
You incorporate historical objects into the design work that you do.
00:03:21
Speaker
But generally speaking, you're not doing what one would describe as reproductions.
00:03:26
Speaker
So how would you describe your approach?
00:03:30
Speaker
Meaning what we called the period room where you try to make a house or a room completely furnished with antiques, often of the same date.
00:03:42
Speaker
It was a decorating goal in the 20th century by many collectors from, say, Jane Reitzman, when she collected French furniture for her own house and then for, of course, the Metropolitan Museum or even Henry Francis DuPont, where
00:03:59
Speaker
He tried to make rooms full of 18th century furniture to be instructional.
00:04:06
Speaker
All these things are the same date, and look how they interrelate.
00:04:09
Speaker
And collectors, and to some degree just private individuals, would ascribe to the same goals.
00:04:16
Speaker
There was a great interest in colonial furniture engendered by Williamsburg and their famous craft house where they sold
00:04:27
Speaker
probably a million pieces of reproduction early American furniture for post-World War II houses.
00:04:35
Speaker
And that was a decorating standard or ideal.
00:04:40
Speaker
Today, I think that we understand that
00:04:44
Speaker
It was rare historically to have a room that was all one date, that most people had things from different times and generations to furnish their house because furniture was expensive and there was also sentiment.
00:04:59
Speaker
And only the very, very rich would buy all new furniture, if you will.
00:05:05
Speaker
Or poor people who would buy all new furniture of poor quality and it would have to be replaced often.
00:05:12
Speaker
So we've really, really at a mark now where we mix up old and new, both for appearance and availability and
00:05:25
Speaker
I guess taste.
00:05:26
Speaker
I do believe that you can't make a great, for today, I don't think it's possible to make a room that is successful, that doesn't have something from our own time and generation, but also something that's old.
00:05:40
Speaker
I think the duality really makes a successful interior, the mixture of the two.
00:05:46
Speaker
And you can really see that in the images of your work in your book.
00:05:52
Speaker
Of course, you know, on your website and Instagram, anyone who takes a look can pretty clearly see the way that you play with
00:06:01
Speaker
combinations of old and new.
00:06:04
Speaker
And we'll get to that topic specifically a little bit later.
00:06:09
Speaker
But really, you know, I want to poke your brain a little and get into the history aspect of this.
00:06:17
Speaker
And
00:06:19
Speaker
how people of past generations have approached the art of designing interiors and how those approaches have changed over time.
00:06:30
Speaker
And what we really are going to focus on today is the last hundred
Classical and Modern Design Principles
00:06:36
Speaker
years.
00:06:36
Speaker
But as your book is called Classical Principles of Modern Design, can you give us just a quick overview, starting with the classical period, if we think about
00:06:48
Speaker
ancient Greek and Roman spaces.
00:06:50
Speaker
And sort of tell us about the philosophy of interior design that you'd associate with that period.
00:06:59
Speaker
And then sort of bring us up closer to the present day.
00:07:04
Speaker
This is just going to be a whirlwind tour.
00:07:06
Speaker
So, you know, buckle your seatbelt.
00:07:09
Speaker
I always like to point out that the
00:07:12
Speaker
Greeks were incorporating Egyptian things into their interiors and their buildings.
00:07:20
Speaker
And the Romans were definitely sampling ancient Greece.
00:07:29
Speaker
And that whole Greco-Roman Egyptian tradition was then re-adapted during the Renaissance and delivered to the 18th century.
00:07:43
Speaker
And there was invention along the way, but the elements largely remained the same until the 20th century and the advent of modernism.
00:07:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:07:54
Speaker
And then there was a demarcation between things that were machine-like or made by the machine and the things that were organic.
00:08:02
Speaker
And generally, those things that were organic belonged to the ancient tradition of classicism.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
And maybe the sort of core story to start with today has to do with a shift that happens, you know, around 120 years ago with the advent of what we think of as the Gilded Age.
00:08:25
Speaker
And I wanted to jump sort of in our very, very brief survey of interior design history.
00:08:32
Speaker
I wanted to jump straight to one of the sort of closing chapter, which is to say the year 1897.
00:08:43
Speaker
And that's the year in which Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman published their guidebook, The Decoration of Houses, about which you are one of the leading thinkers.
00:08:57
Speaker
But something was really changing in that period around the end of the 19th and into the early 20th century.
00:09:05
Speaker
And there was a new formality or formalism of thinking.
00:09:10
Speaker
about inhabiting spaces.
00:09:14
Speaker
And one of the things they were trying to do was really, well, I think you could describe the book as a kind of a corrective against Victorianism or fussiness, general fussiness.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:29
Speaker
I mean, what, yeah, so what were they responding to or rebelling against in that book?
00:09:36
Speaker
I mean, the greatest example for me is Edith Wharton's parents' house.
00:09:40
Speaker
She was Jones, as in keeping up with the Joneses.
00:09:44
Speaker
And her parents lived in a house on the, I think it was on 23rd Street or it was in the West 30s.
00:09:54
Speaker
And when you look at the pictures, you'll see it's just...
00:09:59
Speaker
it's full on high Victorian taste with, with portiers and swags and swags, swags of silk damas crowded with furniture.
00:10:10
Speaker
It was, you know, pretty much everything that you would think of in the Gilded Age in full excess.
00:10:17
Speaker
And, um,
00:10:20
Speaker
Edith Wharton pretty much, you know, you often rebel against your parents' taste, and certainly this was the case where she called out that taste as being overwrought, and she and Aud and Cobb both argued that the reason was is that architects had given up on interior decoration and interior spaces.
00:10:40
Speaker
They would do exteriors, but then they would allow the interiors to be
00:10:45
Speaker
decorated by upholsters and furniture merchants.
00:10:50
Speaker
And they became crowded and confused.
00:10:56
Speaker
And they were both happy that in the 1890s that people were starting to look at historic buildings and rooms as models for better results.
00:11:09
Speaker
And they were very enthusiastic about the future because they said the best models were being selected and therefore the best results were happening.
00:11:21
Speaker
And in their argument, they pointed out all the great public buildings that were going up, like the New York Public Library, the great Chicago Exposition, were all indicators of how classical models were being applied to use in America that eschewed the
00:11:43
Speaker
you know, larded on Victorianists then.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
Well, and so it's interesting that, I mean, this is happening during a period of time that we call the Gilded Age, literally named after its excesses and inequalities.
00:11:58
Speaker
So were the ideas that Wharton and Codman were disseminating, were those applicable outside of the great houses of Fifth Avenue and Newport and such?
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:14
Speaker
They felt that even the simplest houses could have a classical idiom about them, and they pointed out that even the simplest carpenter's manual would show how to make a cornice or crown molding and a base board, which would emulate a column.
00:12:32
Speaker
They said that it could be done with great simplicity, but the effect was universal.
00:12:41
Speaker
So they really felt that a great room had those classical details, and that it was additive after that.
00:12:54
Speaker
And they also felt that furniture had to function, that functionality was the key part of a room.
00:13:03
Speaker
You didn't just put furniture in to fill space.
00:13:06
Speaker
You used furniture for the purpose of the room.
00:13:13
Speaker
So, I mean, it's interesting.
00:13:15
Speaker
When we first started, you and I, talking about this subject, you brought up a term that I don't know if you coined this or not, but I really like the notion, which is democratic connoisseurship.
00:13:30
Speaker
And so, you know, I want to get you to talk a little about that and tell us what you mean by it.
00:13:37
Speaker
And in the context of this, you know, Gilded Age, you know, aesthetic moment, if you think about what you might call a typical American middle class home in 1900, 1910, you know,
00:13:55
Speaker
The styles that they were embracing, to what extent were those imitative of the wealthy homes they were seeing?
00:14:04
Speaker
And to what extent was there sort of a separate middle class aesthetic versus standing in opposition to the sort of 1% or Gilded Age aesthetic?
00:14:15
Speaker
Are those different things?
00:14:16
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:14:17
Speaker
Well, I think everything, every man-made object reflects the time and generation.
00:14:24
Speaker
So it's all in the same mix.
00:14:29
Speaker
And every community had...
00:14:34
Speaker
grand mansions that were on the pattern of Newport, if not the same size.
00:14:41
Speaker
I always think of Newport as being the arch type of Gilded Age mansions, but, you know, Fifth Avenue, San Francisco, all the big American cities had neighborhoods with palace-like houses.
00:14:59
Speaker
And then there were middle-class neighborhoods that
00:15:02
Speaker
might not have the same great porticos and columns, but it had a lot of the same essential parts.
00:15:09
Speaker
I think everyone, the aspiration was to have a front hall and a living room and a dining room and
00:15:20
Speaker
If you could afford it, you had a bedroom with a sitting room.
00:15:24
Speaker
And those are the key things.
00:15:27
Speaker
And sometimes Americans just wanted really big bedrooms without sitting rooms, but Edith Wharton thought that was better if you had a sitting room.
00:15:37
Speaker
So I think that there was a universal desire to have certain elements and that they be classically parlayed, whether it be, let's say,
00:15:55
Speaker
the Vanderbilt mansion which was pretty excessive to um you know a regular house on a regular street in a small town I'm not really answering your question um um
00:16:12
Speaker
No, I mean, that's driving in the direction.
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, I think sort of, you know, if the focal point of the history we're trying to tell today has to do with the objects being used in these houses,
00:16:26
Speaker
You know, one of the key differences between a Fifth Avenue mansion and a middle class American home is the types of objects that their inhabitants could afford to put in them.
00:16:39
Speaker
So, you know, in Newport and Fifth Avenue and the great San Francisco homes,
00:16:45
Speaker
You know, these were homes that were piled high with the finest English and French furniture, Italian paintings, you name it.
00:16:58
Speaker
But, you know, what about American antiques?
00:17:03
Speaker
You know, people are maybe for the first time starting to think seriously about collecting things.
00:17:09
Speaker
Americana, as we would call it today.
00:17:15
Speaker
You know, you might start to see some even some of these early reproductions of reproductions of early American pieces.
00:17:23
Speaker
But what you know, was colonial American furniture seen by by 1910 as something that you might want to have in your home?
00:17:31
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:32
Speaker
So that's a whole timeline.
00:17:34
Speaker
The interest in Americana, American furniture, that's very telling.
00:17:42
Speaker
American furniture and Americana in our interiors starts pretty early when people start keeping relics that are associated with the early period.
00:17:57
Speaker
and it could be a chest that was believed to come over on the Mayflower or pieces of silver associated with the Patriot of the American Revolution.
00:18:05
Speaker
And they were freestanding, so you might have an early American chair in your French drawing room to prove that you had this early American connection.
00:18:18
Speaker
Eventually,
00:18:22
Speaker
it became more embracing where all old furniture, all American furniture represented at time and period and people collected it partly out of a sense of history, but it also became part of the American aesthetic.
00:18:36
Speaker
And I think that's where artists started collecting Americana for its simplicity of line and its style.
00:18:48
Speaker
And it had a sort of
00:18:51
Speaker
worked well with a modern aesthetic.
00:18:55
Speaker
Especially shaker furniture and simpler 18th century furniture was embraced by the artistic community.
00:19:03
Speaker
And that's where Americana leaves being a relic, just being interesting as relics to being an interior design aesthetic.
00:19:14
Speaker
And at that point, there's this whole period called the colonial revival where people start decorating their houses in a colonial taste.
00:19:25
Speaker
And lots and lots of furniture is made that's called colonial.
00:19:31
Speaker
And that tradition really has stopped.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
Well, and so how does, if we think about the evolution of architectural styles, how does that play into taste for furniture specifically?
Shift to Modernism in Design
00:19:49
Speaker
I mean, by the 1920s, we're already hearing from Le Corbusier about open floor plans and spacious windows.
00:19:57
Speaker
And that's not, you don't necessarily, if you have a window covering your whole wall, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for sideboards and China hutches.
00:20:10
Speaker
Does that have an influence on how people are thinking about their spaces?
00:20:16
Speaker
Well,
00:20:17
Speaker
I mean, there was, modernism wasn't widely incorporated in American homes until after the Second War.
00:20:26
Speaker
And I think most people wanted formal rooms until then.
00:20:33
Speaker
They wanted a dining room with a sideboard and a dining table that would seat 12 and a parlor or a reception room that was formal.
00:20:46
Speaker
And really after the war, the open plan and modern furniture took a role.
00:20:54
Speaker
And you had basically two dueling tastes.
00:20:57
Speaker
You had sort of modern ranch houses or colonial Cape Cod type houses were being built almost in equal number.
00:21:07
Speaker
So I think that's the bifurcation.
00:21:11
Speaker
And the modern houses would have Scandinavian furniture and the colonial houses would have reproduction colonial furniture.
00:21:19
Speaker
And occasionally there'd be a mix up, but not very often.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
Well, and there are other things happening at this time, too, in terms of means of production.
00:21:36
Speaker
So in a previous episode, I spoke with Glenn Adamson about his book, Craft in American History.
00:21:44
Speaker
And he describes this curious phenomenon when there's sort of a period when mass manufacturing hasn't quite dominated the economy for decorative arts, but furniture makers are starting to produce objects in multiples and sometimes many multiples.
00:22:03
Speaker
And then eventually there's this shift where bespoke, one of a kind objects become the exception rather than the rule in American homes.
00:22:13
Speaker
So, you know, and I think it's hard to put an exact date on when that happens, but what do you say, and just sort of as a general impression, what does that shift do to the practice of interior design?
00:22:26
Speaker
Well, you can certainly see it today, where modern furniture has reproduced
00:22:34
Speaker
in great numbers.
00:22:35
Speaker
You have the phenomenon of design within reach where you can go in and pick out a whole house full of furniture.
00:22:41
Speaker
It's all modern and it all looks good in combination.
00:22:49
Speaker
And that really
00:22:52
Speaker
That's really the market right now.
00:22:56
Speaker
And then the other competitor is things like Restoration Hardware.
00:23:01
Speaker
If you want soft furniture that's not as modern, but apparently more comfortable.
00:23:17
Speaker
So that eclipses pretty much all the bench made or personally made things, except for people who are well-to-do or have a very strong interest in craft.
00:23:30
Speaker
So it's hard to refute.
00:23:32
Speaker
That's one thing good about antiques, though.
00:23:34
Speaker
If you do decide, you know, if you are obligated or you do decide to rely on retail sources, just introducing a few old things can immediately add personality and contrast.
00:23:49
Speaker
And I think that's happening more and more where you see interiors with a few old things at least just to offset the repetitiveness of what's being manufactured.
00:24:03
Speaker
Certainly restoration hardware always interjects a few seemingly old things into their interiors in order to give that quality.
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, that's interesting.
00:24:12
Speaker
I wonder to what extent restoration hardware and that sort of approach, is that reacting?
00:24:21
Speaker
I mean, I guess every aesthetic period is, in a sense, reacting to what...
00:24:28
Speaker
preceded it but there's this um generation i think of as being roughly between the end of world war ii and the vietnam war which um just feels to me like a low point in in home design at least in america and and i think of
00:24:49
Speaker
shag carpeting and tassels and mustard yellow tiles.
00:24:55
Speaker
Am I missing something?
00:24:57
Speaker
Or were there actually interesting ideas being explored in that period?
00:25:03
Speaker
Were there good designers?
00:25:07
Speaker
So what dates are you saying again?
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:09
Speaker
Let's say between about... What's the banal period?
00:25:13
Speaker
Well, correct me again if I'm wrong, but in my mind, I guess it's somewhere between about 1950 and 1975, 1980.
00:25:20
Speaker
Well, I mean, there's all that great architecture.
00:25:31
Speaker
I mean, look at all those fantastic modern houses like the Ames house and all the Neutra houses and all the
00:25:39
Speaker
There are a lot of great... Cranbrook, you know, there's... I guess Cranbrook's a little earlier, but there are a lot of great modern interiors being made in America, and there are less and less houses that are being made in the classical taste, and
00:26:01
Speaker
And the ones that are being built kind of look hollow.
00:26:04
Speaker
The classical tradition is not regularly practiced.
00:26:09
Speaker
They generally look... They don't look as good.
00:26:17
Speaker
I think there's some major decorative monuments in that period.
00:26:22
Speaker
But the low-end taste, not low-end, but the popular taste...
00:26:30
Speaker
because I guess there's so much of it.
00:26:32
Speaker
How many avocado green appliances can you look at or macrame plant hangers or all that stuff's having a revival because people didn't grow up with it.
00:26:45
Speaker
It looks sort of interesting and fresh.
00:26:47
Speaker
I haven't seen any avocado green appliances yet.
00:26:50
Speaker
But, God, that's a hard question.
00:26:56
Speaker
I don't,
00:26:58
Speaker
I don't know.
00:26:59
Speaker
I don't think we really know yet.
00:27:02
Speaker
But, I mean, there's a lot of 70s furniture is popular.
00:27:08
Speaker
I mean, the whole phenomenon of Palm Springs.
00:27:11
Speaker
Look at Palm Springs, how popular that is.
00:27:13
Speaker
And all that stuff is basically the dates we're talking about from after the Second War to the present.
00:27:19
Speaker
And it's full of modern houses.
00:27:22
Speaker
There's virtually no antiques in Palm Springs.
00:27:26
Speaker
And look how applauded that is.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's an interesting point.
00:27:31
Speaker
And there are some people that are sophisticated and possibly that do have some old things mixed in with their modern furniture.
00:27:39
Speaker
But I would say that's 5% or 10%.
00:27:43
Speaker
It's a resort and people tend to not want to have serious things in those houses.
00:27:54
Speaker
I just want to take a minute to say thank you for listening.
00:27:57
Speaker
I appreciate all your support.
00:27:58
Speaker
And if you want to help support the podcast, the easiest way is to leave a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.
00:28:07
Speaker
It just takes a second, and it really helps us to get the word out to new listeners.
00:28:11
Speaker
If you have comments or suggestions or ideas for new episodes and want to get in touch,
00:28:16
Speaker
You can reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest or on email at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
00:28:24
Speaker
Hope to hear from you soon.
00:28:26
Speaker
And don't forget to stay tuned after today's episode to hear an excerpt from the Object Podcast.
00:28:31
Speaker
This program is supported by The Object, the award-winning podcast from the Minneapolis Institute of Art, stories of art and artists throughout history told with style and wit.
00:28:40
Speaker
Discover the show that critics are calling a must-listen, and listeners are calling playful, thoughtful, and absolutely fascinating.
00:28:47
Speaker
From the cult of Frida Kahlo to the mystery of a lost Rembrandt, it's the museum as you've never heard it before.
00:28:54
Speaker
You can hear new episodes of The Object every month.
00:28:57
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by the Decorative Arts Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes and fosters the appreciation and study of the arts through partnerships, programs, and grants in support of graduate students and young professionals.
00:29:08
Speaker
For information about upcoming virtual events, including tours of Sabine Hall and Castle Hill,
00:29:14
Speaker
and in-person programs, including a symposium in Salem and the North Shore of Massachusetts, visit decorativeartstrust.org or follow the Trust on Facebook and Instagram.
00:29:26
Speaker
Their Instagram handle is at decorativeartstrust.
00:29:33
Speaker
So let's take another seemingly dominant trend, which comes in the years following that period with the arrival of mid-century modernism in America, which, you know, I mean, it really dominates the design world for a very long time.
00:29:53
Speaker
arguably up to the present.
00:29:55
Speaker
I mean, you mentioned design within reach, certainly the IKEA aesthetic is highly prevalent.
00:30:03
Speaker
I mean, why is that?
00:30:04
Speaker
Why has mid-century modernism, even if you could argue maybe that it's starting to lose some purchase now, but it's been well over a generation now that mid-century modernism has sort of taken the
00:30:23
Speaker
the leading role in popular American conceptions of interiors.
00:30:28
Speaker
Is that just because it fits easily into a white cube apartment?
00:30:34
Speaker
I think it's good to compare...
00:30:38
Speaker
Collecting reproduction Georgian furniture to make a house and collecting modern furniture to make a house.
00:30:46
Speaker
I think it was appealing.
00:30:47
Speaker
Both were appealing to people because they knew if they bought the formula, they'd have a good looking house.
00:30:55
Speaker
And so, I know countless people who picked out all their furniture from the Williamsburg craft house catalog and then bought it all and their houses look good.
00:31:09
Speaker
And the same with modern furniture.
00:31:11
Speaker
You picked out the modern stuff you wanted and it all went together and you got a pleasing interior.
00:31:16
Speaker
So I think that is, I think the formula, a successful formula for, you know, having a decent looking house are both, are both those styles.
00:31:29
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:31:29
Speaker
So you're, you're saying it has a lot to do with just sort of ease the ability for a normal person to create a good looking interior without too much work.
00:31:42
Speaker
Right.
00:31:43
Speaker
Well, it's fraught too, because people were not trained artistically like we once were.
00:31:50
Speaker
So middle class, you're not trained to make aesthetic decisions.
00:31:57
Speaker
We rarely teach art in school right now.
00:32:00
Speaker
You don't learn to mix colors or paint or arrange things or make things.
00:32:04
Speaker
So when you start to furnish your house, you're really at ground zero about how to do it.
Blending Antiques with Modern Design
00:32:10
Speaker
Especially if your parents were hippies, they probably didn't have decorated houses.
00:32:14
Speaker
So you do reach for some sort of formula that you're guaranteed some sort of success at.
00:32:24
Speaker
And I do think going and buying, collecting modern furniture from retail sources, you can make a pretty decent looking house.
00:32:32
Speaker
Will it really reflect your personality or be individual?
00:32:37
Speaker
No, but it will look good.
00:32:41
Speaker
I think that's where we differ.
00:32:43
Speaker
I always design a house so it functions.
00:32:49
Speaker
making sure that they're all the right pieces of furniture and furnishings are present in the floor plan so it works.
00:32:57
Speaker
And then it's choice of what goes in those places.
00:33:01
Speaker
And I always try to have some things that are old and some things that are new.
00:33:06
Speaker
And that's, it's like creating a collage or a sculpture, the objects have to interplay with each other.
00:33:14
Speaker
and look good.
00:33:15
Speaker
And this goes back to one of the classic combinations that we all have seen is the pair of Barcelona chairs by Muse van der Rohe and a Chinese cabinet.
00:33:29
Speaker
That's just such a classic example of old and new that we all know.
00:33:34
Speaker
And in a way, that's what we do every day is not so much the exact thing, but the idea of combining
00:33:42
Speaker
a modern thing with an old thing for pleasing effect.
00:33:47
Speaker
And also I do feel like antiques give you a lot more value in terms of decoration and quality than most new modern furniture.
00:33:57
Speaker
Well, so, yeah, I want to talk about this because, you know, it is it's sort of popular in some circles, at least these days, to talk about eclectic style and drawing things from different places and different periods and putting them together.
00:34:12
Speaker
But that's not the easiest thing to pull off for us mere mortals who aren't professional interior designers.
00:34:20
Speaker
Whereas your rooms, as you say, you often will bring in pieces that represent different decades, different centuries, different continents, even though Edith Wharton certainly frowned on that.
00:34:35
Speaker
So what's your magic for making that work?
00:34:42
Speaker
And what would you say to Edith Wharton if she criticized you for that?
00:34:48
Speaker
Well, I wrote my book with Ted Luce.
00:34:51
Speaker
He was my co-author, and he decided that Edith Wharton was vinegary.
00:34:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:00
Speaker
But, okay, so let's go back to the history of decoration.
00:35:05
Speaker
If you start in...
00:35:08
Speaker
Roman times, if you start in classic times, there's already a mixture of people adapting things from previous times and generations and using them in their houses.
00:35:20
Speaker
And by the 18th century, people are collecting antiquities to use as decoration.
00:35:28
Speaker
And so there's always this play of old and new in interiors.
00:35:33
Speaker
And when we get to the present,
00:35:38
Speaker
I find that there's always the best decoration is ancient and modern or old and new things.
00:35:45
Speaker
And that comes from historic tradition.
00:35:49
Speaker
Now, Edith Wharton, yeah, she wasn't, she didn't say that all the furniture had to be one style, but she said it had to harmonize.
00:36:05
Speaker
I do think that,
00:36:11
Speaker
I never really read her I never read Wharton as being it all had to be French or all had to be English but I think she wanted it all to be classical she eschewed the Rococo and the Victorian so that did get you down to neoclassicism and all of its forms but for us
00:36:41
Speaker
We have a broader, that's a big question.
00:36:46
Speaker
I think today, this is one of the things that I find really important.
00:36:52
Speaker
I wrote about this a couple of times when I wrote the book on influential American interiors and then in my own book, in my monograph, and then about, and to a certain degree in classical principles, and that is what is American decoration?
00:37:09
Speaker
And that was a big question.
00:37:11
Speaker
In fact, I asked Wendell Garrett, you know, the longtime editor of Antiques, and what is American decoration?
00:37:17
Speaker
And we had this long philosophical conversation about it.
00:37:20
Speaker
And it turns out that American decoration is a set of things, but it's not defined.
00:37:27
Speaker
It's comfort.
00:37:29
Speaker
It's functionality.
00:37:32
Speaker
It's...
00:37:36
Speaker
often times the simple use of materials in an artistic way.
00:37:42
Speaker
And the other thing we hit upon is in American decoration, you can pretty much decorate your house any way you want to, and no one will criticize you because that is what I call democratic decoration, meaning that there's no national standard on how your house should look.
00:37:58
Speaker
And that allows for a lot of invention and personal expression.
00:38:04
Speaker
And that's what allows us to use modern furniture, antique furniture, or a combination of modern furniture.
00:38:11
Speaker
We pretty much have carte blanche about how we mix it up.
00:38:14
Speaker
And that's what's genius about American decor.
00:38:18
Speaker
And I think that's what we've really run with at Jane Design Studio is the idea that you can pretty much have whatever you want.
00:38:25
Speaker
And it's how you arrange it to look handsome and beautiful.
00:38:29
Speaker
And what looks handsome and beautiful is to what suits your eye.
00:38:33
Speaker
And in fact, houses have become more and more private.
00:38:37
Speaker
So the only people that really see them are the people who live there.
00:38:42
Speaker
having parties at home, at least in New York, has become rarer and rarer.
00:38:49
Speaker
And so they're even more personal for that reason.
00:38:53
Speaker
You have no exterior expectations.
00:38:57
Speaker
And that's liberating in some ways.
00:38:59
Speaker
And also causes people not to decorate because there's really no value or return for it.
00:39:09
Speaker
how it all sorts out after this pandemic.
00:39:12
Speaker
And I think people might entertain more at home than before.
00:39:17
Speaker
And therefore they all need to redecorate.
00:39:20
Speaker
That was a little joke.
00:39:21
Speaker
Oh, well, I certainly feel that way.
00:39:25
Speaker
I mean, I have had small gatherings and look forward at some point in the, I hope not too distant future to having larger gatherings.
Practical Decorating Advice
00:39:35
Speaker
And I'm certainly feeling,
00:39:37
Speaker
motivated to rethink the space that I live in for my guests benefit, but also for mine.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:44
Speaker
And actually, you know, I wanted to ask, but before I let you go, if you could give me some practical advice, which who knows might be helpful to other listeners as well.
00:39:56
Speaker
But, you know, I'm I'm in my 30s and I live in a small rental apartment in Brooklyn.
00:40:03
Speaker
And I care about the space that I live in.
00:40:05
Speaker
And, you know, I want it to be comfortable and I want it to look good.
00:40:10
Speaker
But of course, you know, there are serious limits both to what I can afford and also what I can justify investing into a place that who knows how long I'll even live here.
00:40:21
Speaker
Right.
00:40:23
Speaker
So what do you think I should be prioritizing in terms of, you know, the objects that I'm investing in that I want to live with here?
00:40:30
Speaker
Well, it's
00:40:32
Speaker
I mean, there's this classic taste.
00:40:36
Speaker
The traditional or classic advice for people who are
00:40:50
Speaker
younger and setting up household is, you know, once you have your basic needs met, that each purchase or each addition be something you really love and is of good quality.
00:41:02
Speaker
And that is the path.
00:41:04
Speaker
And if you buy things you really like and that are well made, they'll help you furnish the house you're in and then eventually, you know, a larger house should you acquire one.
00:41:19
Speaker
But there's
00:41:21
Speaker
There's been a trend to just go buy whole sets, you know, whole, like go to, go to crate and barrel or go to some retail source and just buy the whole kit and then throw it out in five years.
00:41:33
Speaker
Um, which of course is horrible for the environment and is, is a terrible investment because you spent this large amount of money on stuff that you're only getting five years use out of.
00:41:45
Speaker
So really, if you can get to the point of buying things that will last your whole life,
00:41:50
Speaker
you're ahead of the game.
00:41:54
Speaker
And so that's my general advice is to buy things you love and buy the best quality.
00:42:00
Speaker
And rather than buy a lot, go slow and acquire things that are great.
00:42:07
Speaker
And it's pretty easy to buy beautiful things right now because the antiques market is...
00:42:12
Speaker
Really, a buyer's market, you can get really, really nice things for very little money.
00:42:18
Speaker
We buy countless objects now in the office that are under $500 that are really nice.
00:42:25
Speaker
So it's an exciting time, if you're interested in little things, to acquire them because you can buy the best quality for $500.
00:42:32
Speaker
for not much money.
00:42:34
Speaker
And if you are okay with some minor imperfection to get a beautiful object, you're even better off in terms of collecting.
00:42:43
Speaker
So I always just try to encourage people to buy the best they can afford and maybe not buy as much.
00:42:51
Speaker
As long as you have a place to sit and you have a dining table and chairs and a bed and maybe a comfortable place to sit, then from then on, it's additive.
00:43:03
Speaker
Everything else is gravy.
00:43:05
Speaker
Well, it's like collecting decorative arts and paintings that are the same.
00:43:12
Speaker
You buy something you love with the best quality and it grows and stays with you.
00:43:19
Speaker
Now,
00:43:20
Speaker
That's my general advice.
00:43:21
Speaker
But the other thing is to give yourself the freedom of changing your mind.
00:43:25
Speaker
You don't have to love everything you buy in your 20s when you're in your 30s.
00:43:29
Speaker
And you're bound to make some mistakes.
00:43:33
Speaker
And that's okay.
00:43:34
Speaker
And that's how your taste changes and matures.
00:43:38
Speaker
So don't be freaked out that you're buying something you have to live with for the rest of your life, but generally buy things with an eye to do the rest of your life, but also say, oh, well, I outgrew some specific taste and you can move on.
00:43:57
Speaker
There's impunity in that.
00:44:00
Speaker
So I can get rid of my crate and barrel dining table.
00:44:04
Speaker
You have a crate and barrel dining table?
00:44:07
Speaker
I'm afraid so.
00:44:09
Speaker
But look at it.
00:44:09
Speaker
Does it look good?
00:44:10
Speaker
Does it work?
00:44:11
Speaker
There's no crime in that.
00:44:13
Speaker
I thought it did about eight years ago.
00:44:15
Speaker
Not so much anymore.
00:44:17
Speaker
Well, then you got your use out of it, and maybe you can get an 18th century one very soon.
00:44:26
Speaker
You could, you know, for the price of it.
00:44:27
Speaker
You can buy.
00:44:28
Speaker
No, I know, I know.
00:44:29
Speaker
You can buy an 18th century dining table for the same price as the table at Crate and Barrel, which is crazy.
00:44:35
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:44:37
Speaker
Well, when I bought this, I guess it was more like 10 years ago, I hadn't been introduced to the wonderful world of antiques.
00:44:43
Speaker
So I didn't realize what a terrible opportunity I was wasting.
00:44:48
Speaker
Also, I work for an old line decorator named Albert Hadley, and we bought things everywhere.
00:44:54
Speaker
Crate and barrel is a great and reliable source.
00:44:59
Speaker
Sometimes restoration of hardware, certainly design within reach.
00:45:03
Speaker
Those are all good things.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's just how you put them into a mix that is what's telling.
00:45:11
Speaker
It's a lot like
00:45:14
Speaker
Something like fashion where you can go in and buy the whole outfit or you can buy parts of the outfit and combine it to make it your own taste.
00:45:23
Speaker
It's somewhat analogous to that.
00:45:29
Speaker
And all the advice literature about, all the advice now about fashion is to buy a few good pieces and save the environment and don't buy countless cheap t-shirts.
00:45:40
Speaker
And I think furniture follows that model too.
00:45:46
Speaker
Well, you're speaking my language, and I really appreciate that advice, and I hope listeners will find that helpful.
00:45:56
Speaker
The Declaration of Houses is really hard to read because it's so dense, but I encourage everyone to have a copy of it and read the chapters individually and backwards and forwards, and you can use my book as a concordance if you want, but I think if you take that on,
00:46:15
Speaker
you'll have a really nice understanding of traditional decoration and design that will inform all your design decisions for really your lifetime because it's a point of reference.
00:46:29
Speaker
It's not that everything in there is what you want to do, but at least you have it as a baseline.
00:46:33
Speaker
It's like any advice, you know, you know, or any advice or vocabulary.
00:46:40
Speaker
You learn the vocabulary, you learn the advice, and then you play it against your own life and what works for you.
00:46:47
Speaker
And I think that's really what I'm...
00:46:50
Speaker
A summary of what I think is that we know the rules, we know all about classicism, we know about historic decoration, but we make contemporary rooms for modern people.
00:47:01
Speaker
And that means sometimes it's doing things differently, but we know what it's based on.
00:47:06
Speaker
And that's what I think makes the best decoration for today.
00:47:12
Speaker
Well, I think that's a great note to end on.
00:47:16
Speaker
Thomas Jane, thank you so much.
00:47:17
Speaker
Thank you.
00:47:18
Speaker
It was fun.
00:47:22
Speaker
That's our show for today.
00:47:23
Speaker
Thanks for listening.
00:47:24
Speaker
Now stick around to hear a snippet of the object podcast.
00:47:27
Speaker
You can find the full episode on SoundCloud or Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
00:47:36
Speaker
On the 13th of December in 1815, the emperor of the Austrian empire floats across Venice standing on a seashell.
00:47:47
Speaker
naked except for a robe he's holding rather loosely over his body as though someone in the crowd has thrown it to him like dude put this on his name is francis i and he has four gilded bronze horses with him which he will take to the basilica of saint mark's the ancient church with the bell tower and pigeons
00:48:12
Speaker
where the horses still are today, one of the most famous symbols of Venice.
00:48:19
Speaker
And then, presumably, Francis would ascend to heaven on his nautical chariot.
00:48:25
Speaker
Look what I did, you mortals.
00:48:34
Speaker
Well, that's how the scene is depicted anyway, in an engraving from the time.
00:48:40
Speaker
What really happens, if you want to be all factual about it, is that the four bronze horses arrive on a raft, pulled around the east end of Venice,
00:48:50
Speaker
And when they come to the little plaza by the Basilica of St.
00:48:54
Speaker
Mark's, they're unloaded and pulled through ranks of soldiers toward the church, and the soldiers haul them atop the balcony, a loggia over the entrance, to the sound of gun salutes and cannon fire.
00:49:10
Speaker
It's a big deal because the horses had been taken by Napoleon 18 years earlier in 1797.
00:49:18
Speaker
And now, with the dictator's defeat, the symbols of Venice have come back.
00:49:25
Speaker
No thanks, really, to Francis.
00:49:30
Speaker
But whatever.
00:49:32
Speaker
Over the next few decades, tourists come to see the horses and artists paint them.
00:49:37
Speaker
And they become, like so much of Venice, something that seems to have always been there.
00:49:44
Speaker
Until, in the 1870s, Charles Carl Coleman, an American, decides to paint a picture of them.
00:49:53
Speaker
Coleman goes up to the balcony and paints not just the four bronze horses, but the balcony itself.
00:50:02
Speaker
And in his picture he puts some chunks of decorative marble and bits of broken columns of one ancient origin or another lying around the balcony.
00:50:13
Speaker
And he shows how the columns supporting the horse's feet are each a little different, taken from here and there.
00:50:22
Speaker
As if to say, these horses, like himself, are not from around here.
00:50:30
Speaker
And he's right.
00:50:37
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
00:50:41
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit, and I'm Ben Miller.