Twee chaise longues 1895

Curator: These are darling, aren’t they? This is a lithograph titled "Twee chaise longues" from 1895 by Léon Laroche, showcasing designs for, well, twee chaise lounges. Editor: "Twee" is spot on! I'm immediately struck by their… reserved decadence. The pastels and floral patterns, balanced by the quite rigid geometric shapes of the bases, gives it that feeling, right? It's as if luxury is peeking through a lace curtain, timidly. Curator: I agree completely. This print offers insight into the aspirations of the rising bourgeoisie. The furniture, conceived during the height of the Art Nouveau movement, suggests a longing for the leisurely lives of the aristocracy but reinterpreted with new aesthetic values. The mass production of furniture designs like this democratized luxury in a way. Editor: It’s interesting how you call attention to its political relevance, how it shapes, reflects, and it caters to the zeitgeist of its period. It feels very distant from modern conceptions of ‘good design’, even though, perhaps, the seed of our design was planted with these pieces of furniture. How can you produce for the masses without being crude? Curator: Indeed! It’s about conveying a sense of gentility and refinement and producing objects of that quality at large scale. Notice the contrast between the crisp lines of the furniture’s structure and the playful drape of the skirting. Each chaise longue feels both functional and a touch whimsical. One imagines ladies in their parlors discussing literature in one, or, perhaps, recovering from a dramatic fainting spell in the other! Editor: Absolutely! I get a sense of restricted bodies and overly constrained behavior. So… What remains of that, nowadays? Do these furniture pieces retain its appeal as signifiers of leisure? Does the political message has been blurred, only to remain as an antique visual artifact? Curator: Those are excellent questions! These prints remind us that taste, and indeed art, is never formed in a vacuum. It is formed within very real, societal pressures. In a time where, arguably, "luxury" seems quite vulgar, there is a nostalgic value for these pieces. Editor: Thanks to this conversation, what was just an elegant artifact from another century is now more vividly painted in my imagination, as a symbol of social pressures, a glimpse of bygone aesthetics, a cultural timestamp and, hopefully, as an appeal for today’s gentler, though politically engaged, taste.