Chinese Wallpaper

In England modern taste was more often expressed by decorators than by architects. Thus interior decoration is the context in which new trends in art are absorbed and understood. A difficult concept which is visually expressed (this includes cubism, abstraction, and surrealism) can be and, if it is genuinely expressive of the moment, will be, reinterpreted as fashion and decor. The interface between interior decoration and fine art is further complicated between the wars by the number of artists who worked as designers. Women who needed to earn money tended to practise the applied and decorative arts, out of genuine affinity, or realism, or a combination of both. Undiluted modernism was very rare in England. Smart style was eclectic: baroque elements (e.g. Venetian mirrors, blackamoor torchères) were put together with eighteenth-century furniture and modern pictures.