After spending time in a beautiful place or gazing upon a beautiful thing, one carries away with himself a residual glow that only fades later. Upon leaving an old church, an art gallery, or a botanical garden, there lingers some contentment inside the viewer; he finds himself slightly elevated or purified. Gazing at the blaze of a sunset or the waning glow of a campfire always confers serenity and rectification to the observer. These things, in their purity, act medicinally on the viewer by first bestowing some small dose of grace, and by signifying and demanding some higher standard—they raise the bar, so to speak—as they exude a beauty which cannot help but be absorbed by those who draw near.
It only follows, then, that men have striven to beautify their surroundings: beauty begets goodness. And while there is much goodness to be imbibed from the grandeur of cathedrals or the manicured aisles of a garden in bloom, there was, not too long ago, a purposeful beauty built into many of the most mundane fixtures of daily life. Quite recently indeed, the most commonplace and unassuming objects still boasted an aesthetic dignity. Logically, when things needed to be made, they were crafted with diligence and panache, in keeping with the wisdom that a thing worth doing was worth doing right. Thus, if the existence of an object was necessitated by some function, the craftsmanship applied and the pursuit of the attractive led to a world filled with charming and thoughtful things. This was the logic by which things were designed, and it lends a distinct feel to everyday items of the recent past.
The ornamentation of the most modest objects made all the sense in the world if contact with the beautiful is regarded as therapeutic. First was the design itself: Iron balustrades twisted and contorted in elaborate displays, mimicking a meandering vine; cash registers gleamed and chimed, bedecked in their balmy brass and polished wood; baroque snuff boxes wore their meticulous engravings; train stations tantalized like palaces, with towering marble columns and liveried stewards; the humble telephone rested with sensually in its elegant curves; lacy Victorian lamp shades sat sumptuously atop their stands.
Second was the quality of the materials used; the very feel of the item’s substance; it was weighty with quality but florid in its refinement. Although this concept may be especially nuanced, there is an undeniable difference when contrasting objects from the past with their inferior modern successors. For instance, the delicate and refined nature of a wooden chair from the late 19th century stands in marked contrast to the clunky and industrial feel of modern furniture. The same might be said when considering the airy and ornate feel of a chest of drawers or writing desk from the same period as compared with one manufactured today.
The wooden components of old furniture just feel thinner, more deliberate, more unique in their individual variation and imperfections, and most of all, they exude the sense of care and love having been poured into their creation. Not that every item was actually meticulously honed by the loving hands of some artisan—of course not! Rather, the materials used, the techniques employed, and the vision of the designs were simply more oriented toward tactile pleasure and aesthetic beauty. In a word, they feel purposeful.
This idea is not limited to furniture. Things such as flatware, automobile components, clothing, perambulators, and especially, architecture, somehow feel more ‘real’ or ‘true’ to the thing which they are. In more philosophical terms, their essence seems authentically manifest in their material existence. Or to put it another way, their physical being seems worthy of their title of, say, chair. Consider the typical house built before the mid-20th century: The floors are often slightly uneven and planked in thin and variable boards of planed wood. The doors are light on their hinges and feel really and truly wooden. The knobs on these doors are slender but dense, likely made of actual brass—and they also more than likely feature an ornate design. The stairways in such houses are narrow; the thin steps themselves flex under the user and the banisters and balusters feel gracile, even brittle in the hand. In the bathrooms the tiling is small and complex; the sink is feminine and graceful porcelain; the faucets are small and delicate in the hand; this does not feel like industrial cleaning equipment; the clawfoot tub curves voluptuously, and the shower curtain is some tasteful floral print with genuine metal rings.
The contrast between this era and the average mass-produced suburban house or even the finest designer home could not be more apparent. Common objects today feel as if the resolution of the material world has been somehow dialed back: things are thick, bloated, simplistic, hyper-standardized, bulbous, and far too smoothed out. The edges are unrefined and chunky; the materials are composites, alloys, and plastics. Their forms are utilitarian, minimalist, and thoughtless. The world is, in a word, ugly! The colors are tasteless, the materials are palpably cheap, and their design is completely insipid. It’s as if all spirit has been drained from present-day objects. It’s as if the granularity and depth of the object as such has been smoothed away. Things seem to exist now, not for better or worse, but simply to impose themselves upon reality. Does the rustic appeal of an iron gate or the allure of a sleek black Remington typewriter need to justify itself? No! It earns its place by the virtue contained in its quality and its charm. The essence of a lacy parasol, an ornate oil lamp, or a cobblestone street is simply good; it improves the world by being a part of it; it serves its purpose by its functionality, and when it sits idle, it is still attractive. These ordinary things, when they are ubiquitous, mean that daily life itself is better for their having been part of it.
Therefore, if the spectator, the user, or the passerby can imbibe a dose of grace by virtue of the beautiful commonplace item, then a great lamentation is called for over the abject state of any modern city or household. One must sadly acknowledge the state of utter deprivation that the average man persists in when he passes through a world with no decoration or care put into its design or construction. Indeed, it may be lamented too, the degree to which our current societal ills are wrought by people who pass through a drab and sterile world, wherein there is nothing calling them to be better, no cause to treasure their possessions, no reason to take pride in their cities, and no sense in preserving these ordinary objects for their own sake. If the world is pretty, it tells man something about the world and his place in it; it confers a hopeful and reverent tone and demands that he do well to guard against decay, disorder, or pure industrialized pragmatism. However, if the world is ugly, it tells a man that he ought not even notice; he ought not bother to care; there’s nothing worth saving anyway. Civilization must secure its own persistence through beautification of the commonplace and the mundane, for in some sense, this is the substance of much of daily life; why ought it not dazzle us in passing?
