"Victorian" may mean "fussy" to some, but as this book shows, it's all in the proportions. The rooms shown here are delightfully unfussy, instead warm and inviting--the polished wood gleams, the Persian carpets glow with faded splendor, and the view from the white wicker-furnished veranda goes on for miles. The text explains how the Victorian era fostered several style reforms: the midcentury Gothic and rococo revivals, the aesthetic movement of the 1880s, and Art Nouveau. There's plenty of interesting reading here for a social-history buff, lots of interiors to delivately swoon over (such as the dining room with "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam today" stenciled on the walls), and a large section of tips for adding Victorian style to a modern home without compromising its integrity. -- amazon.com
|