Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

THE DIRECTORY, 1795-99
The Directoire exécutif, or Directory, was a body of five directors
that held executive power in France from 2 November 1795 until
10 November 1799, following the end of the Reign of Terror.
The republican ideals of the Directory found expression in
contemporary design, encouraged by a renewed interest in
domestic decoration facilitated by a return to relative political calm.
A product of the Neoclassical style in vogue under Louis XVI, the
Directoire style continued to draw its inspiration from the art and
architecture of the Classical Greek and Roman worlds, with their
associations of democracy and republicanism, but a new sobriety
was evident.
The range of furniture forms was reduced and decoration
simplified. The use of ormolu mounts declined, and plain expanses
of unadorned veneer proliferated. While local woods were
sometimes employed, often painted, there was a revival of interest
in imported hardwoods such as mahogany, continuing a fashion
apparent in the final years of the ancien régime. Emblems like
the Phrygian cap, and the political slogans that had adorned
Revolutionary period objects, gave way to more neutral, classical
motifs, including vases, lozenges, rosettes and palmettes.
The ‘Etruscan style’, actually colonial Greek from southern Italy,
was highly influential. In the wake of Napoleon’s 1798 campaign
in Egypt, Egyptian motifs also joined the decorative vocabulary.
With the turmoil of the Terror at an end, Directory style reflected
a revival of luxury and elegance in interior design, mirroring the
renewal of elegant social life in the capital overseen by fashionable
women such as the future Josephine Bonaparte.
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