PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Historic types of wallpaper and decorative schemes of interiors
CONCLUSION
As a conclusion to the historical survey, although the long prevailing
modernist discourse considered wallpaper to be an
imitative material aping more luxurious materials, there are
numerous independent patterns and decorative schemes characteristic
only to paper wall covers. Wallpapers were either
integrated into a certain scheme made up of additional details,
such as dados, cornices and mouldings, or covered the whole
surface of walls. The development of various decorative schemes
was strongly connected to cultural and technical factors. It was
influenced by archaeological finds, wars, the exploration of
exotic countries and cultures, the discovery of new pigments,
urbanization, industrial means of production and changes in
social standards.
England, France and, starting in the second half of the 18th
century, Germany played a leading role in the technological and
artistic development of wallpaper. Although paper wall covers
were produced in various other countries, England and France
generated the main influential ideas, which spread throughout
the world. Due to close political, educational, cultural and family
relations to Germany and especially Prussia and its surrounding
area, ideas of interior decoration were familiar to Baltic-German
and Russian families living in Estonia. Since German decorators
sought to follow the ideas of English Neo-Classical architects at
the end of the 18th century and French fashion of the Empire
style during the early 19th century, fashions and means of decorating
walls from Central Europe also reached Estonia.
As revealed by the previous chapter, the use of wallpaper was
connected to the functions of rooms and to gender, education,
religious beliefs and social class. Due to the fast development of
and improvement in printing techniques, wallpaper gradually
became a more significant means of decoration. Although very
few early wallpapers have survived intact, numerous fragments
found in situ, memoirs and advertisements reveal that a wide
range of decorative papers were used in the 18th century. Fast
advances in industrialization and growing public demand for
cheaper products in the 19th century made wallpaper a popular
104