PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Historic types of wallpaper and decorative schemes of interiors
Spectacularly illusionistic papers imitating drapery expressed a
taste which emerged at the end of the 18th century and lasted
until the 1830s. 104 (Fig. 23) The architectural features continued
to include semi-detached columns. The dado persisted, although
it gradually dropped from fashion. 105
Since the interiors of new flats were left rather plain, wallpaper
manufacturers had a great opportunity to provide the
market with a large number of decorations, such as patterned
wallpapers, architectural borders and ornaments, panoramic
wallpapers and decór-complets, which aimed to replace actual
wall paintings, stucco and wood-carving.
By the end of the 18th century travel had become an important
part of young people’s education. Now not only young noblemen
undertook the Grand Tour, but also scholars, artists, writers and
the middle class generally. The intensified emphasis on travel, in
turn, increased the sales of landscape paintings, drawings and
especially engravings. A type of landscape painting, panorama,
brought a new quality to the creation and demonstration of views.
(Fig. 24) In addition, it offered a perfect alternative to visiting
unreachable distant places and extreme situations; it also enabled
people to escape from their everyday routines, at a time when
only very few people could afford real travel. 106 At the beginning
of the 19th century the term “panorama” had acquired a wider
meaning and had become a fashionable word of sorts, denoting
not only a circular painting, but also a general view, an overview
in a broader sense 107 or even a type of wallpaper.
Panoramic wallpapers depict a continuous landscape without
any repetition of scenes or of motifs, printed on a series of paper
pieces that join up one with another. They were designed to cover
all the walls of a room in a house, at a price that was not prohibitive,
with the aim of creating “a distinctive atmosphere”. 108
104
Jacqué, “Luxury Perfected:...”, 66.
105
Blakemore, History of Interior Design and Furniture, 315.
106
Moonika Teemus, Reisides toas : pano-, kosmo- ja dioraamadest Tallinnas ja Tartus
(1826–1850) (Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus / Greif, 2005), 104–105.
107
Ibid., 105.
108
Odile Nouvel-Kammerer, “Wide Horizons: French Scenic Papers” in The Papered Wall.
The History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper, ed. Lesley Hoskins (London:
Thames and Hudson Ltd., 2005), 95.
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