Egyptian Influence on Design in Paris
How Pyramids and Obelisks of the Pharoah’s Ushered in Modern Design
Oct 5, 2009
Given to France by Egypt’s Mehemet Ali, it took three years to transport the approximately 250 ton granite edifice to this notorious site during the 1830’s. It replaced the guillotine that had efficiently separated heads from the bodies of France’s most prominent citizens and peasants alike. Memories of the Reign of Terror could be put aside as the blood of royals and peasants was no longer to mingle across the stones of her largest plaza.
A new era was celebrated with the erection of an exotic edifice that exemplified the glory of Napoléon Bonaparte and the opening of the western mind to worlds beyond its continent and culture. The Parisiennes may have been weary from their many years of political strife, but they did not sacrifice their deep love of beauty to the guillotine!
Napoleon’s France and Egyptomania
In The Essence of Style, Joan DeJean explains how eighteenth century Paris became the Western World’s center of design and taste. An honor and commodity held near and dear to the hearts and economy of this city. The strong hold of Parisian design on the western world could have made it difficult for the infiltration of outside design influences to integrate into their exalted style; instead it was a catalyst for change.
It may have been the lure of the exotic or revolutionary nostalgia that added to the appeal of visual representations from foreign lands. But, perhaps, it was simply the elegance of the design itself that spoke to them.
Although Napoléon ultimately failed to colonize Egypt during his attempt beginning in 1798, his extraordinary propaganda machine successfully captured the French interests. The expedition’s Commission of Arts and Sciences retinue of artists, writers and scientists used printing presses stationed between Europe and Cairo to send their illustrations, ideas and discoveries to their homeland.
From 1809 thought 1826 the official report of Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign (1798 - 1801) was published using engravings from the art produced, much of which has been published in Flammirion's Discovery of Egypt. Through their efforts, Egypt reached out to the souls and imaginations of the French artists, designers and architects alike.
From Orientalism to Art Deco
Baron Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747 – 1825), one of the 167 artists in the commission, was the first to publish his expedition art in a folio during 1802. In 1804 he was named the Director of the Musée Central de la République, (the museum that eventually became the Louvre) as well as the Sevres and Gobelin ceramic factories.
Egyptian designs became incorporated into many themes and through decades of trends in a multitude of arenas. Thanks to the French dominance in several industries such as pottery, Parisian’s were well prepared to translate their visual impressions of the land of the Pharaohs into creations that supported their expressly French nomenclature of design.
Ancient Egypt’s aesthetic suited the changes in culture that rejected royalty’s Rococo’s frivolous swirls for strong linear lines. From the Empire period, with its Greco-Roman influenced neoclassic elements preferred by Napoleon, and reaching its apex in the Art Deco period, hieroglyphs, Egyptian gods and architectural elements were presented in china, furniture, architecture and jewelry. From Cartier to Gaultier, the Egyptian design influence was pervasive and lasted far beyond the nineteenth century.
Although other regions of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire were expressed during the Orientalist movement, none were as mass produced by the French as those of Egypt. As James Stevens Curl notes in The Egyptian Revival, the Industrial Age brought on large scale manufacture, the rectilinear aspects of an Egyptian temple, pyramid or obelisk lent themselves easily to reproduction while providing an iconic representation of Imperialistic expansion so prevalent among the European powers at that time.
Egyptian design represented not only mysteries of a great past but the future of design. From a single obelisk to I.M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre, the French have embraced ancient Egypt. The drama of an independent solid granite sculpture shooting straight toward the sky inspired awe and reproduction.
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