Exhibiting the Exotic
Bois des ÎlesIn the 1900 edition of Revue des arts décoratifs, Gallé published an open letter explaining his ideas about modern art. Gallé viewed furniture up until this point as “repeating the themes of the past.”[1] He appeared frustrated with the state of education for cabinetmakers, who seemed only to be trained in imitating designs by their predecessors. Gallé posed the question, “What, then, should modern furniture be?”[2] For Gallé, for furniture to be modern, it must have been designed by a modern person; it must have been logically constructed for a practical purpose; and it must be inspired by natural materials and motifs, rather than by pre-existing furniture designs. Gallé believed that in order to be truly modern, art had to be inventive, a “regeneration” inspired by nature. Thus, in Gallé’s mind, his modern furniture, inspired by nature both had a purpose and was a work of art.
While Gallé did not explicitly address his contributions to the Exposition Universelle in this letter, its themes and content serve as a manual for how to consider his displays, complete with images for the reader to reference (Figures 23-25). In particular, his invocation of the regenerative possibilities of “nature” for modern furniture design dovetails with the way that he foregrounded bois des îles, and the connections of these objects to the colonial displays nearby. This “nature” that inspired Gallé, as well as the “raw” materials that he was using to create his furniture, were already marked by an indelible facet of modernity: colonialism.[3] As we have seen, increased availability of woods from France’s colonies allowed designers like Gallé to experiment with their material and formal properties, taking inspiration from these woods in new ways. Bois des îles could thus potentially solve the problem of stagnation in the French furniture market, ultimately bolstering the national economy in ways that the colonial trade already was doing. By closely examining the style and materials that Gallé employed in his bois des îles, we can illuminate the unspoken connections between his use of “nature” and French colonial ideology.
Figure 23: Contemporary photograph of Émile Gallé, Les Ombellules, 1900. From Émile Gallé, ” Les Essais d’Art Moderne Dans la Décoration Intérieure,” Revue des Arts Décoratifs (1900), 289.
Figure 24: Contemporary photograph of Émile Gallé, Orchidées Lorraines, Bureau, 1900. From Émile Gallé, ” Les Essais d’Art Moderne Dans la Décoration Intérieure,” Revue des Arts Décoratifs (1900), 289.
Figure 25: Contemporary photograph of Émile Gallé, Guéridon Sagittaire, 1900. From Émile Gallé, ” Les Essais d’Art Moderne Dans la Décoration Intérieure,” Revue des Arts Décoratifs (1900), 290.