Illustration: Iranian decorative ceramic, 17th century.
Decoration in its many forms gives instant and gratifying visual pleasure. It is one of our oldest legacies and has been a firm and constant companion throughout our development as a species as well as the more specific creative aspects of our development. However, gratification works very much on a personal level, a pattern that stimulates one individual, leaves another indifferent. Although there are certain forms of decoration that please whole groups of individuals, many of these patterns are culturally linked, and it still does not mean that every individual within that shared culture can appreciate the sentiment of a particular pattern.
This is perhaps truer today than has ever been the case before. Our contemporary world is going through fundamental changes as far as the development of the individual is concerned. Traditional assumptions and social mores are being tested and questioned as the individual becomes more aware of choices that can be made in their life as independent of the group experience. These choices may well be as fundamental as to that of lifestyle, or as simple as that of choosing an interior environment in which to live. However, what is important is the encouragement of the individual to make choices that are independent of commercial pressure and the tricks of advertisers to coral individuals into specific and limited choices. Ultimately the choice to be an individual is the choice of the individual.
Decoration itself is an art form that seems genetically inherent to all humans. We have always embellished and added to, whether it be the simplest of clay pots and baskets, our interior spaces or indeed that of self-embellishment through elaborate hair styles, makeup and skin art. It seems extraordinary therefore that at least an element of the design world over the last century has consistently tried to disassociate and disentangle the obvious human pleasure in decoration from as many aspects of our lives as humanly possible.
To an extent, at least in the twentieth century Modernist movement, there was an underlying cultural, if not fully racist element in the movement towards the removal of decoration from the design world. Without getting into too many specifics particularly that involving individuals, there was a consistent belief amongst sections of Modernist thought that decoration was linked to what was erroneously termed 'primitive cultures', particularly those of non-European origin. It is perhaps puzzling and certainly hard to justify that a belief in the lack of embellishment and decoration placed a culture on a higher level than one that considered pattern to be an integral part of a finished product.
Most, if not all decoration is a human reflection of the external world. It is a creative interpretation of our relationship with our environment. Whether that is interpreted through realism or abstract geometry, colour or texture, large sweeping compositions or minute detail, it is a long-term personalised relationship between our existence and the experiences that that existence engenders with the world we inhabit. By denying that fundamental, almost visceral connection we rupture the relationship that we have built up over the countless generations with the natural environment. We forget the basic elements and constraints of life and start to create the shiny dissociative structures and cityscapes that have little if any real connection to the world of earth, sea and air, let alone any form of meaningful relationship with the framework of species that make up much of the planet.
By divorcing ourselves emotionally as well as intellectually from the expression of decoration, we condemn ourselves to an existence of denying our basic function as an animal species with the ability to creatively reflect the complexity of our relationship with our planet. The further we withdraw into our artificial construct of urban living the further we move away from our effect on the planet. Our present vacuum of existence often seems incapable of understanding the fundamental concept of cause and effect, with obvious potentially catastrophic results.
This is not to say that if we suddenly embrace decoration in our lives all human problems will be solved. However, by enjoying decoration on an emotional level and understanding what an important part it should play in our everyday lives and that of our home and work environment, we are allowing ourselves to daily reconnect with the unique relationship we have as a species and as an individual with our life and that of the planet. By removing the human wonder and constant delight in decoration we are emotionally shutting ourselves down and anesthetising our life experience.
Illustration: The ubiquitous plain white mug, 21st century.
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