File:Arc_de_Triomphe,_Paris_5_February_2019.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Empire style
Sign in to saveAlso known as Empire
19th-century art movement and style of architecture and interior design
Empire style was a 19th-century movement in architecture and interior design that shaped how buildings and rooms were decorated during that era. It matters as a historical period that influenced how people designed their living spaces and public structures during an important time in cultural development.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
~14 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Empire style (French: style Empire [stil ɑ̃piʁ]) is an early–19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1799 and 1815 during the Consulate and the First French Empire periods, although its life span lasted until the late-1820s. From France it spread into much of Europe and the United States.
The Empire style originated in and takes its name from the rule of the Emperor Napoleon I in the First French Empire, when it was intended to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the French state. The previous fashionable style in France had been the Directoire style, a more austere and minimalist form of Neoclassicism that replaced the Louis XVI style, and the new Empire style brought a full return to ostentatious richness. The style corresponds somewhat to the Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Federal style in the United States, and the Regency style in Britain.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Empire style” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.