subject: The Beauty and Splendour of Damask Wallpaper [print this page] The Beauty and Splendour of Damask Wallpaper
Wallpaper is an aide, a tool that we use in our never-ending attempt to achieve dcor perfection in our most prized possession, our home. What better way to show how much our home means to us then by decorating our walls in beautiful damask wallpaper. Damask-style patterns can trace their original very far back in our history and even then, we as people were attempting to show off our most prized possession, our home. In earlier days, the use of damask-style decorating was used as a status symbol. People through history would show their claim to being in the upper-middle class with their ability to afford to decorate their homes in this, the latest fashion.
Now we have the ability to cross the class barriers imposed back in history and wallpapering in the damask-style print is affordable and available to all. To think that the custom of the elite-society in the middle-ages of hanging wall-hangings on the walls of castles of old is what helped to bring about the invention of wallpaper is amazing.
Wall hangings used to be considered only something that the rich had available to them for use in decorating their homes to add a bit of colour to their dreary castles. The middle class, of course, was unable to afford such extravagances so of course progress is always looking for new and better ways of achieving the desired affect and this brought us into the age of wallpaper. Damask is actually a style of design common in Italy and then it progressed through to France and Spain; eventually it made its way to England. These countries were noted for being incredibly competitive with each other all through history so it's no surprise that these countries would desire what the other has.
Wallpaper then and now was used as a tool to show of social status, to add colour. But there are many differences today in the wallpaper we now use and the first wallpaper. The first wallpaper was sometimes hung loosely on the walls, not pasted like the type of wallpaper we have today; this gave it more of the look of the wall hangings that they were trying to achieve. These earliest types of wallpaper were most often patterned to look like the scenes commonly found in the wall hangings that the wallpaper was made to duplicate.
So consider using the beauty and splendour of damask wallpaper in your decorating. The history of using wallpaper, damask-style is old. Most of the designs that you can find today have a great history behind them and can still be counted on to bring a touch of that historical beauty and splendour to your decorating. Not only will you end up with a beautiful room but you will be continuing the use of a pattern that may have been developed long ago that was used to show a peoples pride in the way their home looked. You can't go wrong with something that has been around so long and is so beloved.
