Art Deco was the perfect expression of the salons at Paris during the 20’s to the 30’s. It embraced every area of design and the decorative arts including architecture, interiors, furniture, jewellery, painting and graphics, bookbinding, costume, glass and ceramics. Art Deco was about integrating contemporary living with art, and turning life into art, against those consciously working for the undoing of art and its purpose was enjoyment.

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An evening of traditional elegance, say at the White House or Government House Australia, still requires a perfection of planning and wise organisation so that it appears not to be contrived at all.

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If beauty was accompanied by intelligence those who used both attributes skilfully seemed to have been the most successful. Fifteenth century beauty Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was considered an ‘ardent feminist sure of her own worth – and a child of her time’. She had all the attributes, plus a strong will and a great strength of purpose. These were both very necessary skills for survival in the world of political intrigue that surrounded the court of the last medieval and first Renaissance King of France Francois I whose court was the envy of Europe.

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The Culture Concept Circle’s comprehensive course of study the Evolution of Art, Design & Style contains sumptuous imagery and beautiful music. The course traces humankind’s journey from antiquity to the modern age by surveying the evolution of painting, sculpture, architecture, interiors, gardens, music and much much more. It includes the intimate world of the fashionable [...]

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This is the starting segment for our course of study the evolution of western art, design, style and culture antiquity until today. It is surveyed in chronological order from antiquity to the contemporary age with respect to intellectual and philosophical ideas, other cultural influences and social change.

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Writer, philosopher and musical theorist from Geneva (now the capital of Switzerland) Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) believed beauty had a common source in ‘well ordered nature’ and that ‘taste is perfected with the same means as wisdom’…and what ‘must be done therefore…is…to cultivate taste.

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The Culture Concept Circle is a friendly meeting place for those with an interest in the arts (performance and visual), design history and the continuing development of a sustainable and creative society. It’s all about art, design and style past, present and future. Hundreds of FREE posts are published on our site. They can be [...]

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Collecting antiques is a social phenomenon, often misrepresented as being the hobby of only a select few. From my experience working in the trade, perusing galleries, working at and attending fairs and auctions over a long period of time (some 30 years) collecting antiques is a pleasure indulged in by a vast number of people from very different backgrounds and all walks of life.

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Gardens throughout Europe and England in the C17 required that their designers, apart from an extensive knowledge of plant material, were also skilled at engineering and aesthetics.

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It was very interesting to discover that the cover story in the A2 Section (Culture and Life) of the The Age Newspaper on Saturday October 16, 2010  here in Melbourne was about Brisbane. The headline read  ‘Forget Melbourne vs Sydney. Is Brisbane our new cultural capital’? The byline added ‘Brisbane’s startling cultural renaissance has Melbourne’s [...]

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On the verge of a temperate Sydney Spring, Martyn Cook (Antiques) and Thomas Hamel (Design) last night (August 31) gave family, friends and colleagues a real treat, a preview glimpse of the splendid new decorative arts gallery venture they have embarked on together, which will open to everyone very soon. A line up of limousines [...]

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Residence splendidly showcases the ability of Sydney based international designer Thomas Hamel to produce an interior that accommodates the needs of the client in a timelessly elegant and unforgettable way. This beautiful illustrated volume provides an insight into some of his favourite projects. Chapters are accompanied by a description of the design process used in each transformation

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There are some in our society who are blessed with great creative gifts. Imagination is surely one, however it is one thing to have the ability to form images and ideas in the mind, especially of things never seen or never experienced directly, but quite another to connect those to the totality of real things in the world in order to convey knowledge or influence our perception of them.

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