Indian theme is not new, as it may seem at first sight. Bright, motley colour of Indian interior with strange subjects and fabrics embroidered with gold involves any nature.
But exact reproduction of this style will be excessive for our mentality. It is better to borrow attracted details - they are quite organic in any interior.
Before passing to loan of details, let’s try to understand what direction to use. The basic motive - carving and patterns. Openwork woodcarving is extended in all India. It decorates windows, balconies, doors, sometimes ceilings and, of course, furniture. Symbols of Indian architecture - carved columns and figured arches. Many details in Indian interior anyhow tell us about the sun, which Indians worship to since ancient times. This is also a circle, symbolising a star, and straight lines dispersing in sides, reminding its beams, and bright stains designating its light.
Beams of not symbolical, but quite real sun are reflected in varnished surfaces. In India rich with various pitches, the technics of varnishing is highly developed. The most popular method - varnishing by colour, quickly drying varnishes of turned furniture elements. Other method - multilayered varnish drawing with scratching a picture on its surface like sgraffito.
In India they varnish not only furniture and walls, but also house accessories. It is clear that they were not limited to one method of varnishing. The most known among them - Nirmala. The name was received from a place of Nirmala in the Princedom Hyderabad about four hundred years ago. A varnish of black, red and gold colours is made of tamarind seed juice. Such varnish is used for products from papier-mache and soft breeds of wood. Usually these are trays, dishes, boxes and caskets, which are later painted with bright water colour paints and varnished again. Big lotus flowers, people, mythological characters, a copy of a portrait miniature and even fragments of lists of cave temples in Adzhante are pictured on them. An ornament of Kashmir varnishes - usually vegetative, very small, entirely covering a product surface. Varnishes of Orissa have, as a rule, red background with white “front sights”, and frescos represent legends about Krishna.
Window sari
Primary colours of Indian interior - turquoise, crimson and orange. But only on Hindustan peninsula they manage to give these colours unique shades. In India cotton fabrics are used since long ago- cotton grows in this country plenteously. The product of national creativity - heel-taps - cotton fabrics, on which multifigured scenes with images of musicians, dancers, animals, episodes from a country life are printed in wooden stamps. They are surprisingly bright, cheerful, decorative and picturesque. Indian silk is original not only in colour, but also in structure. It is little rough to the touch - not so smooth and slippery, as Chinese. Traditional lady’s wear - sari - cuts of fabrics in length of five-eight metres and width hundred ten centimetres are used in interior design. Indian women have been wearing them for already five centuries with grace. You can make two curtains of one silk sari or pick up two separate cuts, which can slightly differ from each other. Indian interior will not be full without colourful carpets with geometrical drawing. A pleasant bonus - they are cheaper than Persian or Turkish.
Furniture in Indian houses is low, cut manually from tic, nut or rosewood. It is functional and freakish simultaneously. Indian furniture is harmless: all stains and dyes are prepared on a vegetative basis, and natural wax is used for polishing and coverings. Its prominent feature - easy transformation. Stools and tables, screens, shutters and doors often exchange not only places, but also roles. For example, a smart carved door can easily become a table-top. Former elephant saddle or a vehicle-arba without wheels can be used instead of a coffee table. These freakish bagatelles are plentifully decorated, sometimes inlaid with camel bone or elephant ivory, riveted or bordered by metal strips, protecting wood from termites and damp climate. Typical Indian furniture - a stool with legs turned and covered with varnish and a wattled seat, a low couch with brocade pillows, a bedside table with considerable quantity of drawers.
Nested dolls from peninsula
Traditional attribute of an interior of the country of miracles - a screen. Maharaja’s apartments always had a screen, called to create cosy spaces in huge palace rooms. Today it is an active element of any interior executed in Indian style. Screens from tic with an openwork through carving. They are not polished to underline natural beauty of wood. Screens decorated with varnish colour miniatures with images of people, colours and fruits. Screens from polished wood with moderate carving and a strip of large drawing, inserts from metal in the form of stylised sun or flower. One more entertaining Indian bagatelle - a complete set from three little tables-stools of different height, which are put one under another. They occupy little space and look original. Usually such “nested doll” is designed in peculiar style - carving, added with incrustations from nacre and brass, or lacy magnificent carving.
Indian cases are very expressive. This reduced imitation of ancient originals precisely copies details of furnish and accessories of cases from Maharajas palaces. Heavy clothes from tic with doors reminding of ancient fortress gate, issued strips from nonferrous metals and cut out colours. A case for linen is a long box on four legs, decorated with carving and incrustation, with two small doors in the middle. Sideboards and buffets have convenient internal shelves.
Certainly, you cannot forget elephants. Together with them you can lodge figures of other animals appreciated in India - cows, horses and antelopes. They can be cut out from wood, made of papier-mache and fitted camel. According to ancient Indian customs, in ritual ceremonies they use bronze and copper ware - it is very decorative and pertinent not only in kitchen. One more ancient, and very fashionable detail of Indian interior today - a hookah. Best of them are made of glass and metal with leather hoses and carved mouthpieces. A chess table with figures of sandal-wood tree represents good company to a hookah. A bowl with floating candles and heads of colours, and the Indian aromas will finish a composition. You can start meditation.
