THOMAS HOPE, REGENCY DESIGNER: VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON


THOMAS HOPE, REGENCY DESIGNER: VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON

 Thomas Hope (1769-1831), eminent Regency period designer and visionary, is given a makeover at the V & A Museum. What's interesting about Hope giving his life and work a very modern inflection is his eclecticism, travels through the former Ottoman Empire, willingness to experiment, to create fusions and juxtapositions of the different cultures that captivated him. In this sense his work is thoroughly Post-Modern (but Post-Modernism seems also to be so retrograde). Recreations of his travels, rooms at Duchess Street off Portland Place, London and mansion at Deepdene, Surrey complement this exhibition.

Hope is portrayed at the entrance to the exhibition in Ottoman gear. Themes of exoticism and orientalism are entwined in his design, something that had begun to surface in Europe as a fashion or fad at this time. For instance, in Mozart's opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail the Turkish harem depicts Eurocentric attitudes (to love, sexuality and honour). Obviously Hope's portrayal of himself as an Oriental tells us something important about Hope, his life and work, his position in society, his attitudes to culture and difference. Hope’s origins were in Holland not England, (born in Amsterdam in 1769) offering us a clue to his cosmopolitanism, eclecticism, willingness to expose himself to the foreign and alien at a time when most British people were ignorant about Turkey. Hope wanted to embrace the Orient, to imply that he was a person who could simultaneously occupy two entirely different, in many senses mutually incompatible cultures.

 A series of intricate sketches depict Hope's travels through Turkey, Egypt and the Levant. These are unbelievably detailed, beautiful pieces that might qualify (but not quite) as art. They are the work of Hope, a highly skilled draftsman, creating translucent sketches, allowing us a glimpse of the Ottoman Empire at its height (and not as it latterly became 'the sick man of Europe').

 Entire rooms from Hope’s London residence at Duchess Street are reconstructed, such as the Aurora Room with black felt edged mirrors draped with black and orange silk. Furniture evinces an eclectic mix of Classicism, modern Islamic design and, oddly, ancient Egyptian. Hope is clearly predicting Post-Modernism. It’s also clear that his furniture is better and sturdier than that made today. Deepdene is reconstructed, but only as a model, since it was knocked down sometime ago. It seems to have been the centrepiece of Hope's achievement. Some of its beauty is reconstructed through Hope's sketches.

 I take it that some of Hope's unenlightened contemporaries would have seen something unchristian in his hankering after the Orient. Indeed the rooms from Duchess Street remind one of the sets from a film like Roger Corman's 'Masque of the Red Death' and one can almost imagine Duchess Street as a demi-Hell or Pandemonium replete with Ra, Set, Beelzebub, Baal or Anubis. Another interesting issue is: why was Deepdene, Hope's estate in Surrey, demolished?

Of course, in his day Hope rivalled Byron with his novel Anastasius. In fact Byron envied Hope, even though that novel perhaps failed to possess the imaginative vigour or whatever (I haven't read it nor have I ever seen a copy on sale anywhere). Byron was also interested in the Orient and is depicted in Oriental garb, turban etc in a very famous, heroic and possibly quintessentially romantic portrait, one that is today very famous whereas Hope's is not.

 This exhibition is exceptionally well constructed, structured and offers us a fascinating insight into the era when modern interior design was created.

 Paul Murphy, London

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