The French Provincial Style
By Jean-Christophe Burckhardt
Maybe it is our love for the sunny and casual living that draws us to the French provincial style, being both earthy and convivial, it bring a relaxed elegance that fulfils our needs.
We increasingly look at our home environment to provide us with personal regeneration and stability.
 We also want to make sure we can provide an inviting setting for maximising the quality of time we have with our family and friends.
In trying to understand what makes the French provincial look, it helps to look at its history and multicultural influences.
The south of France, like most Mediterranean countries have a strong Islamic influence. Spain was one of the major Islamic centres in the world up to the early middle ages, so the Moorish influence in architecture, colours and even food is very strong.
The colourful tablecloths we associate with Provence are of Indian provenance, the fabric printing blocks were brought over from India and are still used to this day.
The Louis XV style furniture with its curves and carved motifs were from designs copied from the early explorers of China. They were fascinated with Chinese motifs, they called it Chinoiserie The proximity to Italy and the rest of Europe added further diverse influences.What gives this French provincial “feel” is this very eclectic and diverse approach. Within this diversity the individual and personal touch is paramount to making it “work”.
One of the things people are attracted to in this style is its personal and almost intimate quality. It is the elements of the past, of the “lived” and the “lived in”, that gives the “look”, so in order to recreate it, one needs to bring something of ones own past, maybe old wooden toys, as stack of loved old books, an old desk repainted, anything that is imbued with ones personal “colour”.
Without these personal touches the French style becomes another formula rather than an extension of our wish for a joyful and friendly home environment.
Another way we experience the personal and the “lived” in the French style is through the richness of textures, the old stones, the old renders, the ochre lime-washed walls, all this speaks to us of lived in feel where we feel connected to personal history of those around us.
 More so than ever we have a need to experience that we are part of a community, the old structures that reinforced our sense of belonging do not work for us anymore, nor do they allow us to express the sense of individuality we strive for.
This explains our need to recreate some of the romantic aspects of the past, though in an individualised and reframed context.
The aged and worn surfaces of an old French farmhouse table speaks to us through its visible history of wear, it shows to us the habits of where people before us sat, chopped food and rested their feet.
As we touch it and feel it, the waxed timber seems to resonate with the echo of all the lives that have touched it and lived around it. No metal and glass modern table can give us that sense of belonging.
The flat and hard manmade surfaces of modernity do not resonate with our instinctive response to our environment, they are born out of a conceptual drive, and while they satisfy our mind, we also need other aspects of who we are to be reflected in our environment.
We need a visual and tactile experience that gives us the feeling of being connected to a communal history, an organic heritage.
We need to have around us textures and colours that come out of what is embedded into our personal and cultural heritage.
That is where the rounded and sensual shapes of a cabriole leg on a provincial chair speaks to us, almost any line that could have been straight has been made into a shaped one, others are bent into something almost whimsical.
 The scalloped shape of a table apron, the asymmetrical design of a Louis XV sideboard door, all of these shapes, reflect and feed our familiarity with their organic, the plant and human shapes they reflect.
We somehow feel like we belong there, just like the origins of those designs come from elements that belong to us.
And my theory is that many elements of the French provincial style mirrors these lifestyle needs best. I believe that that is the reason for their popularity.
The love for these styles may be an instinctual response to wanting to bring more humanity, warmth, and sense of belonging in our lives.
Jean-Christophe Burckhardt is a designer specialising in the French provincial style,
He has designed a range of furniture for both domestic and commercial environments.
Jean-Christophe has also produced a one hour documentary called “Decorating in the French Style” available from his website.
See article on the DVD.
You can visit the website at www.christopheliving.com
Or contact Jean-Christophe Burckhardt at jc@christopheliving.com
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