Eastlake Style

Charles Eastlake, (1836-1906) was an architect and designer who greatly influenced popular taste in the decorative arts in England and America. In his best-seller, Hints on Household Taste, he advocated fine workmanship and decoration in which form and ornament follow function. He was one of the forerunners of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Eastlake reacted against the rococo Victorian style and the decline in quality brought by mass-production. In architecture and in furniture, he favored turned spindles, finials and gilt-incised geometric surface decoration. These decorations can be seen on some of the Victorian houses in the area. The photographs below show Eastlake architectural details on a house in Salem.

In book art, Eastlake endpapers feature rigidly stylized, geometric or wheel-like flowers. The covers are usually black- stamped and decorated with his characteristic ornaments: abstract geometric patterns, curlicues, arabesques, wheels and stylized flowers. His most idiomatic decoration is a thin line ending in a stylized leaf. After seeing several of these covers, it is easy and fun to pick them out by their spines when walking down the Athenæum’s aisles of older books.

Examples of Eastlake floral-patterned endpapers