What is the Function of a Piece of Art?

And is interior styling an innate gift?

My new home came fully furnished. I mean, fully furnished. I have a jelly mold, two teapots (sing praise!), lamps that offer soft lighting options, and lots of paintings on the walls. It’s got me thinking about home-making; the small details, and the safety and comfort they offer.

The interior of this house is beautiful and considered and there is much to appreciate and enjoy. It is not a house that was bought to let out. It is a home that has seen generations of the same family. My landlady raised her children here, and I feel it. The space has a mother’s touch; a creative and thoughtful sense that I can only aspire to.

Is it a skill that some are born with or is it taught? Is it passed from mother to daughter, down the maternal line? Does it take years to hone?

Perhaps good design and a sense of style are simply innate in the population here, part and parcel of being Italian. I wouldn’t know. Personally, I come from a bloodline that paves over their gardens to provide an extra parking space. Function trumps beauty.

But beauty serves a function. I know it when I see it. It is deliciously unquantifiable.

Like the giant map of Italy here, that hangs next to the sofa in the corner of the dining room. I love it, and the visitors who have entered the house so far have all taken a moment to stand in front of it. “Here you are,” it says to me when I look at it, “and here are all the places near to you, and the places further from you, and all the different directions by which people could reach you”. I see the oceans too, and the tiny little islands there and I wonder about the people who live there and if they are friendly to outsiders.

On the other side of the dining room, there’s a poster for an exhibition. I can see it when I sit down to eat. L’incantesimo della pittura it says, the enchantment of painting. The exhibition dates are 7 December 2019 - 3 May 2020. They won’t have known, when they printed that poster that a nationwide lockdown would be imposed in the middle of the run. Who were they? The ones who arranged the dates and the ones who made the poster. I look at it as I eat lunch and I wonder about them.

There’s this strange piece too. It’s in relief. Horses with jousters upon their backs charge at each other with an audience and some medieval turrets in the background. My one-year-old son is drawn to it. He stands beneath it and squawks louder and louder until somebody lifts him up to get a proper look. Then he grins and points at it and says “uuh?” as if to ask “Do you get it now, now that I’ve brought you here? Do you understand why I wanted to get closer? Isn’t it great?”

I’m not sure if I even like the giant painting of a shoreline that hangs in the living room but it sparks thoughts nonetheless. Are the three children all hers? What are their age gaps? Is the boat coming or going, or at a standstill?

It has prompted conversation too, between my friend and me, on the subject of what time of day it depicts. We agreed it was probably daytime but maybe with a storm brewing.

The poppy field is my favourite in the house. It’s a Monet print, pinned directly into the wall above my daughter’s bed. Plump white clouds float across the blue sky. Full round trees line the horizon. Two sets of women and children wander through the colourful, poppy-strewn fields of grass. It looks like a nice way to spend an afternoon. The woman at the front is near the edge of the frame. If she were to step out there might just be space for me to step in and waltz along with my parasol hanging lazily to one side.

These are just the paintings. There are light fittings and painted floors too. There are painted doors and window frames. There’s a wooden fish in the bathroom with four hooks that allow four family members to hang four towels. They serve a purpose, these things. I can’t quite put my finger on it. They softly stop me in my tracks, for a moment of appreciation. They give me the opportunity to wonder, to imagine, to take a momentary rest from the almost ceaseless practical thoughts that bombard my mind. They bring me joy in a way I didn’t know I needed, from a place I didn’t know I would find it.

Maybe one day I will pull a home together myself. Until then (and hopefully even then) I absorb, I take note, I learn from those who have gone before me.