BEAUTY AND MORALITY AS FEMALE VALUES IN THE VICTORIAN MIDDLE CLASS INTERIOR DECORATION (1837-1901

Abstract

The emergence of the devout, solemn, moral but also hypocritical, stiff and narrow-minded middle-class in Great Britain's social tissue during the Industrial Revolution (Murfin, 2003: 496), and women, inferior both socially and economically to men, but, at the same time, very dynamic in their household realm, formed the basis for the new reading of the concepts of beauty, elegance, and morality to the new order set by the Victorian ethics. Home, the sacred place of the Victorians, was treated carefully both in terms of interior design, and the utilitarian / decorative items that were therein. This was directly related not only to the new, fundamental meaning the concept of privacy acquired in general, according to which the house itself should be the "˜temple of the Victorian family', but also to the fact that many of the new middle class members aspired to appertain to the ranks of the nobles, copying not only their lifestyle, but also their expensive taste. The following research aims to identify the role of women in shaping the Victorian interiors, but also to find relevant identifications of their personalities with the most 'domestic' and at the same time, private, concepts of the time such as beauty and morality.