{"id":7665,"date":"2026-07-24T14:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T04:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=7665"},"modified":"2026-07-24T14:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T04:41:09","slug":"the-bible-of-british-taste-by-ruth-guilding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=7665","title":{"rendered":"THE BIBLE OF BRITISH TASTE by Ruth Guilding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>…the uncommonly astute author Rachel Cusk tore away another veil for me in her essay ‘Making Home’, describing our houses as a loci of tension and considered design, simultaneously looked at and lived in. She examines our psychological compulsion to make living spaces that reflect us back to ourselves and others – mirages of confected perfection or careless authenticity – and the kudos, pleasure or insecurities from these acts of making as the texts on which we inscribe our dreams and personal mythologies. Reading this, I recognised the subconscious bat squeaks of envy, anxiety and pride that I’ve been half-listening to for much of my grown-up life. Like Cusk, I am fascinated by the stage sets in which we enact ‘home’ ( so-called ‘real homes’, not those made by professional designers), and like her I think this is a subject worthy of examination and\u00a0 appreciation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I thought this book was going to be a history of British interiors, and therefore useful for research. Instead, it’s a generously illustrated, very enjoyable, extended sticky-beak into a whole lot of private British homes. Some are artistically dishevelled or even a little slovenly (unmade bed! clutter! leads and cords not tidied away!), some are beautifully curated and arranged, but all look as if interesting people live there. I grew up in a house with old furniture (a few antiques but mostly just old), the creative clutter of my artist father, lots of books, paintings, ornaments and objects, and a distinct lack of vinyl couches and Laminex benchtops. Some of my little friends thought our house was a bit weird, and I became rather ashamed of it. How I envied them, with their modern houses and modern stuff. I think Ruth Guilding could have had a great time snapping pictures at our place.<\/p>\n

There are lots of lovely pictures, and an introduction featuring a trio of ‘great British tastemakers’. They are William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts movement; the artistic and literary Bloomsbury group; and another group Guilding calls ‘the Spitalsfield Fogeys’, after the people who rescued and restored decaying Georgian buildings in the London suburb of Spitalsfield in the 1970’s and ’80’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…the uncommonly astute author Rachel Cusk tore away another veil for me in her essay ‘Making Home’, describing our houses as a loci of tension and considered design, simultaneously looked at and lived in. She examines our psychological compulsion to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7669,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7665\/revisions\/7669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}