THE INFLUENCE OF ITALIAN ART AND DESIGN IN SIAM ORNAMENT AND DECORATIVE ART IN A.D. 1876-1932 (A SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS)

Abstract

This research is a study about the signification of Siam ornaments and decorative arts between A.D. 1876-1932 on western buildings as a “cultural object study” by the structuralism semiotics approach. The criteria analytic to access the knowledge via the theory of an educational system from the essence contents of decorative arts structuralism in Thai society during the western influenced had important roles in setting and creating this change of modernity as civilization perception in term of aesthetic of decorative intellection. This research is a qualitative research. The analysis, synthesis and discourse of the thought structural system was determined to study in the Siam western buildings that were built between A.D.1876-1932. It aims to study western buildings as a kind of material, not only creating beauty to the society, but also having the signification of a key reflection of the mindset, which helps illustrate the cognitive development of Siam decorative arts, and key variations to the definite Siamese elite’s characteristic decoration. The semiotic approach that highlighted the value of mind set while growing up under the cognition process of the Siamese elite’s imprint for finding the motif and the criteria of the Siam elite decoration, which was the core of Thai decorative aesthetic fundamental in the period of the multicultural study. True denoted meaning originated from the design itself, not from the interpretation or connoted meaning by the human. Thus, the relationships of all the signifiers within the structure of the western buildings had a significance and reason; the design composition is explained in its own truth, which could be significantly understood through the semiotic structuralism discourse. Nevertheless, the outcome of the study is the body of knowledge of Neo-Siam decorative arts paradigm and the manual for decoding is signified in the Italian and elite’s ornaments and decorative arts.