The English tradition
Gimson's designs were rooted in his early enthusiasm for seventeenth- and
early eighteenth-century work. He did not copy old work but incorporated elements of designs or techniques into his pieces where appropriate.
Most of his furniture designs were based on a traditional frame-and-panel construction. The surfaces were sometimes left completely plain giving the furniture a very modernist look with a four-square outline and flat planes. A rich surface texture was often provided by the wood itself – quartered oak, walnut, Cuban mahogany, and burred veneers – often in combination with the metal handles to Gimson’s design. Other pieces were designed to emphasise cabinet making skills with single or double fielded panels. By about 1910 the use of an octagonal fielded panel within a square one became a feature of Cotswold furniture by Gimson and Sidney Barnsley.
For finer furniture, he began using walnut, a native wood which was the mainstay of earlier cabinet work. Its susceptibility to woodworm and damage to trees following the savage winter of 1709 explained its unpopularity in the nineteenth century. By the end of the century walnut was readily available once again; the attractive grain and the rich colouring of the timber suited the simplicity of Gimson’s designs.
He included decorative details such as inlaid stringing in contrasting woods - usually holly and ebony - into some of his designs. This was a popular decorative motif on sixteenth-century English and Dutch chests picked up by a number of Arts and Crafts designers. It was traditionally used about 15mm wide inlaid into the edges of the furniture. Gimson refined the width down to between 5 to 7mm and inlaid it a similar distance from the edges providing a more elegant and refined emphasis to the simple lines of his furniture.
Because plaster was inherently a soft and malleable material, he believed that there should be no hard edges or deep undercutting in his designs and instead concentrated on fine modelling and soft shadow effects. He looked to old plasterwork in medieval and sixteenth-century houses for inspiration rather than the three-dimensional work used in Victorian building.