Dollhouses and Miniatures: Dolls--Delight or Distraction?
There seem to be two camps in the miniatures world concerning whether or not to use miniature dolls in miniature room settings--the doll lovers, and the doll haters.
Now, this may sound extreme, but it is a true phenomena that I have observed during years of miniatures collecting. The doll lovers do not think a dollhouse or a roombox is complete without at least one doll in it--or, perhaps, many. They believe that dolls add life to a miniature setting. Some collectors spend considerable amounts of time trying to find realistic dolls in just the right poses, and with just the right expressions for their setting. In the minds of these collectors, the crowning touch for a store roombox would be the doll cashier ready to hit the cash register keys; for a Christmas morning scene, that touch would be doll children kneeling around the tree, ready to open their presents. Marcia Backstrom dolls are exquisite, lifelike dolls that would be perfect to inhabit the roomboxes of such collectors; you can see many of her dolls on display in roomboxes and dollhouses at the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures.
Others in the doll camp do NOT like their dolls so active and realistic, and they prefer a more historical use of dolls--doll-like dolls which are somewhat stiff, but nevertheless beautiful, in various rooms of their dollhouse. This harkens back to the historical use of dolls in the English baby houses of the late 16th century through the 1800s, and is popular with collectors who collect vintage and antique dollhouses, and with those who like to recreate the "feel" of such houses. Examples of more "dolly" like dolls include the dolls from Dear Dollies, Abigail's Fantasy, and Happiness Is Porcelain Dolls.
Those in the non-dolls camp are generally the miniaturists most concerned with accuracy and realism in their roomboxes and dollhouses. These are the miniaturists who take their calipers to make sure that the 18" vase they want reproduced on the living room table is exactly 1 1/2" tall in the roombox (using the most common scale, 1 inch = 1 foot). The miniaturists who make these types of rooms like their rooms to be such that if you photograph them, it is difficult for the viewer of the photograph to realize that the room is in miniature at all, because the scale is so-dead on! Of course, this illusion would be spoiled, in such miniaturists' eyes, by the addition of a doll, which, even if in the correct scale, can never appear "real" in this sort of room. For instance, the Thorne Rooms, which are miniature roomboxes exhibited in the Art Institute of Chicago, do not have dolls. These rooms are meant to showcase European and American decorative arts and architectural interiors, and for this type of room, dolls would be superfluous and out of place.
Personally, I fall firmly in the doll camp--I love dolls, and use both realistic dolls, and vintage-looking dolls in my serious miniature-oriented projects. However, I have been known to look at a roombox, and say: "No, this is perfect without a doll--I don't want to ruin the balance of this room!" So, I understand the non-dollers, and I think that there is plenty of room for BOTH camps where miniature projects are concerned!
Do you think there is a place for dolls in serious miniatures projects? Lets discuss it in the Dolls Forum!
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