What Rapture!

Let’s not overthink it. The only aesthetically off-putting things are the symmetrical gold wall medallions/plaques, used the fill the negative space. The furniture, busts, paintings and frames all look perfectly fine. If it were fucking Versailles like you want to compare it to, he’d have $1mm+ to spend on craftsmen to custom gold leaf the walls/borders. I don’t think $1mm was spent on the walls of the Oval Office (a good thing). Probably looks better in person tbh. Still, remove those gold medallions and there would be no issue.

The replies to this person's tweet lack a nuanced understanding of aesthetics. Let me tell you why I don't think this room works. First, the gold decorations make the room look like an ersatz Versailles. Go to Getty Images and type in "Oval Office." Then zoom in on the gold decor. You'll notice that the lines are very blunted and muddied; they lack the sharp lines and fine detailing that you'd expect on something made by an artisan. Hence why some people have suggested these decorations are from Home Depot (true or not, that's the impression). You can see the difference between the first and second photos. The first, of course, is of the Oval Office; the second is the reception room from the Hotel de Cabris in France, which was made during the 18th century under the direction of Louis XVI. Even at this distance, the second image looks much better because it was designed and executed by artisans working within a coherent visual language. You can really see the crisp lines and detailing. Second, the White House was designed by James Hoban, an Irish architect who migrated to the US for economic opportunities (what a great American story!). He originally designed it in the Neoclassical style, drawing on Palladian and Georgian influences. Neoclassicalism was a reaction against the Rococo movement, which reactionaries saw as overly ornate and frivolous. A bit of gold used sparingly and strategically can look fine in a Neoclassical building, but the amount Trump used has so radically encrusted the room that it's now in Rococo territory, making it look like a mismatch of aesthetics. You can see an example of gilded Rococo architecture in the third slide. Although it's not my thing, the effect is totally different because it's coherent. IMO, architecture sets the terms for you can decorate a space. Modernist furniture looks best in modernist buildings, just as Craftsman furniture looks best in Craftsman homes (see fourth slide). You don't have to do period recreations — sometimes mixing two aesthetics, or old and new, can make a space feel more natural — but having a sense of aesthetic history (art, architecture, furniture, fashion) can help you create better aesthetics. The Oval Office offends on at least three levels: the ersatz nature of the decor, the way it grates against Hoban’s Neoclassical vision, and the way it misunderstands the classical-republican symbolism that the White House was meant to project in the first place. As others have noted, this is the kind of decor you'd expect from dictators who rob their own country.

@Playteaux1 Please, not at the breakfast table

$1.4M in New Orleans

@MrAndyNgo Should probably hit Buc-ees on I81 next

King Charles and Queen Camilla visited rural Virginia to see the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian Highlands.

@XXL Thank you @ericadamsfornyc 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 Albania 🇦🇱 🇦🇱🥇🥇🥇#1

Ye is getting a custom-built 60,000 capacity stadium for his concert in Albania this summer. Despite pushback in some European countries over Yeezy's proposed performances, Albania is accepting the controversial rapper with open arms by announcing a concert headlined by the rapper taking place on July 11 in Tirana. Ye will be performing at Air Albania Stadium, which holds a capacity of 22,500. However, for his concert, the venue will construct a purpose-built temporary stadium that can hold up to 60,000, according to the promoter. The design will feature the massive half-globe, which Ye performed on at his comeback concerts in Los Angeles earlier this month.

@UnleashedG23066 @grok how old was Ian Anderson in this performance? He had a full beard.

Seeing Iommi in a white hat playing flute-driven rock is surreal. Is this the most legendary "brief replacement" in guitar history?

@GratefulDead prohibitively expensive

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@FoxNews 🥷 had a whole ass county named after him and still on that shhh smh 🤦

BREAKING: Former Democratic Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shoots and kills wife before taking his own life, Fairfax County police say

@markvalorian Babe wake up, new Clarence Thomas ASMR just dropped

Clarence Thomas' remarks on progressivism, its foundations, history, and impact -- from his appearance at UT Austin today, 4/15/26. Entire unedited appearance attached below.

@tomgreenlive Based and rhodespilled

Making Beats At The Farm #Beats

@Mappy6984 Ngl singing All-Star in a high school auditorium with a red solo cup goes pretty hard

Time to hang it up

@EndWokeness But I didn’t steal a wallet in Japan

Justice KBJ: "If I steal a wallet in Japan, I am subject to Japanese laws….. in a sense, it's allegiance." Her case for birthright citizenship:

Me: working My brain: it just burns the butter

@david49502995 @RoyRogers_HTMS Thank god lol, wouldn’t be a blues band without one. I stand corrected!

@WhatRapture @RoyRogers_HTMS Hammond at 4.29, he's playing it with his left hand!

x.com/Jaypotta/statu… Tedeschi Trucks Band absolutely incinerating Red Rocks with a massive 7-minute monster jam on the Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower” 🔥🎸 Derek Trucks in straight god mode on that Travis Bean slide guitar, Susan Tedeschi trading soul-shaking vocals and leads. Pure fire — this is why we chase live shows. x.com/Jaypotta/statu…

@TukiFromKL Felonious Monk lmao

🚨 Do you understand what this man just pulled off.. > a guy from North Carolina used AI to generate hundreds of thousands of songs.. uploaded them to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon.. then botted billions of streams on his own tracks and walked away with $8 million > 660,000 fake streams per day.. spread across thousands of AI songs so nobody noticed.. $1.2 million a year.. for music no human ever actually listened to real artists are out here grinding for 0.003 cents per stream.. promoting on TikTok.. begging for playlist placements.. and this guy just had AI make the music AND the audience first-ever criminal streaming fraud case.. he's paying back $8 million.. but the playbook is out there now.. and AI just got better since he started the music industry spent 10 years fighting piracy.. now they have to fight songs that don't exist being listened to by people who don't exist.

I know it’s been over one whole day but we cannot let Pepsimaxxer fade away

WALLET RELIEF: Sen. Cory Booker unveils Keep Your Pay Act, eliminating federal income tax on first $75,000 of income and cutting median family taxes by 85%. foxnews.com/politics/sen-c…

@SleeperJets @ZackBlatt I’ve been telling everyone who’ll listen for 11 years that IK Enemkpali was the villain.

Geno Smith “feels like the early favorite” to be the Jets QB, per @ZackBlatt

@KillaKreww I want to be a game show host when I grow up too

Mr. Beast stranded a guy with 5 of his ex-girlfriends for 30 days to try and win $250K in his new video and he instantly ELIMINATED his ex who called him out for cheating on her💀😭

@InterestingSTEM That must feel soooo good

This image depicts a praying mantis being manipulated by a horse hair worm , a parasitic organism known for influencing it’s host behavior