The enduring appeal of the Bloomsbury look

The interiors at Charleston

The legacy of the Bloomsbury Group has been felt across a wide swathe of Britain's cultural world ever since their radical innovations in art, literature and design shook up the staid world of Edwardian England in the early 20th century. When it comes to interiors, the strikingly original designs at Charleston, the former home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and the playful, inventive output of the Omega Workshops, are still highly influential, with their painterly sensibility and freedom of expression.

The Workshops were founded by Roger Fry in 1913, and in their short existence (they closed in 1919), their daring pieces for the home had an impact that can still be felt today. A wide range of artists and craftsmen contributed to the studio's output over these six years, blurring the boundaries between art and design with their bold colours and expressive imagery. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted furniture and walls with joyful, abstract patterns, came up with interior schemes, and designed pieces based on their paintings. Many such pieces ended up at their Sussex home Charleston when they moved there in 1916, and are now part of the museum's collection.

The designs of the Omega Workshops were highly popular within the group's intellectual circle–Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, W.B. Yeats and E.M. Forster all bought pieces–but they were also to have a striking impact on what came later, setting the example for a free and individualistic approach to interior design that was a far cry from the world of Victorian solidity that preceded it.

MAY WE SUGGEST: The interiors of Charleston: the house the Bloomsbury Group turned in to a living work of art

The interiors of Charleston, where practically every surface is covered in hand-painted designs, has also been hugely inspiring to generations of artists and designers. We love seeing hand-painted furniture, doors, murals and fireplaces in the houses of people we feature, like the cheerful fireplace in Molly Mahon's Sussex cottage, and the exuberant patterns Beata Heuman often uses in her projects. The smaller objects designed for The Omega Workshops also see their descendants in a new generation of hand-painted accessories, like interior designer Gavin Houghton's decorated plates and the designs of Luke Edward Hall, that reject formality and seriousness for a lighter, wittier mood.

Tess Newall, a decorative artist whose sensibility owes much to the the Bloomsbury aesthetic, notes that part of the appeal lies in the sense that everyone can take the same kind of artistic approach to their own interiors. "The events of the past year have meant that we need to feel inspired by our homes more than ever before. The Bloomsbury Group lived and worked in a very intimate environment, similar to how many of us now find ourselves. Their surroundings were intrinsic to not only their practice - in that most of the objects they used were made or decorated by them - but to their discussions, thoughts and (I imagine) mood. They didn't take themselves or their work too seriously, and many of the results are imperfect, which lends a charm that no machine-manufactured product can have."