The range of skills of the average painter and decorator during the Victorian era was vastly more skilled than today's and he was expected to have the ability to hang paper, carry out plain and fancy work including stencilling, marbling and graining. However there was a steady decrease in these skills in Australia during the first 25 years of the 20th century. Reasons for this decline include the ready availability of ready mixed paints which enabled the home owner to carry out their own decorating, the fashion for less elaborate decoration and the growing popularity of electric light. Gas and other forms of lighting generated heat and fumes which discoloured paint but with the advent of electric light interior decoration unexpectedly became more durable.

This resulted in a reduction of work and followed falling enrolments in trade courses followed. Painters and decorators gradually lost the specialised skills used to achieve the dramatic effects seen in Victorian and Edwardian homes. The 1930s depression followed by World War II, ended any prospect of a return to previous standards of decoration in the Australian home.

Paint -- South Australia

State Library of South Australia: Mortlock Library. From the ground up August 2004-