Victorian houses known as the "Painted Ladies" at Alamo Square park in San Francisco.

Painted ladies is an American vernacular term, used as an endearment, introduced in the 1970s to describe polychromed Victorian houses in the greater San Francisco area, which are usually painted in a multi-colored pastel scheme. By mdoege@compuserve. ... By mdoege@compuserve. ... Alamo Square is a park located on top of a hill in the Western Addition neighborhood in San Francisco, USA. It takes up four city blocks and is bordered by Hayes Street to the south, Fulton Street to the north, Scott Street to the west, and Steiner Street to the... Victorian house A Victorian house is a type of house popularized in the Victorian era. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... A bravura pastel portrait of Louis XV by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1748 Pastel or pastels is an artistic expression which involves the application of soft colors by painting with soft crayons wrapped in paper. ...

The term’s popularity spread east in the late 1970s and 1980s, however its use began to decline in the 1990s and is seldom used in 2000, replaced by more accurate terminology such as polychrome, etc. Those familiar with historic preservation view the term painted ladies as bordering on kitsch. This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. ... Art in questionable taste is sometimes referred to as kitsch. ...

As a rule, highly decorative homes built during the Queen Anne style era (late 1800s) were painted in multiple colors as to draw attention to the elements of the design. After 1900, Queen Anne style fell from popularity, replaced by the classical revival schools of design; whites and light crème’s dominated these types of wood structures, and so many Victorian homes were subsequently painted all white, or one color, as a means of simplifying painting and modernizing facades by playing down their highly ornamented style details. The Buttermans, the historic home of John Newman, the butter king, is one of several Queen Anne mansions in Elgin, Illinois The Queen Anne style of British and American architecture reached its greatest popularity in the last quarter of the 19th century, manifesting itself in a number of different ways... Events and Trends Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1803 - 1815). ... 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ...

In a more specific sense, "the Painted Ladies" are a row of such houses on Steiner Street, bordering Alamo Square park. This block appears very frequently in mass-market photographs of the city and its tourist attractions. Alamo Square is a park located on top of a hill in the Western Addition neighborhood in San Francisco, USA. It takes up four city blocks and is bordered by Hayes Street to the south, Fulton Street to the north, Scott Street to the west, and Steiner Street to the...

The term "Painted Lady" is also an archaic term referring to a "Lady of the evening", or prostitute.

External links

• Alamo Square Virtual Tour

See also

• Architectural style
• Queen Anne Style
• Italianate

There is also a butterfly called a Painted Lady. Architectural style constitutes a mode of classifying architecture largely by morphological characteristics in terms of form, techniques, materials, etc. ... The Buttermans, the historic home of John Newman, the butter king, is one of several Queen Anne mansions in Elgin, Illinois The Queen Anne style of British and American architecture reached its greatest popularity in the last quarter of the 19th century, manifesting itself in a number of different ways... Families Superfamily Hesperioidea: Hesperiidae Superfamily Papilionoidea: Papilionidae Pieridae Nymphalidae Lycaenidae Riodinidae A butterfly is a flying insect of the order Lepidoptera belonging to one of the superfamilies Hesperioidea (the skippers) and Papilionoidea (all other butterflies). ... Binomial name Vanessa cardui (Linnaeus, 1758) The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) is a well-known colourful butterfly, known in North America as the Cosmopolite. ...