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diff --git a/old/14302.txt b/old/14302.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48a6ca3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14302.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3794 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Principles of Home Decoration, by Candace Wheeler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Principles of Home Decoration + With Practical Examples + +Author: Candace Wheeler + +Release Date: December 8, 2004 [EBook #14302] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Susan Skinner and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Dining-room in "Pennyroyal" (in Mrs. Boudinot Keith's +Cottage, Onteora)] + + + + +Principles of Home Decoration + +With Practical Examples + +By + +Candace Wheeler + + + + +New York + +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1903 + +Published February 1903 + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I. Decoration as an Art. + Decoration in American Homes. + Woman's Influence in Decoration. + +CHAPTER II. Character in Homes. + +CHAPTER III. Builders' Houses. + Expedients. + +CHAPTER IV. Colour in Houses. + Colour as a Science. + Colour as an Influence. + +CHAPTER V. The Law of Appropriateness. + Cleanliness and Harmony Tastefully Combined. + Bedroom Furnished in Accordance with + Individual Tastes. + +CHAPTER VI. Kitchens. + Treatment of Walls from a Hygienic Point of View. + +CHAPTER VII. Colour with Reference to Light. + Examples of the Effects of Light on Colour. + Gradation of Colour. + +CHAPTER VIII. + Walls, Ceilings and Floors. + Treatment and Decoration of Walls. + Use of Tapestry. Leather and Wall-Papers. + Panels of Wood, Painted Walls. Textiles. + +CHAPTER IX. + Location of the House. + Decoration Influenced by Situation. + +CHAPTER X. + Ceilings. + Decorations in Harmony with Walls. + Treatment in Accordance with Size of Room. + +CHAPTER XI. + Floors and Floor Coverings. + Treatment of Floors--Polished Wood, Mosaics. + Judicious Selection of Rugs and Carpets. + +CHAPTER XII. + Draperies. + Importance of Appropriate Colours. + Importance of Appropriate Textures. + +CHAPTER XIII + Furniture. + Character in Rooms. + Harmony in Furniture. + Comparison Between Antique and Modern Furniture. + Treatment of the Different Rooms. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Dining-room in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage, Onteora) + +Hall in city house, showing effect of staircase divided and turned to +rear + +Stenciled borders for hall and bathroom decorations + +Sitting-room in "Wild Wood," Onteora (belonging to Miss Luisita Leland) + +Large sitting-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq., +Onteora) + +Painted canvas frieze and buckram frieze for dining-room + +Square hall in city house + +Colonial chairs and sofa (belonging to Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart) + +Colonial mantel and English hob-grate (sitting-room in Mrs. Candace +Wheeler's house) + +Sofa designed by Mrs. Candace Wheeler, for N.Y. Library in "Woman's +Building," Columbia Exposition + +Rustic sofa and tables in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage, +Onteora) + +Dining-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq., Onteora) + + +Dining-room in New York house showing leaded-glass windows + +Dining-room in New York home showing carved wainscoting and painted +frieze + +Screen and glass windows in house at Lakewood (belonging to Clarence +Root, Esq.) + + + + + +Principles of Home Decoration + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DECORATION AS AN ART + +"_Who creates a Home, creates a potent spirit which in turn doth fashion +him that fashioned._" + + +Probably no art has so few masters as that of decoration. In England, +Morris was for many years the great leader, but among his followers in +England no one has attained the dignity of unquestioned authority; and +in America, in spite of far more general practice of the art, we still +are without a leader whose very name establishes law. + +It is true we are free to draw inspiration from the same sources which +supplied Morris and the men associated with him in his enthusiasms, and +in fact we do lean, as they did, upon English eighteenth-century +domestic art--and derive from the men who made that period famous many +of our articles of faith; but there are almost no authoritative books +upon the subject of appropriate modern decoration. Our text books are +still to be written; and one must glean knowledge from many sources, +shape it into rules, and test the rules, before adopting them as safe +guides. + +Yet in spite of the absence of authoritative teaching, we have learned +that an art dependent upon other arts, as decoration is upon building +and architecture, is bound to follow the principles which govern them. +We must base our work upon what has already been done, select our +decorative forms from appropriate periods, conform our use of colour to +the principles of colour, and be able to choose and apply all +manufactures in accordance with the great law of appropriateness. If we +do this, we stand upon something capable of evolution and the creation +of a system. + +In so far as the principles of decoration are derived from other arts, +they can be acquired by every one, but an exquisite feeling in their +application is the distinguishing quality of the true decorator. + +There is quite a general impression that house-decoration is not an art +which requires a long course of study and training, but some kind of +natural knack of arrangement--a faculty of making things "look pretty," +and that any one who has this faculty is amply qualified for "taking up +house-decoration." Indeed, natural facility succeeds in satisfying many +personal cravings for beauty, although it is not competent for general +practice. + +Of course there are people, and many of them, who are gifted with an +inherent sense of balance and arrangement, and a true eye for colour, +and--given the same materials--such people will make a room pleasant and +cozy, where one without these gifts would make it positively ugly. In so +far, then, individual gifts are a great advantage, yet one possessing +them in even an unusual degree may make great mistakes in decoration. +What _not_ to do, in this day of almost universal experiment, is perhaps +the most valuable lesson to the untrained decorator. Many of the rocks +upon which he splits are down in no chart, and lie in the track of what +seems to him perfectly plain sailing. + +There are houses of fine and noble exterior which are vulgarized by +uneducated experiments in colour and ornament, and belittled by being +filled with heterogeneous collections of unimportant art. Yet these very +instances serve to emphasize the demand for beautiful surroundings, and +in spite of mistakes and incongruities, must be reckoned as efforts +toward a desirable end. + +In spite of a prevalent want of training, it is astonishing how much we +have of good interior decoration, not only in houses of great +importance, but in those of people of average fortunes--indeed, it is in +the latter that we get the general value of the art. + +This comparative excellence is to be referred to the very general +acquirement of what we call "art cultivation" among American women, and +this, in conjunction with a knowledge that her social world will be apt +to judge of her capacity by her success or want of success in making her +own surroundings beautiful, determines the efforts of the individual +woman. She feels that she is expected to prove her superiority by living +in a home distinguished for beauty as well as for the usual orderliness +and refinement. Of course this sense of obligation is a powerful spur to +the exercise of natural gifts, and if in addition to these she has the +habit of reasoning upon the principles of things, and is sufficiently +cultivated in the literature of art to avoid unwarrantable experiment, +there is no reason why she should not be successful in her own +surroundings. + +The typical American, whether man, or woman, has great natural facility, +and when the fact is once recognized that beauty--like education--can +dignify any circumstances, from the narrowest to the most opulent, it +becomes one of the objects of life to secure it. _How_ this is done +depends upon the talent and cultivation of the family, and this is often +adequate for excellent results. + +It is quite possible that so much general ability may discourage the +study of decoration as a precise form of art, since it encourages the +idea that The House Beautiful can be secured by any one who has money to +pay for processes, and possesses what is simply designated as "good +taste." + +We do not find this impulse toward the creation of beautiful interiors +as noticeable in other countries as in America. The instinct of +self-expression is much stronger in us than in other races, and for that +reason we cannot be contented with the utterances of any generation, +race or country save our own. We gather to ourselves what we personally +enjoy or wish to enjoy, and will not take our domestic environment at +second hand. It follows that there is a certain difference and +originality in our methods, which bids fair to acquire distinct +character, and may in the future distinguish this art-loving period as a +maker of style. + +A successful foreign painter who has visited this country at intervals +during the last ten years said, "There is no such uniformity of +beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world. There are palaces in +France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the +embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art +of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere. +Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing +colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples in England or +France." + +To Americans this does not seem a remarkable fact. We have come into a +period which desires beauty, and each one secures it as best he can. We +are a teachable and a studious people, with a faculty of turning +"general information" to account; and general information upon art +matters has had much to do with our good interiors. + +We have, perhaps half unconsciously, applied fundamental principles to +our decoration, and this may be as much owing to natural good sense as +to cultivation. We have a habit of reasoning about things, and acting +upon our conclusions, instead of allowing the rest of the world to do +the reasoning while we adopt the result. It is owing to this conjunction +of love for and cultivation of art, and the habit of materializing what +we wish, that we have so many thoroughly successful interiors, which +have been accomplished almost without aid from professional artists. It +is these, instead of the smaller number of costly interiors, which give +the reputation of artistic merit to our homes. + +Undoubtedly the largest proportion of successful as well as +unsuccessful domestic art in our country is due to the efforts of women. +In the great race for wealth which characterizes our time, it is +demanded that women shall make it effective by so using it as to +distinguish the family; and nothing distinguishes it so much as the +superiority of the home. This effort adheres to small as well as large +fortunes, and in fact the necessity is more pronounced in the case of +mediocre than of great ones. In the former there is something to be made +up--some protest of worth and ability and intelligence that helps many a +home to become beautiful. + +As I have said, a woman feels that the test of her capacity is that her +house shall not only be comfortable and attractive, but that it shall be +arranged according to the laws of harmony and beauty. It is as much the +demand of the hour as that she shall be able to train her children +according to the latest and most enlightened theories, or that she +shall take part in public and philanthropic movements, or understand and +have an opinion on political methods. These are things which are +expected of every woman who makes a part of society; and no less is it +expected that her house shall be an appropriate and beautiful setting +for her personality, a credit to her husband, and an unconscious +education for her children. + +But it happens that means of education in all of these directions, +except that of decoration, are easily available. A woman can become a +member of a kindergarten association, and get from books and study the +result of scientific knowledge of child-life and training. She can find +means to study the ethics of her relations to her kind and become an +effective philanthropist, or join the league for political education and +acquire a more or less enlightened understanding of politics; but who is +to formulate for her the science of beauty, to teach her how to make the +interior aspect of her home perfect in its adaptation to her +circumstances, and as harmonious in colour and arrangement as a song +without words? She feels that these conditions create a mental +atmosphere serene and yet inspiring, and that such surroundings are as +much her birthright and that of her children as food and clothing of a +grade belonging to their circumstances, but how is it to be compassed? + +Most women ask themselves this question, and fail to understand that it +is as much of a marvel when a woman without training or experience +creates a good interior _as a whole_, as if an amateur in music should +compose an opera. It is not at all impossible for a woman of good +taste--and it must be remembered that this word means an educated or +cultivated power of selection--to secure harmonious or happily +contrasted colour in a room, and to select beautiful things in the way +of furniture and belongings; but what is to save her from the thousand +and one mistakes possible to inexperience in this combination of things +which make lasting enjoyment and appropriate perfection in a house? How +can she know which rooms will be benefited by sombre or sunny tints, and +which exposure will give full sway to her favourite colour or colours? +How can she have learned the reliability or want of reliability in +certain materials or processes used in decoration, or the rules of +treatment which will modify a low and dark room and make it seem light +and airy, or "bring down" too high a ceiling and widen narrow walls so +as to apparently correct disproportion? These things are the results of +laws which she has never studied--laws of compensation and relation, +which belong exclusively to the world of colour, and unfortunately they +are not so well formulated that they can be committed to memory like +rules of grammar; yet all good colour-practice rests upon them as +unquestionably as language rests upon grammatical construction. + +Of course one may use colour as one can speak a language, purely by +imitation and memory, but it is not absolutely reliable practice; and +just here comes in the necessity for professional advice. + +There are many difficulties in the accomplishment of a perfect +house-interior which few householders have had the time or experience to +cope with, and yet the fact remains that each mistress of a house +believes that unless she vanquishes all difficulties and comes out +triumphantly with colours flying at the housetop and enjoyment and +admiration following her efforts, she has failed in something which she +should have been perfectly able to accomplish. But the obligation is +certainly a forced one. It is the result of the modern awakening to the +effect of many heretofore unrecognized influences in our lives and the +lives and characters of our children. A beautiful home is undoubtedly a +great means of education, and of that best of all education which is +unconscious. To grow up in such a one means a much more complete and +perfect man or woman than would be possible without that particular +influence. + +But a perfect home is never created all at once and by one person, and +let the anxious house-mistress take comfort in the thought. She should +also remember that it is in the nature of beauty to _grow_, and that a +well-rounded and beautiful family life adds its quota day by day. Every +book, every sketch or picture--every carefully selected or +characteristic object brought into the home adds to and makes a part of +a beautiful whole, and no house can be absolutely perfect without all +these evidences of family life. + +It can be made ready for them, completely and perfectly ready, by +professional skill and knowledge; but if it remained just where the +interior artist or decorator left it, it would have no more of the +sentiment of domesticity than a statue. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CHARACTER IN HOUSES + +"_For the created still doth shadow forth the mind and will which made +it._ + +"_Thou art the very mould of thy creator_." + + +It needs the combined personality of the family to make the character of +the house. No one could say of a house which has family character, "It +is one of ----'s houses" (naming one or another successful decorator), +because the decorator would have done only what it was his business to +do--used technical and artistic knowledge in preparing a proper and +correct background for family life. Even in doing that, he must consult +family tastes and idiosyncracies if he has the reverence for +individuality which belongs to the true artist. + +A domestic interior is a thing to which he should give knowledge and not +personality, and the puzzled home-maker, who understands that her world +expects correct use of means of beauty, as well as character and +originality in her home, need not feel that to secure the one she must +sacrifice the other. + +An inexperienced person might think it an easy thing to make a beautiful +home, because the world is full of beautiful art and manufactures, and +if there is money to pay for them it would seem as easy to furnish a +house with everything beautiful as to go out in the garden and gather +beautiful flowers; but we must remember that the world is also full of +ugly things--things false in art, in truth and in beauty--things made to +_sell_--made with only this idea behind them, manufactured on the +principle that an artificial fly is made to look something like a true +one in order to catch the inexpert and the unwary. It is a curious fact +that these false things--manufactures without honesty, without +knowledge, without art--have a property of demoralizing the spirit of +the home, and that to make it truly beautiful everything in it must be +genuine as well as appropriate, and must also fit into some previously +considered scheme of use and beauty. + +The esthetic or beautiful aspect of the home, in short, must be created +through the mind of the family or owner, and is only maintained by its +or his susceptibility to true beauty and appreciation of it. It must, in +fact, be a visible mould of invisible matter, like the leaf-mould one +finds in mineral springs, which show the wonderful veining, branching, +construction and delicacy of outline in a way which one could hardly be +conscious of in the actual leaf. + +If the grade or dignity of the home requires professional and scholarly +art direction, the problem is how to use this professional or artistic +advice without delivering over the entire creation into stranger or +alien hands; without abdicating the right and privilege of personal +expression. If the decorator appreciates this right, his function will +be somewhat akin to that of the portrait painter; both are bound to +represent the individual or family in their performances, each artist +using the truest and best methods of art with the added gift of grace or +charm of colour which he possesses, the one giving the physical aspect +of his client and the other the mental characteristics, circumstances, +position and life of the house-owner and his family. This is the true +mission of the decorator, although it is not always so understood. What +is called business talent may lead him to invent schemes of costliness +which relate far more to his own profit than to the wishes or character +of the house-owner. + +But it is not always that the assistance of the specialist in decoration +and furnishing is necessary. There are many homes where both are quite +within the scope of the ordinary man or woman of taste. In fact, the +great majority of homes come within these lines, and it is to such +home-builders that rules, not involving styles, are especially of use. + +The principles of truth and harmony, which underlie all beauty, may be +secured in the most inexpensive cottage as well as in the broadest and +most imposing residence. Indeed, the cottage has the advantage of that +most potent ally of beauty--simplicity--a quality which is apt to be +conspicuously absent from the schemes of decoration for the palace. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BUILDERS' HOUSES + +"_Mine own hired house_." + + +A large proportion of homes are made in houses which are not owned, but +leased, and this prevents each man or family from indicating personal +taste in external aspect. A rich man and house-owner may approximate to +a true expression of himself even in the outside of his house if he +strongly desires it, but a man of moderate means must adapt himself and +his family to the house-builder's idea of houses--that is to say, to the +idea of the man who has made house-building a trade, and whose +experiences have created a form into which houses of moderate cost and +fairly universal application may be cast. + +Although it is as natural to a man to build or acquire a home as to a +bird to build a nest, he has not the same unfettered freedom in +construction. He cannot always adapt his house either to the physical or +mental size of his family, but must accept what is possible with much +the same feeling with which a family of robins might accommodate +themselves to a wren's nest, or an oriole to that of a barn-swallow. But +the fact remains, that all these accidental homes must, in some way, be +brought into harmony with the lives to be lived in them, and the habits +and wants of the family; and not only this, they must be made attractive +according to the requirements of cultivated society. The effort toward +this is instructive, and the pleasure in and enjoyment of the home +depends upon the success of the effort. The inmates, as a rule, are +quite clear as to what they want to accomplish, but have seldom had +sufficient experience to enable them to remedy defects of construction. + +There are expedients by which many of the malformations and uglinesses +of the ordinary "builder's house" may be greatly ameliorated, various +small surgical operations which will remedy badly planned rooms, and +dispositions of furniture which will restore proportion. We can even, by +judicious distribution of planes of colour, apparently lower or raise a +ceiling, and widen or lengthen a room, and these expedients, which +belong partly to the experience of the decorator, are based upon laws +which can easily be formulated. Every one can learn something of them by +the study of faulty rooms and the enjoyment of satisfactory ones. +Indeed, I know no surer or more agreeable way of getting wisdom in the +art of decoration than by tracing back sensation to its source, and +finding out why certain things are utterly satisfactory, and certain +others a positive source of discomfort. + +In what are called the "best houses" we can make our deductions quite +as well as in the most faulty, and sometimes get a lesson of avoidance +and a warning against law-breaking which will be quite as useful as if +it were learned in less than the best. + +There is one fault very common in houses which date from a period of +some forty or fifty years back, a fault of disproportionate height of +ceilings. In a modern house, if one room is large enough to require a +lofty ceiling, the architect will manage to make his second floor upon +different levels, so as not to inflict the necessary height of large +rooms upon narrow halls and small rooms, which should have only a height +proportioned to their size. A ten-foot room with a thirteen-foot ceiling +makes the narrowness of the room doubly apparent; one feels shut up +between two walls which threaten to come together and squeeze one +between them, while, on the other hand, a ten-foot room with a +nine-foot ceiling may have a really comfortable and cozy effect. + +In this case, what is needed is to get rid of the superfluous four feet, +and this can be done by cheating the eye into an utter forgetfulness of +them. There must be horizontal divisions of colour which attract the +attention and make one oblivious of what is above them. + +Every one knows the effect of a paper with perpendicular stripes in +apparently heightening a ceiling which is too low, but not every one is +equally aware of the contrary effect of horizontal lines of varied +surface. But in the use of perpendicular lines it is well to remember +that, if the room is small, it will appear still smaller if the wall is +divided into narrow spaces by vertical lines. If it is large and the +ceiling simply low for the size of the room, a good deal can be done by +long, simple lines of drapery in curtains and portieres, or in choosing +a paper where the composition of design is perpendicular rather than +diagonal. + +To apparently lower a high ceiling in a small room, the wall should be +treated horizontally in different materials. Three feet of the base can +be covered with coarse canvas or buckram and finished with a small wood +moulding. Six feet of plain wall above this, painted the same shade as +the canvas, makes the space of which the eye is most aware. This space +should be finished with a picture moulding, and the four superfluous +feet of wall above it must be treated as a part of the ceiling. The +cream-white of the actual ceiling should be brought down on the side +walls for a space of two feet, and this has the effect of apparently +enlarging the room, since the added mass of light tint seems to broaden +it. There still remain two feet of space between the picture moulding +and ceiling-line which may be treated as a _ceiling-border_ in +inconspicuous design upon the same cream ground, the design to be in +darker, but of the same tint as the ceiling. + +The floor in such a room as this should either be entirely covered with +plain carpeting, or, if it has rugs at all, there should be several, as +one single rug, not entirely covering the floor, would have the effect +of confining the apparent size of the room to the actual size of the +rug. + +If the doors and windows in such a room are high and narrow, they can be +made to come into the scheme by placing the curtain and portiere rods +below the actual height and covering the upper space with thin material, +either full or plain, of the same colour as the upper wall. A brocaded +muslin, stained or dyed to match the wall, answers this purpose +admirably, and is really better in its place than the usual expedient of +stained glass or open-work wood transom. A good expedient is to have the +design already carried around the wall painted in the same colour upon a +piece of stretched muslin. This is simple but effective treatment, and +is an instance of the kind of thought or knowledge that must be used in +remedying faults of construction. + +Colour has much to do with the apparent size of rooms, a room in light +tints always appearing to be larger than a deeply coloured one. + +Perhaps the most difficult problem in adaptation is the high, narrow +city house, built and decorated by the block by the builder, who is also +a speculator in real estate, and whose activity was chiefly exercised +before the ingenious devices of the modern architect were known. These +houses exist in quantities in our larger and older cities, and mere +slices of space as they are, are the theatres where the home-life of +many refined and beauty-loving intelligences must be played. + +In such houses as these, the task of fitting them to the cultivated eyes +and somewhat critical tests of modern society generally falls to the +women who represent the family, and calls for an amount of ability which +would serve to build any number of creditable houses; yet this is +constantly being done and well done for not one, but many families. I +know one such, which is quite a model of a charming city home and yet +was evolved from one of the worst of its kind and period. In this case +the family had fallen heir to the house and were therefore justified in +the one radical change which metamorphosed the entrance-hall, from a +long, narrow passage, with an apparently interminable stairway occupying +half its width, to a small reception-hall seemingly enlarged by a +judicious placing of the mirrors which had formerly been a part of the +"fixtures" of the parlour and dining-room. + +[Illustration: HALL IN CITY HOUSE SHOWING EFFECT OF STAIRCASE DIVIDED +AND TURNED TO REAR] + +The reception-room was accomplished by cutting off the lower half of the +staircase, which had extended itself to within three feet of the front +door, and turning it directly around, so that it ends at the back +instead of the front of the hall. The two cut ends are connected by a +platform, thrown across from wall to wall, and furnished with a low +railing of carved panels, and turned spindles, which gives a charming +balcony effect. The passage to the back hall and stairs passes under the +balcony and upper end of the staircase, while the space under the lower +stair-end, screened by a portiere, adds a coat-closet to the +conveniences of the reception-hall. + +This change was not a difficult thing to accomplish, it was simply an +_expedient_, but it has the value of carefully planned construction, +and reminds one of the clever utterance of the immortal painter who +said, "I never lose an accident." + +Indeed the ingenious home-maker often finds that the worse a thing is, +the better it can be made by competent and careful study. To complete +and adapt incompetent things to orderliness and beauty, to harmonise +incongruous things into a perfect whole requires and exercises ability +of a high order, and the consciousness of its possession is no small +satisfaction. That it is constantly being done shows how much real +cleverness is necessary to ordinary life--and reminds one of the +patriotic New York state senator who declared that it required more +ability to cross Broadway safely at high tide, than to be a great +statesman. And truly, to make a good house out of a poor one, or a +beautiful interior from an ugly one, requires far more thought, and far +more original talent, than to decorate an important new one. The one +follows a travelled path--the other makes it. + +Of course competent knowledge saves one from many difficulties; and +faults of construction must be met by knowledge, yet this is often +greatly aided by natural cleverness, and in the course of long practice +in the decorative arts, I have seen such refreshing and charming results +from thoughtful untrained intelligence,--I might almost say +inspiration,--that I have great respect for its manifestations; +especially when exercised in un-authoritative fashion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +COLOUR IN HOUSES + + _"Heaven gives us of its colour, for our joy, + Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven."_ + + +Although the very existence of a house is a matter of construction, its +general interior effect is almost entirely the result of colour +treatment and careful and cultivated selection of accessories. + +Colour in the house includes much that means furniture, in the way of +carpets, draperies, and all the modern conveniences of civilization, but +as it precedes and dictates the variety of all these things from the +authoritative standpoint of wall treatment, it is well to study its laws +and try to reap the full benefit of its influence. + +As far as effect is concerned, the colour of a room creates its +atmosphere. It may be cheerful or sad, cosy or repellent according to +its quality or force. Without colour it is only a bare canvas, which +might, but does not picture our lives. + +We understand many of the properties of colour, and have unconsciously +learned some of its laws;--but what may be called the _science_ of +colour has never been formulated. So far as we understand it, its +principles correspond curiously to those of melodious sound. It is as +impossible to produce the best effect from one tone or colour, as to +make a melody upon one note of the harmonic scale; it is skilful +_variation_ of tone, the gradation or even judicious opposition of tint +which gives exquisite satisfaction to the eye. In music, sequence +produces this effect upon the ear, and in colour, juxtaposition and +gradation upon the eye. Notes follow notes in melody as shade follows +shade in colour. We find no need of even different names for the +qualities peculiar to the two; scale--notes--tones--harmonies--the words +express effects common to colour as well as to music, but colour has +this advantage, that its harmonies can be _fixed_, they do not die with +the passing moment; once expressed they remain as a constant and +ever-present delight. + +Notes of the sound-octave have been gathered by the musicians from +widely different substances, and carefully linked in order and sequence +to make a harmonious scale which may be learned; but the painter, +conscious of colour-harmonies, has as yet no written law by which he can +produce them. + +The "born colourist" is one who without special training, or perhaps in +spite of it, can unerringly combine or oppose tints into compositions +which charm the eye and satisfy the sense. Even among painters it is by +no means a common gift. It is almost more rare to find a picture +distinguished for its harmony and beauty of colour, than to see a room +in which nothing jars and everything works together for beauty. It seems +strange that this should be a rarer personal gift than the musical +sense, since nature apparently is far more lavish of her lessons for the +eye than for the ear; and it is curious that colour, which at first +sight seems a more apparent and simple fact than music, has not yet been +written. Undoubtedly there is a colour scale, which has its sharps and +flats, its high notes and low notes, its chords and discords, and it is +not impossible that in the future science may make it a means of +regulated and written harmonies:--that some master colourist who has +mechanical and inventive genius as well, may so arrange them that they +can be played by rule; that colour may have its Mozart or +Beethoven--its classic melodies, its familiar tunes. The musician, as I +have said--has gathered his tones from every audible thing in +nature--and fitted and assorted and built them into a science; and why +should not some painter who is also a scientist take the many variations +of colour which lie open to his sight, and range and fit and combine, +and write the formula, so that a child may read it? + +We already know enough to be very sure that the art is founded upon +laws, although they are not thoroughly understood. Principles of masses, +spaces, and gradations underlie all accidental harmonies of +colour;--just as in music, the simple, strong, under-chords of the bass +must be the ground for all the changes and trippings of the upper +melodies. + +It is easy, if one studies the subject, to see how the very likeness of +these two esthetic forces illustrate the laws of each,--in the +principles of relation, gradation, and scale. + +Until very recently the relation of colour to the beauty of a house +interior was quite unrecognised. If it existed in any degree of +perfection it was an accident, a result of the softening and beautifying +effect of time, or of harmonious human living. Where it existed, it was +felt as a mysterious charm belonging to the home; something which +pervaded it, but had no separate being; an attractive ghost which +attached itself to certain houses, followed certain people, came by +chance, and was a mystery which no one understood, but every one +acknowledged. Now we know that this something which distinguished +particular rooms, and made beautiful particular houses, was a definite +result of laws of colour accidentally applied. + +To avail ourselves of this influence upon the moods and experiences of +life is to use a power positive in its effects as any spiritual or +intellectual influence. It gives the kind of joy we find in nature, in +the golden-green of light under tree-branches, or the mingled green and +gray of tree and rock shadows, or the pearl and rose of sunrise and +sunset. We call the deep content which results from such surroundings +the influence of nature, and forget to name the less spiritual, the more +human condition of well-being which comes to us in our homes from being +surrounded with something which in a degree atones for lack of nature's +beauty. + +It is a different well-being, and lacks the full tide of electric +enjoyment which comes from living for the hour under the sky and in the +breadths of space, but it atones by substituting something of our own +invention, which surprises us by its compensations, and confounds us by +its power. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS + + +I have laid much stress upon the value of colour in interior decoration, +but to complete the beauty of the home something more than happy choice +of tints is required. It needs careful and educated selection of +furniture and fittings, and money enough to indulge in the purchase of +an intrinsically good thing instead of a medium one. It means even +something more than the love of beauty and cultivation of it, and that +is a perfect adherence to the _law of appropriateness_. + +This is, after all, the most important quality of every kind of +decoration, the one binding and general condition of its accomplishment. +It requires such a careful fitting together of all the means of beauty +as to leave no part of the house, whatever may be its use, without the +same care for appropriate completeness which goes to the more apparent +features. The cellar, the kitchen, the closets, the servants' bedrooms +must all share in the thought which makes the genuinely beautiful home +and the genuinely perfect life. It must be possible to go from the top +to the bottom of the house, finding everywhere agreeable, suitable, and +thoughtful furnishings. The beautiful house must consider the family as +a whole, and not make a museum of rare and costly things in the +drawing-room, the library, the dining-room and family bedrooms, leaving +that important part of the whole machinery, the service, untouched by +the spirit of beauty. The same care in choice of colour will be as well +bestowed on the servants' floor as on those devoted to the family, and +curtains, carpets and furniture may possess as much beauty and yet be +perfectly appropriate to servants' use. + +On this upper floor, it goes almost without saying, that the walls must +be painted in oil-colour instead of covered with paper. That the floors +should be uncarpeted except for bedside rugs which are easily removable. +That bedsteads should be of iron, the mattress with changeable covers, +the furniture of painted and enameled instead of polished wood, and in +short the conditions of healthful cleanliness as carefully provided as +if the rooms were in a hospital instead of a private house--but the +added comfort of carefully chosen wall colour, and bright, harmonizing, +washable chintz in curtains and bed-covers. + +These things have an influence upon the spirit of the home; they are a +part of its spiritual beauty, giving a satisfied and approving +consciousness to the home-makers, and a sense of happiness in the +service of the family. + +In the average, or small house, there is room for much improvement in +the treatment and furnishing of servants' bedrooms; and this is not +always from indifference, but because they are out of daily sight, and +also from a belief that it would add seriously to the burden of +housekeeping to see that they are kept up to the standard of family +sleeping-rooms. + +In point of fact, however, good surroundings are potent civilizers, and +a house-servant whose room is well and carefully furnished feels an +added value in herself, which makes her treat herself respectfully in +the care of her room. + +If it pleases her, the training she receives in the care of family rooms +will be reflected in her own, and painstaking arrangements made for her +pleasure will perhaps be recognised as an obligation. + +Of course the fact must be recognised, that the occupant is not always a +permanent one; that it may at times be a fresh importation directly from +a city tenement; therefore, everything in the room should be able to +sustain very radical treatment in the way of scrubbing and cleaning. +Wall papers, unwashable rugs and curtains are out of the question; yet +even with these limitations it is possible to make a charming and +reasonably inexpensive room, which would be attractive to cultivated as +well as uncultivated taste. It is in truth mostly a matter of colour; of +coloured walls, and harmonising furniture and draperies, which are in +themselves well adapted to their place. + +As I have said elsewhere, the walls in a servant's bedroom--and +preferably in any sleeping-room--should for sanitary reasons be painted +in oil colours, but the possibilities of decorative treatment in this +medium are by no means limited. All of the lighter shades of green, +blue, yellow, and rose are as permanent, and as easily cleaned, as the +dull grays and drabs and mud-colours which are often used upon bedroom +walls--especially those upper ones which are above the zone of ornament, +apparently under the impression that there is virtue in their very +ugliness. + +"A good clean gray" some worthy housewife will instruct the painter to +use, and the result will be a dead mixture of various lively and +pleasant tints, any one of which might be charming if used separately, +or modified with white. A small room with walls of a very light spring +green, or a pale turquoise blue, or white with the dash of vermilion and +touch of yellow ochre which produces salmon-pink, is quite as durably +and serviceably coloured as if it were chocolate-brown, or heavy +lead-colour; indeed its effect upon the mind is like a spring day full +of sunshine instead of one dark with clouds or lowering storms. + +The rule given elsewhere for colour in light or dark exposure will hold +good for service bedrooms as well as for the important rooms of the +house. That is; if a bedroom for servants' use is on the north or +shadowed side of the house, let the colour be salmon or rose pink, cream +white, or spring green; but if it is on the sunny side, the tint should +be turquoise, or pale blue, or a grayish-green, like the green of a +field of rye. With such walls, a white iron bedstead, enameled +furniture, curtains of white, or a flowered chintz which repeats or +contrasts with the colour of the walls, bedside and bureau rugs of the +tufted cotton which is washable, or of the new rag-rugs of which the +colours are "water fast," the room is absolutely good, and can be used +as an influence upon a lower or higher intelligence. + +As a matter of utility the toilet service should be always of white; so +that there will be no chance for the slovenly mismatching which results +from breakage of any one of the different pieces, when of different +colours. A handleless or mis-matched pitcher will change the entire +character of a room and should never be tolerated. + +If the size of the room will warrant it, a rocking-chair or easy-chair +should always be part of its equipment, and the mattress and bed-springs +should be of a quality to give ease to tired bones, for these things +have to do with the spirit of the house. + +It may be said that the colouring and furnishing of the servants' +bedroom is hardly a part of house decoration, but in truth house +decoration at its best is a means of happiness, and no householder can +achieve permanent happiness without making the service of the family +sharers in it. + +What I have said with regard to painted walls in plain tints applies to +bedrooms of every grade, but where something more than merely agreeable +colour effect is desired a stencilled decoration from the simplest to +the most elaborate can be added. There are many ways of using this +method, some of which partake very largely of artistic effect; indeed a +thoroughly good stencil pattern may reproduce the best instances of +design, and in the hands of a skilful workman who knows how to graduate +and vary contrasting or harmonising tints it becomes a very artistic +method and deserves a place of high honour in the art of decoration. + +[Illustration: 1, AND 2, STENCILED BORDERS FOR BATH-ROOM DECORATION: 3, +4, AND 5, STENCILED BORDERS FOR HALLS (BY DUNHAM WHEELER)] + +Its simplest form is that of a stencilled border in flat tints used +either in place of a cornice or as the border of a wall-paper is used. +This, of course, is a purely mechanical performance, and one with which +every house-painter is familiar. After this we come to borders of +repeating design used as friezes. This can be done with the most +delicate and delightful effect, although the finished wall will still be +capable of withstanding the most energetic annual scrubbing. Frieze +borders of this kind starting with strongly contrasting colour at the +top and carried downward through gradually fading tints until they are +lost in the general colour of the wall have an openwork grille effect +which is very light and graceful. There are infinite possibilities in +the use of stencil design without counting the introduction of gold and +silver, and bronzes of various iridescent hues which are more suitable +for rooms of general use than for bedrooms. Indeed in sleeping-rooms +the use of metallic colour is objectionable because it will not stand +washing and cleaning without defacement. The ideal bedroom is one that +if the furniture were removed a stream of water from a hose might be +played upon its walls and ceiling without injury. I always remember with +pleasure a pink and silver room belonging to a young girl, where the +salmon-pink walls were deepened in colour at the top into almost a tint +of vermilion which had in it a trace of green. It was, in fact, an +addition of spring green dropped into the vermilion and carelessly +stirred, so that it should be mixed but not incorporated. Over this +shaded and mixed colour for the space of three feet was stencilled a +fountain-like pattern in cream-white, the arches of the pattern rilled +in with almost a lace-work of design. The whole upper part had an +effect like carved alabaster and was indescribably light and graceful. + +The bed and curtain-rods of silver-lacquer, and the abundant silver of +the dressing-table gave a frosty contrast which was necessary in a room +of so warm a general tone. This is an example of very delicate and truly +artistic treatment of stencil-work, and one can easily see how it can be +used either in simple or elaborate fashion with great effect. + +Irregularly placed floating forms of Persian or Arabic design are often +admirably stencilled in colour upon a painted wall; but in this case the +colours should be varied and not too strong. A group of forms floating +away from a window-frame or cornice can be done in two shades of the +wall colour, one of which is positively darker and one lighter than the +ground. If to these two shades some delicately contrasting colour is +occasionally added the effect is not only pleasing, but belongs to a +thoroughly good style. + +One seldom tires of a good stencilled wall; probably because it is +intrinsic, and not applied in the sense of paper or textiles. It carries +an air of permanency which discourages change or experiment, but it +requires considerable experience in decoration to execute it worthily; +and not only this, there should be a strong feeling for colour and taste +and education in the selection of design, for though the form of the +stencilled pattern may be graceful, and gracefully combined, it must +always--to be permanently satisfactory--have a geometrical basis. It is +somewhat difficult to account for the fact that what we call natural +forms, of plants and flowers, which are certainly beautiful and graceful +in themselves, and grow into shapes which delight us with their freedom +and beauty, do not give the best satisfaction as motives for interior +decoration. Construction in the architectural sense--the strength and +squareness of walls, ceilings, and floors--seem to reject the yielding +character of design founded upon natural forms, and demand something +which answers more sympathetically to their own qualities. Perhaps it is +for this reason that we find the grouping and arrangement of horizontal +and perpendicular lines and blocks in the old Greek borders so +everlastingly satisfactory. + +It is the principle or requirement, of geometric base in interior design +which, coupled with our natural delight in yielding or growing forms, +has maintained through all the long history of decoration what is called +conventionalised flower design. We find this in every form or method of +decorative art, from embroidery to sculpture, from the Lotus of Egypt +to the Rose of England, and although it results in a sort of crucifixion +of the natural beauty of the flower, in the hands of great designers it +has become an authoritative style of art. + +Of course, there are flower-forms which are naturally geometric, which +have conventionalised themselves. Many of the intricate Moorish frets +and Indian carvings are literal translations of flower-forms +geometrically repeated, and here they lend themselves so perfectly to +the decoration of even exterior walls that the fretted arches of some +Eastern buildings seem almost to have grown of themselves, with all +their elaboration, into the world of nature and art. + +The separate flowers of the gracefully tossing lilac plumes, and the +five-and six-leaved flowers of the pink, have become in this way a very +part of the everlasting walls, as the acanthus leaf has become the +marble blossom of thousands of indestructible columns. + +These are the classics of design and hold the same relation to ornament +printed on paper and silk that we find in the music of the Psalms, as +compared with the tinkle of the ballad. + +There are other methods of decoration in oils which will meet the wants +of the many who like to exercise their own artistic feelings and ability +in their houses or rooms. The painting of flower-friezes upon canvas +which can afterward be mounted upon the wall is a never-ending source of +pleasure; and many of these friezes have a charm and intimacy which no +merely professional painter can rival. These are especially suitable for +bedrooms, since there they may be as personal as the inmate pleases +without undue unveiling of thoughts, fancies, or personal experiences +to the public. A favourite flower or a favourite motto or selection may +be the motive of a charming decoration, if the artist has sufficient +art-knowledge to subordinate it to its architectural juxtaposition. A +narrow border of fixed repeating forms like a rug-border will often +fulfil the necessity for architectural lines, and confine the +flower-border into limits which justify its freedom of composition. + +If one wishes to mount a favourite motto or quotation on the walls, +where it may give constant suggestion or pleasure--or even be a help to +thoughtful and conscientious living--there can be no better fashion than +the style of the old illuminated missals. Dining-rooms and +chimney-pieces are often very appropriately decorated in this way; the +words running on scrolls which are half unrolled and half hidden, and +showing a conventionalised background of fruit and flowers. + +In all these things the _knowingness_, which is the result of study, +tells very strongly--and it is quite worth while to give a good deal of +study to the subject of this kind of decoration before expending the +requisite amount of work upon a painted frieze. + +Canvas friezes have the excellent merit of being not only durable and +cleanable, but they belong to the category of pictures; to what Ruskin +calls "portable art," and one need not grudge the devotion of +considerable time, study, and effort to their doing, since they are +really detachable property, and can be removed from one house or room +and carried to another at the owner's or artist's will. + +There is room for the exercise of much artistic ability in this +direction, as the fact of being able to paint the decoration in parts +and afterward place it, makes it possible for an amateur to do much for +the enhancement of her own house. + +More than any other room in the house, the bedroom will show personal +character. Even when it is not planned for particular occupation, the +characteristics of the inmate will write themselves unmistakably in the +room. If the college boy is put in the white and gold bedroom for even a +vacation period, there will shortly come into its atmosphere an element +of sporting and out-of-door life. Banners and balls and bats, and +emblems of the "wild thyme" order will colour its whiteness; and life of +the growing kind make itself felt in the midst of sanctity. In the same +way, girls would change the bare asceticism of a monk's cell into a +bower of lilies and roses; a fit place for youth and unpraying +innocence. + +The bedrooms of a house are a pretty sure test of the liberality of +mind and understanding of character of the mother or house-ruler. As +each room is in a certain sense the home of the individual occupant, +almost the shell of his or her mind, there will be something narrow and +despotic in the house-rules if this is not allowed. Yet, even +individuality of taste and expression must scrupulously follow sanitary +laws in the furnishing of the bedroom. "Stuffy things" of any sort +should be avoided. The study should be to make it beautiful without such +things, and a liberal use of washable textiles in curtains, portieres, +bed and table covers, will give quite as much sense of luxury as heavily +papered walls and costly upholstery. In fact, one may run through all +the variations from the daintiest and most befrilled and elegant of +guests' bedrooms, to the "boys' room," which includes all or any of the +various implements of sport or the hobbies of the boy collector, and +yet keep inviolate the principles of harmony, colour, and +appropriateness to use, and so accomplish beauty. + +The absolute ruling of light, air, and cleanliness are quite compatible +with individual expression. + +It is this characteristic aspect of the different rooms which makes up +the beauty of the house as a whole. If the purpose of each is left to +develop itself through good conditions, the whole will make that most +delightful of earthly things, a beautiful home. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +KITCHENS + + +The kitchen is an important part of the perfect house and should be a +recognised sharer in its quality of beauty; not alone the beauty which +consists of a successful adaptation of means to ends, but the kind which +is independently and positively attractive to the eye. + +In costly houses it is not hard to attain this quality or the rarer one +of a union of beauty, with perfect adaptation to use; but where it must +be reached by comparatively inexpensive methods, the difficulty is +greater. + +Tiled walls, impervious to moisture, and repellent of fumes, are ideal +boundaries of a kitchen, and may be beautiful in colour, as well as +virtuous in conduct. They may even be laid with gradations of alluring +mineral tints, but, of course, this is out of the question in cheap +buildings; and in demonstrating the possibility of beauty and intrinsic +merit in small and comparatively inexpensive houses, tiles and marbles +must be ruled out of the scheme of kitchen perfection. Plaster, painted +in agreeable tints of oil colour is commendable, but one can do better +by covering the walls with the highly enamelled oil-cloth commonly used +for kitchen tables and shelves. This material is quite marvellous in its +combination of use and effect. Its possibilities were discovered by a +young housewife whose small kitchen formed part of a city apartment, and +whose practical sense was joined to a discursive imagination. After this +achievement--which she herself did not recognise as a stroke of +genius--she added a narrow shelf running entirely around the room, +which carried a decorative row of blue willow-pattern plates. A +dresser, hung with a graduated assortment of blue enamelled sauce-pans, +and other kitchen implements of the same enticing ware, a floor covered +with the heaviest of oil-cloth, laid in small diamond-shapes of blue, +between blocks of white, like a mosaic pavement, were the features of a +kitchen which was, and is, after several years of strenuous wear, a joy +to behold. It was from the first, not only a delight to the clever young +housewife and her friends, but it performed the miracle of changing the +average servant into a careful and excellent one, zealous for the +cleanliness and perfection of her small domain, and performing her +kitchen functions with unexampled neatness. + +The mistress--who had standards of perfection in all things, whether +great or small, and was moreover of Southern blood--confessed that her +ideal of service in her glittering kitchen was not a clever red-haired +Hibernian, but a slim mulatto, wearing a snow-white turban; and this +longing seemed so reasonable, and so impressed my fancy, that whenever I +think of the shining blue-and-silver kitchen, I seem to see within it +the graceful sway of figure and coffee-coloured face which belongs to +the half-breed African race, certain rare specimens of which are the +most beautiful of domestic adjuncts. + +I have used this expedient of oil-cloth-covered walls--for which I am +anxious to give the inventor due credit--in many kitchens, and certain +bathrooms, and always with success. + +It must be applied as if it were wall-paper, except that, as it is a +heavy material, the paste must be thicker. It is also well to have in it +a small proportion of carbolic acid, both as a disinfectant and a +deterrent to paste-loving mice, or any other household pest. The cloth +must be carefully fitted into corners, and whatever shelving or wood +fittings are used in the room, must be placed against it, after it is +applied, instead of having the cloth cut and fitted around them. + +When well mounted, it makes a solid, porcelain-like wall, to which dust +and dirt will not easily adhere, and which can be as easily and +effectually cleaned as if it were really porcelain or marble. + +Such wall treatment will go far toward making a beautiful kitchen. Add +to this a well-arranged dresser for blue or white kitchen china, with a +closed cabinet for the heavy iron utensils which can hardly be included +in any scheme of kitchen beauty; curtained cupboards and short +window-hangings of blue, or "Turkey red"--which are invaluable for +colour, and always washable; a painted floor--which is far better than +oil-cloth, and one has the elements of a satisfactory scheme of beauty. + +A French kitchen, with its white-washed walls, its shining range and +rows upon rows of gleaming copper-ware, is an attractive subject for a +painter; and there is no reason why an American kitchen, in a house +distinguished for beauty in all its family and semi-public rooms, should +not also be beautiful in the rooms devoted to service. We can if we will +make much even in a decorative way of our enamelled and aluminum +kitchen-ware; we may hang it in graduated rows over the +chimney-space--as the French cook parades her coppers--and arrange these +necessary things with an eye to effect, while we secure perfect +convenience of use. They are all pleasant of aspect if care and thought +are devoted to their arrangement, and it is really of quite as much +value to the family to have a charming and perfectly appointed kitchen, +as to possess a beautiful and comfortable parlour or sitting-room. + +Every detail should be considered from the double point of view of use +and effect. If the curtains answer the two purposes of shading sunlight, +or securing privacy at night, and of giving pleasing colour and contrast +to the general tone of the interior, they perform a double function, +each of of which is valuable. + +If the chairs are chosen for strength and use, and are painted or +stained to match the colour of the floor, they add to the satisfaction +of the eye, as well as minister to the house service. A pursuance of +this thought adds to the harmony of the house both in aspect and actual +beauty of living. Of course in selecting such furnishings of the kitchen +as chairs, one must bear in mind that even their legitimate use may +include standing, as well as sitting upon them; that they may be made +temporary resting-places for scrubbing pails, brushes, and other +cleaning necessities, and therefore they must be made of painted wood; +but this should not discourage the provision of a cane-seated +rocking-chair for each servant, as a comfort for weary bones when the +day's work is over. + +In establishments which include a servants' dining-or sitting-room, +these moderate luxuries are a thing of course, but in houses where at +most but two maids are employed they are not always considered, although +they certainly should be. + +If a corner can be appropriated to evening leisure--where there is room +for a small, brightly covered table, a lamp, a couple of rocking-chairs, +work-baskets and a book or magazine, it answers in a small way to the +family evening-room, where all gather for rest and comfort. + +There is no reason why the wall space above it should not have its +cabinet for photographs and the usually cherished prayer-book which +maids love both to possess and display. Such possessions answer exactly +to the _bric-a-brac_ of the drawing-room; ministering to the same human +instinct in its primitive form, and to the inherent enjoyment of the +beautiful which is the line of demarcation between the tribes of animals +and those of men. + +If one can use this distinctly human trait as a lever to raise crude +humanity into the higher region of the virtues, it is certainly worth +while to consider pots and pans from the point of view of their +decorative ability. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT + + +In choosing colour for walls and ceilings, it is most necessary to +consider the special laws which govern its application to house +interiors. + +The tint of any particular room should be chosen not only with reference +to personal liking, but first of all, to the quantity and quality of +light which pervades it. A north room will require warm and bright +treatment, warm reds and golden browns, or pure gold colours. +Gold-colour used in sash curtains will give an effect of perfect +sunshine in a dark and shadowy room, but the same treatment in a room +fronting the south would produce an almost insupportable brightness. + +I will illustrate the modifications made necessary in tint by different +exposure to light, by supposing that some one member of the family +prefers yellow to all other colours, one who has enough of the chameleon +in her nature to feel an instinct to bask in sunshine. I will also +suppose that the room most conveniently devoted to the occupation of +this member has a southern exposure. If yellow must be used in her room, +the quality of it should be very different from that which could be +properly and profitably used in a room with a northern exposure, and it +should differ not only in intensity, but actually in tint. If it is +necessary, on account of personal preference, to use yellow in a sunny +room, it should be lemon, instead of ochre or gold-coloured yellow, +because the latter would repeat sunlight. There are certain shades of +yellow, where white has been largely used in the mixture, which are +capable of greenish reflections. This is where the white is of so pure a +quality as to suggest blue, and consequently under the influence of +yellow to suggest green. We often find yellow dyes in silks the shadows +of which are positive fawn colour or even green, instead of orange as we +might expect; still, even with modifications, yellow should properly be +reserved for sunless rooms, where it acts the part almost of the blessed +sun itself in giving cheerfulness and light. Going from a sun-lighted +atmosphere, or out of actual sunlight into a yellow room, one would miss +the sense of shelter which is so grateful to eyes and senses a little +dazzled by the brilliance of out-of-door lights; whereas a room darkened +or shaded by a piazza, or somewhat chilled by a northern exposure and +want of sun, would be warmed and comforted by tints of gold-coloured +yellow. + +Interiors with a southern exposure should be treated with cool, light +colours, blues in various shades, water-greens, and silvery tones which +will contrast with the positive yellow of sunlight. + +It is by no means a merely arbitrary rule. Colours are actually warm or +cold in temperature, as well as in effect upon the eye or the +imagination, in fact the words cover a long-tested fact. I remember +being told by a painter of his placing a red sunset landscape upon the +flat roof of a studio building to dry, and on going to it a few hours +afterward he found the surface of it so warm to the touch--so sensibly +warmer than the gray and blue and green pictures around it--that he +brought a thermometer to test it, and found it had acquired and retained +heat. It was actually warmer by degrees than the gray and blue pictures +in the same sun exposure. + +We instinctively wear warm colours in winter and dispense with them in +summer, and this simple fact may explain the art which allots what we +call warm colour to rooms without sun. When we say warm colours, we mean +yellows, reds with all their gradations, gold or sun browns, and dark +browns and black. When we say cool colours--whites, blues, grays, and +cold greens--for greens may be warm or cold, according to their +composition or intensity. A water-green is a cold colour, so is a pure +emerald green, so also a blue-green; while an olive, or a gold-green +comes into the category of warm colours. This is because it is a +composite colour made of a union of warm and cold colours; the brown and +yellow in its composition being in excess of the blue; as pink also, +which is a mixture of red and white; and lavender, which is a mixture of +red, white, and blue, stand as intermediate between two extremes. + +Having duly considered the effect of light upon colour, we may +fearlessly choose tints for every room according to personal preferences +or tastes. If we like one warm colour better than another, there is no +reason why that one should not predominate in every room in the house +which has a shadow exposure. If we like a cold colour it should be used +in many of the sunny rooms. + +I believe we do not give enough importance to this matter of personal +liking in tints. We select our friends from sympathy. As a rule, we do +not philosophise much about it, although we may recognise certain +principles in our liking; it is those to whom our hearts naturally open +that we invite in and have joy in their companionship, and we might +surely follow our likings in the matter of colour, as well as in +friendship, and thereby add much to our happiness. Curiously enough we +often speak of the colour of a mind--and I once knew a child who +persisted in calling people by the names of colours; not the colour of +their clothes, but some mind-tint which he felt. "The blue lady" was his +especial favourite, and I have no doubt the presence or absence of that +particular colour made a difference in his content all the days of his +life. + +The colour one likes is better for tranquillity and enjoyment--more +conducive to health; and exercises an actual living influence upon +moods. For this reason, if no other, the colour of a room should never +be arbitrarily prescribed or settled for the one who is to be its +occupant. It should be as much a matter of _nature_ as the lining of a +shell is to the mussel, or as the colour of the wings of a butterfly. + +In fact the mind which we cannot see may have a colour of its own, and +it is natural that it should choose to dwell within its own influence. + +We do not know _why_ we like certain colours, but we do, and let that +suffice, and let us live with them, as gratefully as we should for more +explainable ministry. + +If colours which we like have a soothing effect upon us, those which we +do not like are, on the other hand, an unwelcome influence. If a woman +says in her heart, I hate green, or red, or I dislike any one colour, +and then is obliged to live in its neighbourhood, she will find herself +dwelling with an enemy. We all know that there are colours of which a +little is enjoyable when a mass would be unendurable. Predominant +scarlet would be like close companionship with a brass band, but a note +of scarlet is one of the most valuable of sensations. The gray +compounded of black and white would be a wet blanket to all bubble of +wit or spring of fancy, but the shadows of rose colour are gray, +pink-tinted it is true; indeed the shadow of pink used to be known by +the name of _ashes of roses_. I remember seeing once in Paris--that home +of bad general decoration--a room in royal purples; purple velvet on +walls, furniture, and hangings. One golden Rembrandt in the middle of a +long wall, and a great expanse of ochre-coloured parquetted floor were +all that saved it from the suggestion of a royal tomb. As it was, I left +the apartment with a feeling of treading softly as when we pass through +a door hung with crape. Vagaries of this kind are remediable when they +occur in cravats, or bonnets, or gloves--but a room in the wrong colour! +Saints and the angels preserve us! + +[Illustration: SITTING-ROOM IN "WILD WOOD." ONTEORA (BELONGING TO MISS +LUISITA LELAND)] + +The number, size, and placing of the windows will greatly affect the +intensity of colour to be used. It must always be remembered that any +interior is dark as compared with out-of-doors, and that in the lightest +room there will be dark corners or spaces where the colour chosen as +chief tint will seem much darker than it really is. A paper or textile +chosen in a good light will look several shades darker when placed in +large unbroken masses or spaces upon the wall, and a fully furnished +room will generally be much darker when completed than might be expected +in planning it. For this reason, in choosing a favourite tint, it is +better on many accounts to choose it in as light a shade as one finds +agreeable. It can be repeated in stronger tones in furniture or in small +and unimportant furnishings of the room, but the wall tone should never +be deeper than medium in strength, at the risk of having all the light +absorbed by the colour, and of losing a sense of atmosphere in the room. +There is another reason for this, which is that many colours are +agreeable, even to their lovers, only in light tones. The moment they +get below medium they become insistent, and make themselves of too much +importance. In truth colour has qualities which are almost personal, and +is well worth studying in all its peculiarities, because of its power to +affect our happiness. + +The principles of proper use of colour in house interiors are not +difficult to master. It is unthinking, unreflective action which makes +so many unrestful interiors of homes. The creator of a home should +consider, in the first place, that it is a matter as important as +climate, and as difficult to get away from, and that the first shades +of colour used in a room upon walls or ceiling, must govern everything +else that enters in the way of furnishing; that the colour of walls +prescribes that which must be used in floors, curtains, and furniture. +Not that these must necessarily be of the same tint as walls, but that +wall-tints must govern the choice. + +All this makes it necessary to take first steps carefully, to select for +each room the colour which will best suit the taste, feeling, or bias of +the occupant, always considering the exposure of the room and the use of +it. + +After the relation of colour to light is established--with personal +preferences duly taken into account--the next law is that of gradation. +The strongest, and generally the purest, tones of colour belong +naturally at the base, and the floor of a room means the base upon which +the scheme of decoration is to be built. + +The carpet, or floor covering, should carry the strongest tones. If a +single tint is to be used, the walls must take the next gradation, and +the ceiling the last. These gradations must be far enough removed from +each other in depth of tone to be quite apparent, but not to lose their +relation. The connecting grades may appear in furniture covering and +draperies, thus giving different values in the same tone, the relation +between them being perfectly apparent. These three masses of related +colour are the groundwork upon which one can play infinite variations, +and is really the same law upon which a picture is composed. There are +foreground, middle-distance, and sky--and in a properly coloured room, +the floors, walls, and ceiling bear the same relation to each other as +the grades of colour in a picture, or in a landscape. + +Fortunately we keep to this law almost by instinct, and yet I have seen +a white-carpeted floor in a room with a painted ceiling of considerable +depth of colour. Imagine the effect where this rule of gradation or +ascending scale is reversed. A tinted floor of cream colour, or even +white, and a ceiling as deep in colour as a landscape. One feels as if +they themselves were reversed, and standing upon their heads. Certainly +if we ignore this law we lose our sense of base or foundation, and +although we may not know exactly why, we shall miss the restfulness of a +properly constructed scheme of decoration. + +The rule of gradation includes also that of massing of colour. In all +simple treatment of interiors, whatever colour is chosen should be +allowed space enough to establish its influence, broadly and freely, and +here again we get a lesson from nature in the massing of colour. It +should not be broken into patches and neutralised by divisions, but used +in large enough spaces to dominate, or bring into itself or its own +influence all that is placed in the room. If this rule is disregarded +every piece of furniture unrelated to the whole becomes a spot, it has +no real connection with the room, and the room itself, instead of a +harmonious and delightful influence, akin to that of a sun-flushed dawn +or a sunset sky, is like a picture where there is no composition, or a +book where incident is jumbled together without relation to the story. +In short, placing of colour in large uniform masses used in gradation is +the groundwork of all artistic effect in interiors. As I have said, it +is the same rule that governs pictures, the general tone may be green or +blue, or a division of each, but to be a perfect and harmonious view, +every detail must relate to one or both of these tints. + +In formulating thus far the rules for use of colour in rooms, we have +touched upon three principles which are equally binding in interiors, +whether of a cottage or a palace; the first is that of colour in +relation to light, the second of colour in gradation, and the third of +colour in masses. + +A house in which walls and ceilings are simply well coloured or covered, +has advanced very far toward the home which is the rightful endowment of +every human being. The variations of treatment, which pertain to more +costly houses, the application of design in borders and frieze spaces, +walls, wainscots, and ceilings, are details which will probably call for +artistic advice and professional knowledge, since in these things it is +easy to err in misapplied decoration. The advance from perfect +simplicity to selected and beautiful ornament marks not only the degree +of cost but of knowledge which it is in the power of the house-owner to +command. The elaboration which is the privilege of more liberal means +and the use of artistic experience in decoration on a larger scale. + +The smaller house shares in the advantage of beautiful colour, correct +principles, and appropriate treatment equally with the more costly. The +variations do not falsify principles. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS + + +The true principle of wall treatment is to make the boundary stand for +colour and beauty, and not alone for division of space. + +As a rule, the colour treatment of a house interior must begin with the +walls, and it is fortunate if these are blank and plain as in most new +houses with uncoloured ceilings, flat or broken with mouldings to suit +the style of the house. + +The range of possible treatment is very wide, from simple tones of wall +colour against which quiet cottage or domestic city life goes on, to the +elaboration of walls of houses of a different grade, where stately +pageants are a part of the drama of daily life. But having shown that +certain rules are applicable to both, and indeed necessary to success +in both, we may choose within these rules any tint or colour which is +personally pleasing. + +Rooms with an east or west light may carry successfully tones of any +shade, without violating fundamental laws. + +The first impression of a room depends upon the walls. In fact, rooms +are good or bad, agreeable or ugly in exact accordance with the +wall-quality and treatment. No richness of floor-covering, draperies, or +furniture can minimise their influence. + +Perhaps it is for this reason that the world is full of papers and other +devices for making walls agreeable; and we cannot wonder at this, when +we reflect that something of the kind is necessary to the aspect of the +room, and that each room effects for the individual exactly what the +outer walls of the house effect for the family, they give space for +personal privacy and for that reserve of the individual which is the +earliest effect of luxury and comfort. + +It is certain that if walls are not made agreeable there is in them +something of restraint to the eye and the sense which is altogether +disagreeable. Apparent confinement within given limits, is, on the +whole, repugnant to either the natural or civilised man, and for this +reason we are constantly tempted to disguise the limit and to cover the +wall in such a way as shall interest and make us forget our bounds. In +this case, the idea of decoration is, to make the walls a barrier of +colour only, instead of hard, unyielding masonry; to take away the sense +of being shut in a box, and give instead freedom to thought and pleasure +to the sense. + +It is the effect of shut-in-ness which the square and rigid walls of a +room give that makes drapery so effective and welcome, and which also +gives value to the practice of covering walls with silks or other +textiles. The softened surface takes away the sense of restraint. We +hang our walls with pictures, or cover them with textiles, or with paper +which carries design, or even colour them with +pigments--something--anything, which will disguise a restraining bound, +or make it masquerade as a luxury. + +This effort or instinct has set in motion the machinery of the world. It +has created tapestries and brocades for castle and palace, and invented +cheap substitutes for these costly products, so that the smallest and +poorest house as well as the richest can cover its walls with something +pleasant to the eye and suggestive to the mind. + +[Illustration: LARGE SITTING-ROOM IN "STAR ROCK" COUNTRY HOUSE] + +It is one of the privileges and opportunities of art to invent these +disguises; and to do it so thoroughly and successfully as to content us +with facts which would otherwise be disagreeable. And we do, by these +various devices, make our walls so hospitable to our thoughts that we +take positive and continual pleasure in them. + +We do this chiefly, perhaps, by ministering to our instinctive love of +colour; which to many temperaments is like food to the hungry, and +satisfies as insistent a demand of the mind as food to the body. + +At this late period of the world we are the inheritors of many methods +of wall disguise, from the primitive weavings or blanket coverings with +which nomadic peoples lined the walls of their tents, or the arras which +in later days covered the roughness and rudeness of the stone walls of +kings and barons, to the pictured tapestries of later centuries. This +latter achievement of art manufacture has outlived and far outweighed +the others in value, because it more perfectly performs the object of +its creation. + +Tapestries, for the most part, offer us a semblance of nature, and cheat +us with a sense of unlimited horizon. The older tapestries give us, with +this, suggestions of human life and action in out-of-door scenes +sufficiently unrealistic to offer a vague dream of existence in fields +and forests. This effectually diverts our minds from the confinements of +space, and allows us the freedom of nature. + +Probably the true secret of the never-failing appreciation of +tapestries--from the very beginning of their history until this day--is +this fact of their suggestiveness; since we find that damasks of silk or +velvet or other costly weavings, although far surpassing tapestries in +texture and concentration of colour, yet lacking their suggestiveness to +the mind, can never rival them in the estimation of the world. +Unhappily, we cannot count veritable tapestries as a modern recourse in +wall-treatment, since we are precluded from the use of genuine ones by +their scarcity and cost. + +There is undoubtedly a peculiar richness and charm in a tapestry-hung +wall which no other wall covering can give; yet they are not entirely +appropriate to our time. They belong to the period of windy palaces and +enormous enclosures, and are fitted for pageants and ceremonies, and not +to our carefully plastered, wind-tight and narrow rooms. Their mission +to-day is to reproduce for us in museums and collections the life of +yesterday, so full of pomp and almost barbaric lack of domestic comfort. +In studios they are certainly appropriate and suggestive, but in +private houses except of the princely sort, it is far better to make +harmonies with the things of to-day. + +Nevertheless if the soul craves tapestries let them be chosen for +intrinsic beauty and perfect preservation, instead of accepting the rags +of the past and trying to create with them a magnificence which must be +incomplete and shabby. Considering, as I do, that tapestries belong to +the life and conditions of the past, where the homeless many toiled for +the pampered few, and not to the homes of to-day where the man of +moderate means expects beauty in his home as confidently as if he were a +world ruler, I find it hardly necessary to include them in the list of +means of modern decoration, and indeed it is not necessary, since a +well-preserved tapestry of a good period, and of a famous manufacturer +or origin, is so costly a purchase that only our bounteous and +self-indulgent millionaires would venture to acquire one solely for +purposes of wall decoration. It would be purchased as a specimen of art +and not as furnishing. + +Yet I know one instance of a library where a genuine old foliage +tapestry has been cut and fitted to the walls and between bookcases and +doors, where the wood of the room is in mahogany, and a great +chimney-piece of Caen stone of Richardson's designing fills nearly one +side of the room. Of course the tapestry is unapproachable in effect in +this particular place and with its surroundings. It has the richness and +softness of velvet, and the red of the mahogany doors and furniture +finds exactly its foil in the blue greens and soft browns of the web, +while the polished floor and velvety antique rugs bring all the richness +of the walls down to one's feet and to the hearth with its glow of +fire. But this particular room hardly makes an example for general +following. It is really a house of state, a house without children, one +in which public life predominates. + +There is a very flagrant far-away imitation of tapestry which is so far +from being good that it is a wonder it has had even a moderate success, +imitation which does not even attempt the decorative effect of the +genuine, but substitutes upon an admirably woven cotton or woollen +canvas, figure panels, copied from modern French masters, and suggestive +of nothing but bad art. Yet these panels are sometimes used (and in fact +are produced for the purpose of being used) precisely as a genuine +tapestry would be, although the very fact of pretence in them, brings a +feeling of untruth, quite at variance with the principles of all good +art. The objection to pictures transferred to tapestries holds good, +even when the tapestries are genuine. + +The great cartoons of Raphael, still to be seen in the Kensington +Museum, which were drawn and coloured for Flemish weavers to copy, show +a perfect adaptation to the medium of weaving, while the paintings in +the Vatican by the same great master are entirely inappropriate to +textile reproduction. + +A picture cannot be transposed to different substance and purpose +without losing the qualities which make it valuable. The double effort +to be both a tapestry and a picture is futile, and brings into disrepute +a simple art of imitation which might become respectable if its +capabilities were rightly used. + +No one familiar with collections of tapestries can fail to recognise the +largeness and simplicity of treatment peculiar to tapestry subjects as +contrasted with the elaboration of pictures. + +If we grant that in this modern world of hurry, imitation of tapestries +is legitimate, the important question is, what are the best subjects, +and what is the best use for such imitations? + +The best use is undoubtedly that of wall-covering; and that was, indeed, +the earliest object for which they were created. They were woven to +cover great empty spaces of unsightly masonry; and they are still +infinitely useful and beautiful in grand apartments whose barren spaces +are too large for modern pictures, and which need the disguise of a +suggestion of scenery or pictorial subject. + +If tapestries must be painted, let them by all means follow the style of +the ancient verdure or foliage tapestries, and be used for the same +purpose--to cover an otherwise blank wall. This is legitimate, and even +beautiful, but it is painting, and should be frankly acknowledged to be +such, and no attempt made to have them masquerade as genuine and costly +weavings. It is simply and always painting, although in the style and +spirit of early tapestries. Productions of this sort, where real skill +in textile painting is used, are quite worthy of admiration and respect. + +I remember seeing, in the Swedish exhibit of women's work in the Woman's +Building at the Columbian Exposition, a screen which had evidently been +copied from an old bit of verdure tapestry. At the base were +broad-leaved water-plants, each leaf carefully copied in blocks and +patches of colour, with even the effect of the little empty space--where +one thread passes to the back in weaving, to make room for one of +another colour brought forward--imitated by a dot of black to simulate +the tiny shadow-filled pen-point of a hole. + +Now whether this was art or not I leave to French critics to decide, but +it was at least admirable imitation; and any one able to cover the wall +spaces between bookcases in a library with such imitation would find +them as richly set as if it were veritable tapestry. + +This is a very different thing from a painted tapestry, perhaps enlarged +from a photograph or engraving of a painting the original of which the +tapestry-painter had never even seen--the destiny of which unfortunate +copy, changed in size, colour, and all the qualities which gave value to +the original, is probably to be hung as a picture in the centre of a +space of wall-paper totally antagonistic in colour. + +When I see these things I long to curb the ambition of the unfortunate +tapestry-painter until a course of study has taught him or her the +proper use of a really useful process; for whether the object is to +produce a decoration or a simulated tapestry, it is not attained by +these methods. + +The ordinary process of painting in dyes upon a wool or linen fabric +woven in tapestry method, and fixing the colour with heat, enables the +painter--if a true tapestry subject is chosen and tapestry effects +carefully studied--to produce really effective and good things, and this +opens a much larger field to the woman decorator than the ordinary +unstudied shams which have thrown what might become in time a large and +useful art-industry into neglect and disrepute. + +I have seen the walls of a library hung with Siberian linen, stained in +landscape design in the old blues and greens which give tapestry its +decorative value, and found it a delightful wall-covering. Indeed we may +lay it down as a principle in decoration that while we may use and adapt +any decorative _effect_ we must not attempt to make it pass for the +thing which suggested the effect. + +Coarse and carefully woven linens, used as I have indicated, are really +far better than old tapestries for modern houses, because the design can +be adapted to the specific purpose and the texture itself can be easily +cleaned and is more appropriate to the close walls and less airy rooms +of this century. + +For costly wall-decoration, leather is another of the substances which +have had a past of pomp and magnificence, and carries with it, in +addition to beauty, a suggestion of the art of a race. Spanish leather, +with its stamping and gilding, is quite as costly a wall covering as +antique or modern tapestry, and far more indestructible. Perhaps it is +needlessly durable as a mere vehicle for decoration. At all events +Japanese artists and artisans seem to be of this opinion, and have +transferred the same kind of decoration to heavy paper, where for some +occult reason--although strongly simulating leather--it seems not only +not objectionable, but even meritorious. This is because it simply +transfers an artistic method from a costly substance, to another which +is less so, and the fact may even have some weight that paper is a +product of human manufacture, instead of human appropriation of animal +life, for surely sentiment has its influence in decoration as in other +arts. + +Wood panelling is also a form of interior treatment which has come to us +by inheritance from the past as well as by right of natural possession. +It has a richness and sober dignity of effect which commends it in large +or small interiors, in halls, libraries, and dining-rooms, whether they +are public or private; devoted to grand functions, or to the constantly +recurring uses of domesticity. Wood is so beautiful a substance in +itself, and lends itself to so many processes of ornamentation, that +hardly too much can be said of its appropriateness for interior +decoration. From the two extremes of plain pine panellings cut into +squares or parallelograms by machinery, and covered with paint in tints +to match door and window casings, to the most elaborate carvings which +back the Cathedral stalls or seats of ecclesiastical dignity, it is +always beautiful and generally appropriate in use and effect, and that +can hardly be said of any other substance. There are wainscotted rooms +in old houses in Newport, where, under the accumulated paint of one or +two centuries, great panels of old Spanish mahogany can still be found, +not much the worse for their long eclipse. Such rooms, in the original +brilliancy of colour and polish, with their parallel shadings of +mahogany-red reflecting back the firelight from tiled chimney-places and +scattering the play of dancing flame, must have had a beauty of colour +hard to match in this day of sober oak and painted wainscottings. + +[Illustration: PAINTED CANVAS FRIEZE] + +[Illustration: BUCKRAM FRIEZE FOR DINING-ROOM] + +One of the lessons gained by experience in treatment of house interiors, +is that plain, flat tints give apparent size to small rooms, and that a +satisfying effect in large ones can be gained by variation of tint or +surface; also, that in a bedroom or other small room apparent size will +be gained by using a wall covering which is light rather than dark. +Some difference of tone there must be in large plain surfaces which lie +within the level of the eye; or the monotony of a room becomes +fatiguing. A plain, painted wall may, it is true, be broken by pictures, +or cabinets, or bits of china; anything in short which will throw parts +of it into shadow, and illumine other parts with gilded reflections; but +even then there will be long, plain spaces above the picture or cabinet +line, where blank monotony of tone will be fatal to the general effect +of the room. + +It is in this upper space, upon a plain painted wall, that a broad line +of flat decoration should occur, but on a wall hung with paper or cloth, +it is by no means necessary. + +Damasked cloths, where the design is shown by the direction of woven +threads, are particularly effective and satisfactory as wall-coverings. +The soft surface is luxurious to the imagination, and the play of light +and shadow upon the warp and woof interests the eye, although there is +no actual change of colour. + +Too much stress can hardly be laid upon the variation of tone in +wall-surfaces, since the four walls stand for the atmosphere of a room. +Tone means quality of colour. It may be light or dark, or of any tint, +or variations of tint, but the quality of it must be soft and +charitable, instead of harsh and uncompromising. + +Almost the best of modern inventions for inexpensive wall-coverings are +found in what are called the ingrain papers. These have a variable +surface, without reflections, and make not only a soft and impalpable +colour effect, but, on account of their want of reflection, are good +backgrounds for pictures. + +In these papers the colour is produced by a mixture in the mass of +paper pulp of atoms of varying tint, which are combined in the substance +and make one general tint resulting from the mixture of several. In +canvases and textiles, which are a more expensive method of producing +almost the same mixed effect, the minute points of brilliance of threads +in light and darkness of threads in shadow, combine to produce softness +of tone, impossible to pigment because it has but one plain surface, +unrelieved by breaking up into light and shadow. + +Variation, produced by minute differences, which affect each other and +which the eye blends into a general tone, produce quality. It is at the +same time soft and brilliant, and is really a popular adaptation of the +philosophy of impressionist painters, whose small dabs of pure colour +placed in close juxtaposition and fused into one tone by the eye, give +the purity and vibration of colour which distinguishes work of that +school. + +Some skilful painters can stipple one tone upon another so as to produce +the same brilliant softness of effect, and when this can be done, +oil-colour upon plaster is the best of all treatment for bedrooms since +it fulfils all the sanitary and other conditions so necessary in +sleeping-rooms. The same effect may be produced if the walls are of +rough instead of smooth plaster, so that the small inequalities of +surface give light and shadow as in textiles; upon such surfaces a +pleasant tint in flat colour is always good. Painted burlaps and certain +Japanese papers prepared with what may be called a textile or canvas +surface give the same effect, and indeed quality of tint and tone is far +more easily obtained in wall-coverings or applied materials than in +paint, because in most wall-coverings there are variations of tint +produced in the very substance of the material. + +This matter of variation without contrast in wall-surface, is one of the +most important in house decoration, and has led to the increased use of +textiles in houses where artistic effects have been carefully studied +and are considered of importance. + +Of course wall-paper must continue to be the chief means of +wall-covering, on account of its cheapness, and because it is the +readiest means of sheathing a plaster surface; and a continuous demand +for papers of good and nearly uniform colour, and the sort of +inconspicuous design which fits them for modest interiors will have the +effect of increasing the manufacture of desirable and artistic things. + +In the meantime one should carefully avoid the violently coloured +papers which are made only to sell; materials which catch the eye of the +inexperienced and tempt them into the buying of things which are +productive of lasting unrest. It is in the nature of positive masses and +strongly contrasting colours to produce this effect. + +If one is unfortunate enough to occupy a room of which the walls are +covered with one of these glaring designs, and circumstances prevent a +radical change, the simplest expedient is to cover the whole surface +with a kalsomine or chalk-wash, of some agreeable tint. This will dry in +an hour or two and present a nearly uniform surface, in which the +printed design of the paper, if it appears at all, will be a mere +suggestion. Papers where the design is carried in colour only a few +shades darker than the background, are also safe, and--if the design is +a good one--often very desirable for halls and dining-rooms. In +skilfully printed papers of the sort the design often has the effect of +a mere shadow-play of form. + +Of course in the infinite varieties of use and the numberless variations +of personal taste, there are, and should be, innumerable differences in +application of both colour and materials to interiors. There are +differences in the use of rooms which may make a sense of perfect +seclusion desirable, as, for instance, in libraries, or rooms used +exclusively for evening gatherings of the family. In such semi-private +rooms the treatment should give a sense of close family life rather than +space, while in drawing-rooms it should be exactly the reverse, and this +effect is easily secured by competent use of colour. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +LOCATION OF THE HOUSE + + +Besides the difference in treatment demanded by different use of +rooms--the character of the decoration of the whole house will be +influenced by its situation. A house in the country or a house in town; +a house by the sea-shore or a house situated in woods and fields require +stronger or less strong colour, and even different tints, according to +situation. The decoration itself may be much less conventional in one +place than in another, and in country houses much and lasting charm is +derived from design and colour in perfect harmony with nature's +surroundings. Whatever decorative design is used in wall-coverings or in +curtains or hangings will be far more effective if it bears some +relation to the surroundings and position of the house. + +If the house is by the sea the walls should repeat with many variations +the tones of sea and sand and sky; the gray-greens of sand-grasses; the +blues which change from blue to green with every cloud-shadow; the pearl +tints which become rose in the morning or evening light, and the browns +and olives of sea mosses and lichens. This treatment of colour will make +the interior of the house a part of the great out-of-doors and create a +harmony between the artificial shelter and nature. + +There is philosophy in following, as far as the limitations of simple +colour will allow, the changeableness and fluidity of natural effects +along the shore, and allowing the mood of the brief summer life to fall +into entire harmony with the dominant expression of the sea. Blues and +greens and pinks and browns should all be kept on a level with +out-of-door colour, that is, they should not be too deep and strong for +harmony with the sea and sky, and if, when harmonious colour is once +secured, most of the materials used in the furnishing of the house are +chosen because their design is based upon, or suggested by, sea-forms, +an impression is produced of having entered into complete and perfect +harmony with the elements and aspects of nature. The artificialities of +life fall more and more into the background, and one is refreshed with a +sense of having established entirely harmonious and satisfactory +relations with the surroundings of nature. I remember a doorway of a +cottage by the sea, where the moulding which made a part of the frame +was an orderly line of carved cockle-shells, used as a border, and this +little touch of recognition of its sea-neighbours was not only +decorative in itself, but gave even the chance visitor a sort of +interpretation of the spirit of the interior life. + +Suppose, on the other hand, that the summer house is placed in the +neighbourhood of fields and trees and mountains; it will be found that +strong and positive treatment of the interior is more in harmony with +the outside landscape. Even heavier furniture looks fitting where the +house is surrounded with massive tree-growths; and deeper and purer +colours can be used in hangings and draperies. This is due to the more +positive colouring of a landscape than of a sea-view. The masses of +strong and slightly varying green in foliage, the red, brown, or vivid +greens of fields and crops, the dark lines of tree-trunks and branches, +as well as the unchanging forms of rock and hillside, call for a +corresponding strength of interior effect. + +It is a curious fact, also, that where a house is surrounded by myriads +of small natural forms of leaves and flowers and grasses, plain spaces +of colour in interiors, or spaces where form is greatly subordinated to +colour, are more grateful to the eye than prominently decorated surface. +A repetition of small natural forms like the shells and sea-mosses, +which are for the most part hidden under lengths of liquid blue, is +pleasing and suggestive by the sea; but in the country, where form is +prominent and positive and prints itself constantly upon both mental and +bodily vision, unbroken colour surfaces are found to be far more +agreeable. + +It will be seen that the principles of appropriate furnishing and +adornment in house interiors depend upon circumstances and natural +surroundings as well as upon the character and pursuits of the family +who are to be lodged, and that the final charm of the home is attained +by a perfect adaptation of principles to existing conditions both of +nature and humanity. + +In cottages of the character we are considering, furniture should be +simpler and lighter than in houses intended for constant family living. +Chairs and sofas should be without elaborate upholstery and hangings, +and cushions can be appropriately made of some well-coloured cotton or +linen material which wind, and sun, and dampness cannot spoil, and of +which the freshness can always be restored by laundering. These are +general rules, appropriate to all summer cottages, and to these it may +be added, that a house which is to be closed for six or eight months in +the year should really, to be consistent, be inexpensively furnished. +These general rules are intended only to emphasise the fact that in +houses which are to become in the truest sense homes--that is, places of +habitation which represent the inhabitants, directions or rules for +beautiful colour and arrangement of interiors, must always follow the +guiding incidents of class and locality. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +CEILINGS + + +As ceilings are in reality a part of the wall, they must always be +considered in connection with room interiors, but their influence upon +the beauty of the average house is so small, that their treatment is a +comparatively easy problem. + +In simple houses with plaster ceilings the tints to be used are easily +decided. The rule of gradation of colour from floor to ceiling +prescribes for the latter the lightest tone of the gradation, and as the +ceiling stands for light, and should actually reflect light into the +room, the philosophy of this arrangement of colours is obvious. It is +not, however, an invariable rule that the ceiling should carry the same +tint as the wall, even in a much lighter tone, although greater harmony +and restfulness of effect is produced in this way. A ceiling of cream +white will harmonise well with almost any tint upon the walls, and at +the same time give an effect of air and light in the room. It is also a +good ground for ornament in elaborately decorated ones. + +If the walls are covered with a light wall-paper which carries a floral +design, it is a safe rule to make the ceiling of the same colour but a +lighter shade of the background of the paper, but it is not by any means +good art to carry a flower design over the ceiling. One sometimes sees +instances of this in the bedrooms of fairly good houses, and the effect +is naturally that of bringing the ceiling apparently almost to one's +head, or at all events, of producing a very unrestful effect. + +A wood ceiling in natural colour is always a good feature in a room of +defined or serious purpose, like a hall, dining-room, or library, +because in such rooms the colour of the side walls is apt to be strong +enough to balance it. Indeed a wooden ceiling has always the merit of +being secure in its place, and even where the walls are light can be +painted so as to be in harmony with them. Plaster as a ceiling for +bedrooms is open to the objection of a possibility of its detaching +itself from the lath, especially in old houses, and in these it is well +to have them strengthened with flat mouldings of wood put on in regular +squares, or even in some geometrical design, and painted with the +ceiling. This gives security as well as a certain elaborateness of +effect not without its value. + +For the ordinary, or comparatively inexpensive home, we need not +consider the ceiling an object for serious study, because it is so +constantly out of the line of sight, and because its natural colourless +condition is no bar to the general colour-effect. + +In large rooms this condition is changed, for in a long perspective the +ceiling comes into sight and consciousness. There would be a sense of +barrenness and poverty in a long stretch of plain surface or unbroken +colour over a vista of decorated wall, and accordingly the ceilings of +large and important rooms are generally broken by plaster mouldings or +architectural ornament. + +In rooms of this kind, whether in public or private buildings, +decorative painting has its proper and appropriate place. A painted +ceiling, no matter how beautiful, is quite superfluous and indeed +absolutely lost in a room where size prevents its being brought into the +field of the eye by the lowering of long perspective lines, but when +the size of the room gives unusual length of ceiling, no effect of +decoration is so valuable and precious. Colour and gilding upon a +ceiling, when well sustained by fine composition or treatment, is +undoubtedly the highest and best achievement of the decorative painter's +art. + +Such a ceiling in a large and stately drawing-room, where the walls are +hung with silk which gives broken indications of graceful design in play +of light upon the texture, is one of the most successful of both modern +as well as antique methods of decoration. It has come down in direct +succession of practice to the school of French decoration of to-day, and +has been adopted into American fashion in its full and complete practice +without sufficient adaptation to American circumstances. If it were +modified by these, it is capable of absorbing other and better qualities +than those of mere fashion and brilliance, as we see in occasional +instances in some beautiful American houses, where the ceilings have +been painted, and the textiles woven with an almost imaginative +appropriateness of subject. Such ceilings as this belong, of course, to +the efforts of the mural or decorative painter, who, in conjunction with +the decorator, or architect, has studied the subject as connected with +its surroundings. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS + + +Although in ordinary sequence the colouring of floors comes after that +of walls, the fact that--in important houses--costly and elaborate +floors of mosaic or of inlaid wood form part of the architect's plan, +makes it necessary to consider the effect of inherent or natural colours +of such floors, in connection with applied colour-schemes in rooms. + +Mosaic floors, being as a rule confined to halls in private houses, need +hardly be considered in this relation, and costly wood floors are almost +necessarily confined to the yellows of the natural woods. These yellows +range from pale buff to olive, and are not as a rule inharmonious with +any other tint, although they often lack sufficient strength or +intensity to hold their own with stronger tints of walls and furniture. + +As it is one of the principles of colour in a house that the floor is +the foundation of the room, this weakness of colour in hard-wood floors +must be acknowledged as a disadvantage. The floors should certainly be +able to support the room in colour as well as in construction. It must +be the strongest tint in the room, and yet it must have the +unobtrusiveness of strength. This makes floor treatment a more difficult +problem, or one requiring more thought than is generally supposed, and +explains why light rooms are more successful with hard-wood floors than +medium or very dark ones. + +There are many reasons, sanitary as well as economic, why hard-wood +floors should not be covered in ordinary dwelling-houses; and when the +pores of the wood are properly filled, and the surface kept well +polished, it is not only good as a fact, but as an effect, as it +reflects surrounding tints, and does much to make up for lack of +sympathetic or related colour. Yet it will be found that in almost every +case of successful colour-treatment in a room, something must be added +in the way of floor-covering to give it the sense of completeness and +satisfaction which is the result of a successful scheme of decoration. + +The simplest way of doing this is to cover enough of the space with rugs +to attract the eye, and restore the balance lost by want of strength of +colour in the wood. Sometimes one or two small rugs will do this, and +these may be of almost any tint which includes the general one of the +room, even if the general tint is not prominent in the rug. If the use +or luxury of the room requires more covered space, it is better to use +one rug of a larger size than several small and perhaps conflicting +ones. Of course in this the general tone of the rug must be chosen for +its affinity to the tone of the room, but that affinity secured, any +variations of colour occurring in the design are apt to add to the +general effect. + +[Illustration: SQUARE HALL IN CITY HOUSE] + +A certain amount of contrast to prevailing colour is an advantage, and +the general value of rugs in a scheme of decoration is that they furnish +this contrast in small masses or divisions, so well worked in with other +tints and tones that it makes its effect without opposition to the +general plan. + +Thus, in a room where the walls are of a pale shade of copper, the rugs +should bring in a variety of reds which would be natural parts of the +same scale, like lower notes in the octave; and yet should add patches +of relative blues and harmonising greens; possibly also, deep gold, and +black and white;--the latter in minute forms and lines which only accent +or enrich the general effect. + +It is really an interesting problem, why the strong colours generally +used in Oriental rugs should harmonise so much better with weaker tints +in walls and furniture than even the most judiciously selected carpets +can possibly do. It is true there are bad Oriental rugs, very bad ones, +just as there may be a villain in any congregation of the righteous, but +certainly the long centuries of Eastern manufacture, reaching back to +the infancy of the world, have given Eastern nations secrets not to be +easily mastered by the people of later days. + +But if we cannot tell with certainty why good rugs fit all places and +circumstances, while any other thing of mortal manufacture must have its +place carefully prepared for it, we may perhaps assume to know why the +most beautiful of modern carpets are not as easily managed and as +successful. + +In the first place having explained that some contrast, some fillip of +opposing colour, something which the artist calls _snap_, is absolutely +required in every successful colour scheme, we shall see that if we are +to get this by simple means of a carpet, we must choose one which +carries more than one colour in its composition, and colour introduced +as design must come under the laws of mechanical manufacture; that is, +it must come in as _repeating_ design, and here comes in the real +difficulty. The same forms and the same colours must come in in the same +way in every yard, or every half or three-quarter yard of the carpet. +It follows, then, that it must be evenly sprinkled or it must regularly +meander over every yard or half yard of the surface; and this regularity +resolves itself into spots, and spots are unendurable in a scheme of +colour. So broad a space as the floor of a room cannot be covered by +sections of constantly repeated design without producing a spotty +effect, although it can be somewhat modified by the efforts of the good +designer. Nevertheless, in spite of his best knowledge and intention, +the difficulty remains. There is no one patch of colour larger than +another, or more irregular in form. There is nothing which has not its +exact counterpart at an exact distance--north, south, east and west, or +northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest--and this is why a carpet +with good design and excellent colour becomes unbearable in a room of +large size. In a small room where there are not so many repeats, the +effect is not as bad, but in a large room the monotonous repetition is +almost without remedy. + +Of course there are certain laws of optics and ingenuities of +composition which may palliate this effect, but the fact remains that +the floor should be covered in a way which will leave the mind tranquil +and the eye satisfied, and this is hard to accomplish with what is +commonly known as a figured carpet. + +If carpet is to be used, it seems, then, that the simplest way is to +select a good monochrome in the prevailing tint of the room, but several +shades darker. Not an absolutely plain surface, but one broken with some +unobtrusive design or pattern in still darker darks and lighter lights +than the general tone. In this case we shall have the room harmonious, +it is true, but lacking the element which provokes admiration--the +enlivening effect of contrast. This may be secured by making the centre +or main part of the carpet comparatively small, and using a very wide +and important border of contrasting colour--a border so wide as to make +itself an important part of the carpet. In large rooms this plan does +not entirely obviate the difficulty, as it leaves the central space +still too large and impressive to remain unbroken; but the remedy may be +found in the use of hearth-rugs or skin-rugs, so placed as to seem +necessities of use. + +As I have said before, contrast on a broad scale can be secured by +choosing carpets of an entirely different tone from the wall, and this +is sometimes expedient. For instance, as contrast to a copper-coloured +wall, a softly toned green carpet is nearly always successful. This one +colour, green, is always safe and satisfactory in a floor-covering, +provided the walls are not too strong in tone, and provided that the +green in the carpet is not too green. Certain brownish greens possess +the quality of being in harmony with every other colour. They are the +most peaceable shades in the colour-world--the only ones without +positive antipathies. Green in all the paler tones can claim the title +of peace-maker among colours, since all the other tints will fight with +something else, but never with green of a corresponding or even of a +much greater strength. Of course this valuable quality, combined with a +natural restfulness of effect, makes it the safest of ordinary +floor-coverings. + +In bedrooms with polished floors and light walls good colour-effects can +be secured without carpets, but if the floors are of pine and need +covering, no better general effect can be secured than that of plain or +mixed ingrain filling, using with it Oriental hearth and bedside rugs. + +The entire second floor of a house can in that case be covered with +carpet in the accommodating tint of green mentioned, leaving the various +colour-connections to be made with differently tinted rugs. Good pine +floors well fitted and finished can be stained to harmonise with almost +any tint used in furniture or upon the wall. + +I remember a sea-side chamber in a house where the mistress had great +natural decorative ability, and so much cultivation as to prevent its +running away with her, where the floor was stained a transparent olive, +like depths of sea-water, and here and there a floating sea-weed, or a +form of sea-life faintly outlined within the colour. In this room, +which seemed wide open to the sea and air, even when the windows were +closed, the walls were of a faint greenish blue, like what is called +_dead_ turquoise, and the relation between floor and walls was so +perfect that it remained with me to this day as a crowning instance of +satisfaction in colour. + +It is perhaps more difficult to convey an idea of happy choice or +selection of floor-colour than of walls, because it is relative to +walls. It must relate to what has already been done. But in +recapitulation it is safe to say, first, that in choosing colour for a +room, soft and medium tints are better than positively dark or bright +ones, and that walls should be unobtrusive in design as well as colour; +secondly, that floors, if of the same tint as walls, should be much +darker; and that they should be _made apparent_ by means of this +strength of colour, or by the addition of rugs or borders, although the +relation between walls and floor must be carefully preserved and +perfectly unmistakable, for it is the perfection of this relation of one +colour to another which makes home decoration an art. + +There is still a word to be said as to floor-coverings, which relates to +healthful housekeeping instead of art, and that is, that in all cases +where carpets or mattings are used, they should be in rug form, not +fitted in to irregular floor-spaces; so as to be frequently and easily +lifted and cleaned. The great, and indeed the only, objection to the use +of mattings in country or summer houses, is the difficulty of frequent +lifting, and removal of accumulated dust, which has sifted through to +the floor--but if fine hemp-warp mattings are used, and sewn into +squares which cover the floor sufficiently, it is an ideal summer +floor-covering, as it can be rolled and removed even more easily than a +carpet, and there is a dust-shedding quality in it which commends itself +to the housekeeper. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DRAPERIES + + +Draperies are not always considered as a part of furnishings, yet in +truth--as far as decorative necessities are concerned--they should come +immediately after wall and floor coverings. The householder who is in +haste to complete the arrangement of the home naturally thinks first of +chairs, sofas, and tables, because they come into immediate personal +use, but if draperies are recognised as a necessary part of the beauty +of the house it is worth while to study their appropriate character from +the first. They have in truth much more to do with the effect of the +room than chairs or sofas, since these are speedily sat upon and pass +out of notice, while draperies or portieres are in the nature of +pictures--hanging in everybody's sight. As far as the element of beauty +is concerned, a room having good colour, attractive and interesting +pictures, and beautiful draperies, is already furnished. Whatever else +goes to the making of it may be also beautiful, but it must be +convenient and useful, while in the selection of draperies, beauty, both +relative and positive, is quite untrammelled. + +As in all other furnishings, from the aesthetic point of view colour is +the first thing to be considered. As a rule it should follow that of the +walls, a continuous effect of colour with variation of form and surface +being a valuable and beautiful thing to secure. To give the full value +of variation--where the walls are plain one should choose a figured +stuff for curtains; where the wall is papered, or covered with figures, +a plain material should be used. + +There is one exception to this rule and this is in the case of walls +hung with damask. Here it is best to use the same material for curtains, +as the effect is obtained by the difference between the damask hung in +folds, with the design indistinguishable, or stretched flat upon a +wall-surface, where it is plainly to be seen and felt. Even where damask +is used upon the walls, if exactly the same shade of colour can be found +in satin or velvet, the plain material in drapery will enhance the value +of design on the walls. + +This choice or selection of colour applies to curtains and portieres as +simple adjuncts of furnishing, and not to such pieces of drapery as are +in themselves works of art. When a textile becomes a work of art it is +in a measure a law unto itself, and has as much right to select its own +colour as if it were a picture instead of a portiere, in fact if it is +sufficiently important, the room must follow instead of leading. This +may happen in the case of some priceless old embroidery, some relic of +that peaceful past, when hours and days flowed contentedly into a scheme +of art and beauty, without a thought of competitive manufacture. It +might be difficult to subdue the spirit of a modern drawing-room into +harmony with such a work of art, but if it were done, it would be a very +shrine of restfulness to the spirit. + +Fortunately many ancient marvels of needlework were done upon white +satin, and this makes them easily adaptable to any light scheme of +colour, where they may appear indeed as guests of honour--invited from +the past to be courted by the present. It is not often that such pieces +are offered as parts of a scheme of modern decoration, and the fingers +of to-day are too busy or too idle for their creation, yet it sometimes +happens that a valuable piece of drapery of exceptional colour belongs +by inheritance or purchase to the fortunate householder, and in this +case it should be used as a picture would be, for an independent bit of +decoration. + +To return to simple things, the rule of contrast as applied to papered +walls, covered with design, ordains that the curtains should undoubtedly +be plain and of the most pronounced tint used in the paper. If the walls +of a room are simply tinted or painted, figured stuffs of the same +general tone, or printed silks, velvets, or cottons in which the +predominant tint corresponds with that of the wall should be used. These +relieve the simplicity of the walls, and give the desirable variation. + +Transparent silk curtains are of great value in colouring the light +which enters the room, and these should be used in direct reference to +the light. If the room is dark or cold in its exposure, to hang the +windows with sun-coloured silk or muslin will cheat the eye and +imagination into the idea that it is a sunny room. If, on the contrary, +there is actual sunshine in the room, a pervading tint of rose-colour or +delicate green may be given by inner curtains of either of those +colours. These are effects, however, for which rules can hardly be +given, since the possible variations must be carefully studied, unless, +indeed, they are the colour-strokes of some one who has that genius for +combination or contrast of tints which we call "colour sense." + +After colour in draperies come texture and quality, and these need +hardly be discussed in the case of silken fabrics, because silk fibre +has inherent qualities of tenacity of tint and flexibility of substance. +Pure silk, that is silk unstiffened with gums, no matter how thickly and +heavily it is woven, is soft and yielding and will fall into folds +without sharp angles. This quality of softness is in its very substance. +Even a single unwoven thread of silk will drop gracefully into loops, +where a cotton or linen or even a woollen thread will show stiffness. + +Woollen fibre seems to acquire softness as it is gathered into yarns and +woven, and will hang in folds with almost the same grace as silk; but +unfortunately they are favourite pasture grounds as well as +burying-places for moths, and although these co-inhabitants of our +houses come to a speedy resurrection, they devour their very graves, and +leave our woollen draperies irremediably damaged. It is a pity that +woollen fabrics should in this way be made undesirable for household +use, for they possess in a great degree the two most valuable qualities +of silk: colour-tenacity and flexibility. If one adopts woollen curtains +and portieres, constant "vigilance is the price of safety," and +considering that vigilance is required everywhere and at all times in +the household, it is best to reduce the quantity whenever it is +possible. + +This throws us back upon cottons and linens for inexpensive hangings, +and in all the thousand forms in which these two fibres are manufactured +it would seem easy to choose those which are beautiful, durable, and +appropriate. But here we are met at the very threshold of choice with +the two undesirable qualities of fugitive colour, and stiffness of +texture. Something in the nature of cotton makes it inhospitable to +dyes. If it receives them it is with a protest, and an evident intention +of casting them out at the earliest opportunity--it makes, it is true, +one or two exceptions. It welcomes indigo dye and will never quite +relinquish its companionship; once received, it will carry its colours +through all its serviceable life, and when it is finally ready to fall +into dust, it is still loyally coloured by its influence. If it is +cheated, as we ourselves are apt to be, into accepting spurious indigo, +made up of chemical preparations, it speedily discovers the cheat and +refuses its colouring. Perhaps this sympathy is due to a vegetable +kinship and likeness of experience, for where cotton will grow, indigo +will also flourish. + +In printed cottons or chintzes, there is a reasonable amount of fidelity +to colour, and if chintz curtains are well chosen, and lined to protect +them from the sun, their attractiveness bears a fair proportion to their +durability. + +An interlining of some strong and tried colour will give a very soft and +subtle daylight effect in a room, but this is, of course, lost in the +evening. The expedient of an under colour in curtain linings will +sometimes give delightful results in plain or unprinted goods, and +sometimes a lining with a strong and bold design will produce a charming +shadow effect upon a tinted surface--of course each new experiment must +be tried before one can be certain of its effect, and, in fact, there is +rather an exciting uncertainty as to results. Yet there are infinite +possibilities to the householder who has what is called the artistic +instinct and the leisure and willingness to experiment, and experiments +need not be limited to prints or to cottons, for wonderful combinations +of colour are possible in silks where light is called in as an influence +in the composition. One must, however, expect to forego these effects +except in daylight, but as artificial light has its own subtleties of +effect, the one can be balanced against the other. In my own +country-house I have used the two strongest colours--red and blue--in +this doubled way, with delightful effect. The blue, which is the face +colour, presenting long, pure folds of blue, with warmed reddish shadows +between, while at sunset, when the rays of light are level, the +variations are like a sunset sky. + +It will be seen by these suggestions that careful selection, and some +knowledge of the qualities of different dyes, will go far toward +modifying the want of permanence of colour and lack of reflection in +cottons; the other quality of stiffness, or want of flexibility, is +occasionally overcome by methods of weaving. Indeed, if the manufacturer +or weaver had a clear idea of excellence in this respect, undoubtedly +the natural inflexibility of fibre could be greatly overcome. + +There is a place waiting in the world of art and decoration for what in +my own mind I call "the missing textile." This is by no means a fabric +of cost, for among its other virtues it must possess that of cheapness. +To meet an almost universal want it should combine inexpensiveness, +durability, softness, and absolute fidelity of colour, and these four +qualities are not to be found in any existing textile. Three of +them--cheapness, strength, and colour--were possessed by the +old-fashioned true indigo-blue denim--the delightful blue which faded +into something as near the colour of the flower of grass, as dead +vegetable material can approach that which is full of living juices--the +possession of these three qualities doubled and trebled the amount of +its manufacture until it lost one of them by masquerading in aniline +indigo. + +Many of our ordinary cotton manufactures are strong and inexpensive, and +a few of them have the flexibility which denim lacks. It was possessed +in an almost perfect degree by the Canton, or fleeced, flannels, +manufactured so largely a few years ago, and called art-drapery. It +lacked colour, however, for the various dyes given to it during its +brief period of favouritism were not colour; they were merely _tint_. +That strong, good word, colour, could not be applied to the mixed and +evanescent dyes with which this soft and estimable material clothed +itself withal. It was, so to speak, invertebrate--it had no backbone. +Besides this lack of colour stanchness, it had another fault which +helped to overbalance its many virtues. It was fatally attractive to +fire. Its soft, fluffy surface seemed to reach out toward flame, and the +contact once made, there ensued one flash of instantaneous blaze, and +the whole surface, no matter if it were a table-cover, a hanging, or the +wall covering a room, was totally destroyed. Yet as one must have had or +heard of such a disastrous experience to fear and avoid it, this +proclivity alone would not have ended its popularity. It was probably +the evanescent character of what was called its "art-colour" which ended +the career of an estimable material, and if the manufacturers had known +how to eliminate its faults and adapt its virtues, it might still have +been a flourishing textile. + +In truth, we do not often stop to analyse the reasons of prolonged +popular favour; yet nothing is more certain than that there is reason, +and good reason, for fidelity in public taste. Popular liking, if +continued, is always founded upon certain incontrovertible virtues. If a +manufacture cannot hold its own for ever in public favour, it is because +it fails in some important particular to be what it should be. Products +of the loom must have lasting virtues if they would secure lasting +esteem. Blue denim had its hold upon public use principally for the +reason that it possessed a colour superior to all the chances and +accidents of its varied life. It is true it was a colour which commended +itself to general liking, yet if as stanch and steadfast a green or red +could be imparted to an equally cheap and durable fabric, it would find +as lasting a place in public favour. + +It is quite possible that in the near future domestic weavings may come +to the aid of the critical house-furnisher, so that the qualities of +strength and pliability may be united with colour which is both +water-fast and sun-fast, and that we shall be able to order not only the +kind of material, but the exact shade of colour necessary to the +perfection of our houses. + +To be washable as well as durable is also a great point in favour of +cotton textiles. The English chintzes with which the high post bedsteads +of our foremothers were hung had a yearly baptism of family soap-suds, +and came from it with their designs of gaily-crested, almost life-size +pheasants, sitting upon inadequate branches, very little subdued by the +process. Those were not days of colour-study; and harmony, applied to +things of sight instead of conduct, was not looked for; but when we copy +the beautiful old furniture of that day, we may as well demand with it +the quality of washableness and cleanableness which went with all its +belongings. + +It is always a wonder to the masculine, that the feminine mind has such +an ineradicable love of draperies. The man despises them, but to the +woman they are the perfecting touch of the home, hiding or disguising +all the sharp angles of windows and doors, and making of them +opportunities of beauty. It is the same instinct with which she tries to +cover the hard angles and facts of daily life and make of them virtuous +incitements. As long as the woman rules, house-curtains will be a joy +and delight to her. Something in their soft protection, grace of line, +and possible beauty of colour appeals to her as no other household +belonging has the power to do. The long folds of the straight hanging +curtain are far more beautiful than the looped and festooned creations +which were held in vogue by some previous generations, and indeed are +still dear to the hearts of professional upholsterers. The simpler the +treatment, the better the effect, since natural rather than distorted +line is more restful and enjoyable. Quality, colour, and simple graceful +lines are quite sufficient elements of value in these important adjuncts +of house furnishing and decoration. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FURNITURE + + +Although the forms and varieties of furniture are infinite, they can +easily be classified first into the two great divisions of good and bad, +and after that into kinds and styles; but no matter how good the +different specimens may be, or to what style they may belong, each one +is subject again to the ruling of fitness. Detached things may be both +thoroughly pleasing and thoroughly good in themselves, but unless they +are appropriate to the place where, and purpose for which they are used, +they will not be beautiful. + +[Illustration: COLONIAL CHAIRS AND SOFA (BELONGING TO MRS. RUTH MCENERY +STUART)] + +It is well to reiterate that the use to which a room is put must always +govern its furnishing and in a measure its colour, and that whatever we +put in it must be placed there because it is appropriate to that use, +and because it is needed for completeness. It is misapplication which +makes much of what is called "artistic furnishing" ridiculous. An +old-fashioned brass preserving-kettle and a linen or wool spinning-wheel +are in place and appropriate pieces of furnishing for a studio; the one +for colour, and the other for form, and because also they may serve as +models; but they are sadly out of place in a modern city house, or even +in the parlour of a country cottage. + +We all recognise the fact that a room carefully furnished in one style +makes a oneness of impression; whereas if things are brought together +heterogeneously, even if each separate thing is selected for its own +special virtue and beauty, the feeling of enjoyment will be far less +complete. + +There is a certain kinship in pieces of furniture made or originated at +the same period and fashioned by a prevailing sentiment of beauty, which +makes them harmonious when brought together; and if our minds are in +sympathy with that period and style of expression, it becomes a great +pleasure to use it as a means of expression for ourselves. Whatever +appeals to us as the best or most beautiful thought in manufacture we +have a right to adopt, but we should study to understand the +circumstances of its production, in order to do justice to it and +ourselves, since style is evolved from surrounding influences. It would +seem also that its periods and origin should not be too far removed from +the interests and ways of our own time, and incongruous with it, because +it would be impossible to carry an utterly foreign period or method of +thought into all the intimacies of domestic life. The fad of furnishing +different rooms in different periods of art, and in the fashion of +nations and peoples whose lives are totally dissimilar, may easily be +carried too far, and the spirit of home, and even of beauty, be lost. Of +course this applies to small, and not to grand houses, which are always +exceptions to the purely domestic idea. + +There are many reasons why one should be in sympathy with what is called +the "colonial craze"; not only because colonial days are a part of our +history, but because colonial furniture and decorations were derived +directly from the best period of English art. Its original designers +were masters who made standards in architectural and pictorial as well +as household art. The Adams brothers, to whom many of the best forms of +the period are referable, were great architects as well as great +designers. Even so distinguished a painter as Hogarth delighted in +composing symmetrical forms for furniture, and preached persistently the +beauty of curved instead of rectangular lines. It was, in fact, a period +in which superior minds expressed themselves in material forms, when +Flaxman, Wedgwood, Chippendale and many others of their day, true +artists in form, wrote their thoughts in wood, stone, and pottery, and +bequeathed them to future ages. Certainly the work of such minds in such +company must outlast mere mechanical efforts. It is interesting to note, +that many of the Chippendale chairs keep in their under construction the +square and simple forms of a much earlier period, while the upper part, +the back, and seats are carved into curves and floriated designs. One +cannot help wondering whether this square solidity was simply a +reminiscence or persistence of earlier forms, or a conscious return to +the most direct principles of weight-bearing constructions. + +All furniture made under primitive conditions naturally depends upon +perpendicular and horizontal forms, because uninfluenced construction +considers first of all the principle of strength; but under the varied +influences of the Georgian period one hardly expects fidelity to first +principles. New England carpenters and cabinet-makers who had wrought +under the masters of carpentry and cabinet-work in England brought with +them not only skill to fashion, but the very patterns and drawings from +which Chippendale and Sheraton furniture had been made in England. Our +English forefathers were very fond of the St. Domingo mahogany, brought +back in the ship-bottoms of English traders, but the English workmen +who made furniture in the new world, while they adopted this foreign +wood, were not slow to appreciate the wild cherry, and the different +maples and oak and nut woods which they found in America. They were +woods easy to work, and apt to take on polish and shining surface. The +cabinet-makers liked also the abnormal specimens of maple where the +fibre grew in close waves, called _curled_ maple, as well as the great +roots flecked and spotted with minute knots, known as dotted maple. + +All these things went into colonial furniture, so beautifully cut, so +carefully dowelled and put together, so well made, that many of the +things have become heirlooms in the families for which they were +constructed. I remember admiring a fine old cherry book-case in Mr. +Lowell's library at Cambridge, and being told by the poet that it had +belonged to his grandfather. When I spoke of the comparative rarity of +such possessions he answered: "Oh, anyone can have his grandfather's +furniture if he will wait a hundred years!" + +Nevertheless, with modern methods of manufacture it is by no means +certain that a hundred years will secure possession of the furniture we +buy to-day to our grandchildren. In those early days it was not +uncommon, it was indeed the custom, for some one of the men who were +called "journeymen cabinet-makers"--that is, men who had served their +time and learned their trade, but had not yet settled down to a fixed +place and shop of their own--to take up an abode in the house with the +family which had built it, for a year, or even two or three years, +carrying on the work in some out-house or dependence, choosing and +seasoning the wood, and measuring the furniture for the spaces where it +was to stand. + +There was a fine fitness in such furnishing; it was as if the different +pieces actually grew where they were placed, and it is small wonder that +so built and fashioned they should possess almost a human interest. +Direct and special thought and effort were incorporated with the +furniture from the very first, and it easily explains the excellences +and finenesses of its fashioning. + +There is an interesting house in Flushing, Long Island, where such +furniture still stands in the rooms where it was put together in 1664, +and where it is so fitted to spaces it has filled during the passing +centuries, that it would be impossible to carry it through the narrow +doors and passages, which, unlike our present halls, were made for the +passing to and fro of human beings, and not of furniture. + +[Illustration: COLONIAL MANTEL AND ENGLISH HOB-GRATE (SITTING-ROOM IN +MRS. CANDACE WHEELER'S HOUSE)] + +It is this kind of interest which attaches us to colonial furniture and +adds to the value of its beauty and careful adaptation to human +convenience. In the roomy "high boys" which we find in old houses there +are places for everything. They were made for the orderly packing and +keeping of valuable things, in closetless rooms, and they were made +without projecting corners and cornices, because life was lived in +smaller spaces than at present. They were the best product of a +thoughtful time--where if manufacture lacked some of the machinery and +appliances of to-day, it was at least not rushed by breathless +competition, but could progress slowly in careful leisure. Of course we +cannot all have colonial furniture, and indeed it would not be according +to the spirit of our time, for the arts of our own day are to be +encouraged and fostered--but we can buy the best of the things which +are made in our time, the best in style, in intention, in fittingness, +and above all in carefulness and honesty of construction. + +For some reason the quality of durability seems to be wanting in modern +furniture. Our things are fashioned of the same woods, but something in +the curing or preparation of them has weakened the fibre and made it +brittle. Probably the gradual evaporation of the tree-juices which +old-time cabinet-makers were willing to wait for, left the shrunken +sinews of the wood in better condition than is possible with our hurried +and violent kiln-dried methods. What is gained in time in the one place +is lost in another. Nature refuses to enter into our race for speedy +completion, and if we hurry her natural processes we shorten our lease +of ownership. + +As a very apt illustration of this fact, I remember coming into +possession some twenty years ago of an oak chair which had stood, +perhaps, for more than two hundred years in a Long Island farm-house. +When I found it, it had been long relegated to kitchen use and was +covered with a crust of variously coloured paints which had accumulated +during the two centuries of its existence. The fashion of it was rare, +and had probably been evolved by some early American cabinet-maker, for +while it had all and even more than the grace of the high-backed +Chippendale patterns, it was better fitted to the rounded surfaces of +the human body. It was a spindle chair with a slightly hollowed seat, +the rim of the back rounded to a loop which was continued into +arm-rests, which spread into thickened blades for hand-rests. Being very +much in love with the grace and ease of it, I took it to a manufacturer +to be reproduced in mahogany, who, with a far-sighted sagacity, flooded +the market with that particular pattern. + +We are used--and with good reason--to consider mahogany as a durable +wood, but of the half-dozen of mahogany copies of the old oak chair, +each one has suffered some break of legs or arms or spindles, while the +original remains as firm in its withered old age as it was the day I +rescued it from the "out-kitchen" of the Long Island farm-house. + +For the next fifty years after the close of our colonial history, the +colonial cabinet-makers in New England and the northern Middle States +continued to flourish, evolving an occasional good variation from what +may be called colonial forms. Rush-and flag-bottomed chairs and chairs +with seats of twisted rawhide--the frames often gilded and painted-- +sometimes took the place of wrought mahogany, except in the best rooms +of great houses. Many of these are of excellent shape and construction, +and specially interesting as an adaptation of natural products of the +country. Undoubtedly, with our ingenious modern appliances, we could +make as good furniture as was made in Chippendale and Sheraton's day, +with far less expenditure of effort; but the demon of competition in +trade will not allow it. We must use all material, perfect or imperfect; +we cannot afford to select. We must cover knots and imperfections with +composition and pass them on. We must use the cheapest glue, and save an +infinitesimal sum in the length of our dowels; we must varnish instead +of polishing, or "the other man" will get the better of us. If we did +not do these things our furniture would be better, but "the other man" +would sell more, because he could sell more cheaply. + +Since the revived interest in the making of furniture, we find an +occasional and marked recurrence to primitive form--on each occasion the +apparently new style taking on the name of the man who produced it. + +In our own day we have seen the "Eastlake furniture" appear and +disappear, succeeded by the "Morris furniture," which is undoubtedly +better adapted to our varied wants. At present, mortising and dowelling +have come to the front as proper processes, especially for +table-building; and this time the style appears under the name of +"Mission furniture." Much of this is extremely well suited for cottage +furnishing, but the occasional exaggeration of the style takes one back +not only to early, but the earliest, English art, when chairs were +immovable seats or blocks, and tables absolute fixtures on account of +the weighty legs upon which they were built. In short, the careful and +cultivated decorator finds it as imperative to guard against exaggerated +simplicity as unsupported prettiness. + +Fortunately there has been a great deal of attention paid to good +cabinet work within the last few years, and although the method of its +making lacks the human motive and the human interest of former days--it +is still a good expression of the art of to-day, and at its best, worthy +to be carried down with the generations as one of the steps in the +evolutions of time. What we have to do, is to learn to discriminate +between good and bad, to appreciate the best in design and workmanship, +even although we cannot afford to buy it. In this case we should learn +to do with less. As a rule our houses are crowded. If we are able to +buy a few good things, we are apt instead to buy many only moderately +good, for lavish possession seems to be a sort of passion, or +birthright, of Americans. It follows that we fill our houses with +heterogeneous collections of furniture, new and old, good and bad, +appropriate or inappropriate, as the case may be, with a result of +living in seeming luxury, but a luxury without proper selection or true +value. To have less would in many cases be to have more--more +tranquillity of life, more ease of mind, more knowledge and more real +enjoyment. + +There is another principle which can be brought into play in this case, +and that is the one of buying--not a costly kind of thing, but the best +of its kind. If it is a choice in chairs, for instance, let it be the +best cane-seated, or rush-bottomed chair that is made, instead of the +second or third best upholstered or leather-covered one. If it is a +question of tables, buy the simplest form made of flawless wood and with +best finish, instead of a bargain in elaborately turned or scantily +carved material. If it is in bedsteads, a plain brass, or good enamelled +iron or a simple form in black walnut, instead of a cheap inlaid +wood--and so on through the whole category. A good chintz or cotton is +better for draperies, than flimsy silk or brocade; and when all is done +the very spirit of truth will sit enthroned in the household, and we +shall find that all things have been brought into harmony by her laws. + +[Illustration: SOFA DESIGNED BY MRS. CANDACE WHEELER FOR NEW LIBRARY IN +"WOMAN'S BUILDING," COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION] + +Although the furnishing of a house should be one of the most painstaking +and studied of pursuits, there is certainly nothing which is at the same +time so fascinating and so flattering in its promise of future +enjoyment. It is like the making of a picture as far as possibility of +beauty is concerned, but a picture within and against which one's life, +and the life of the family, is to be lived. It is a bit of creative art +in itself, and one which concerns us so closely as to be a very part of +us. We enjoy every separate thing we may find or select or procure--not +only for the beauty and goodness which is in it, but for its +contribution to the general whole. And in knowledge of applied and +manufactured art, the furnishing of a house is truly "the beginning of +wisdom." One learns to appreciate what is excellent in the new, from +study and appreciation of quality in the old. + +It is the fascination of this study which has made a multiplication of +shops and collections of "antiques" in every quarter of the city. Many a +woman begins from the shop-keeper's point of view of the value of mere +age, and learns by experience that age, considered by itself, is a +disqualification, and that it gives value only when the art which +created the antique has been lost or greatly deteriorated. If one can +find as good, or a better thing in art and quality, made to-day--by all +means buy the thing of to-day, and let yourself and your children be +credited with the hundred or two years of wear which is in it. We can +easily see that it is wiser to buy modern iridescent glass, fitted to +our use, and yet carrying all the fascinating lustre of ancient glass, +than to sigh for the possession of some unbuyable thing belonging to +dead and gone Caesars. And the case is as true of other modern art and +modern inventions, if the art is good, and the inventions suitable to +our wants and needs. + +Yet in spite of the goodness of much that is new, there is a subtle +pleasure in turning over, and even in appropriating, the things that are +old. There are certain fenced-in-blocks on the east side of New York +City where for many years the choice parts of old houses have been +deposited. As fashion and wealth have changed their locality--treading +slowly up from the Battery to Central Park--many beautiful bits of +construction have been left behind in the abandoned houses--either +disregarded on account of change in popular taste, or unappreciated by +reason of want of knowledge. For the few whose knowledge was competent, +there were things to be found in the second-hand yards, precious beyond +comparison with anything of contemporaneous manufacture. + +There were panelled front doors with beautifully fluted columns and +carved capitals, surmounted by half-ovals of curiously designed sashes; +there were beautifully wrought iron railings, and elaborate newel-posts +of mahogany, brass door-knobs and hinges, and English hob-grates, and +crystal chandeliers of cost and brilliance, and panelled wainscots of +oak and mahogany; chimney-pieces in marble and wood of an excellence +which we are almost vainly trying to compass, and all of them to be +bought at the price of lumber. + +These are the things to make one who remembers them critical about the +collections to be found in the antique shops of to-day, and yet such +shops are enticing and fashionable, and the quest of antiques will go on +until we become convinced of the art-value and the equal merit of the +new--which period many things seem to indicate is not far off. In those +days there was but one antique shop in all New York which was devoted to +the sale of old things, to furniture, pictures, statuary, and what +Ruskin calls "portable art" of all kinds. It was a place where one might +go, crying "new lamps for old ones" with a certainty of profit in the +transaction. In later years it has been known as _Sypher's_, and +although one of many, instead of a single one, is still a place of +fascinating possibilities. + +To sum up the gospel of furnishing, we need only fall back upon the +principles of absolute fitness, actual goodness, and real beauty. If the +furniture of a well-coloured room possesses these three qualities, the +room as a whole can hardly fail to be lastingly satisfactory. It must be +remembered, however, that it is a trinity of virtues. No piece of +furniture should be chosen because it is intrinsically good or +genuinely beautiful, if it has not also its _use_--and this rule applies +to all rooms, with the one exception of the drawing-room. + +The necessity of _use_, governing the style of furnishing in a room, is +very well understood. Thus, while both drawing-room and dining-room must +express hospitality, it is of a different kind or degree. That of the +drawing-room is ceremonious and punctilious, and represents the family +in its relation to society, while the dining-room is far more intimate, +and belongs to the family in its relation to friends. In fact, as the +dining-room is the heart of the house, its furnishing would naturally be +quite different in feeling and character from the drawing-room, although +it might be fully as lavish in cost. It would be stronger, less +conservative, and altogether more personal in its expression. Family +portraits and family silver give the personal note which we like to +recognise in our friends' dining-rooms, because the intimacy of the room +makes even family history in place. + +In moderate houses, even the drawing-room is too much a family room to +allow it to be entirely emancipated from the law of use, but in houses +which are not circumscribed in space, and where one or more rooms are +set apart to social rather than domestic life, it is natural and proper +to gather in them things which stand, primarily, for art and +beauty--which satisfy the needs of the mind as distinct from those of +bodily comfort. Things which belong in the category of "unrelated +beauty" may be appropriately gathered in such a room, because the use of +it is to please the eye and excite the interest of our social world; +therefore a table which is a marvel of art, but not of convenience, or +a casket which is beautiful to look at, but of no practical use, are in +accordance with the idea of the room. They help compose a picture, not +only for the eyes of friends and acquaintances, but for the education of +the family. + +It follows that an artistic and luxurious drawing-room may be a true +family expression; it may speak of travel and interest in the artistic +development of mankind; but even where the experiences of the family +have been wide and liberal, if the house and circumstances are narrow, a +luxurious interior is by no means a happiness. + +It may seem quite superfluous to give advice against luxury in +furnishing except where it is warranted by exceptional means, because +each family naturally adjusts its furnishing to its own needs and +circumstances; but the influence of mere beauty is very powerful, and +many a costly toy drifts into homes where it does not rightly belong and +where, instead of being an educational or elevating influence, it is a +source of mental deterioration, from its conflict with unsympathetic +circumstances. A long and useful chapter might be written upon "art out +of place," but nothing which could be said upon the subject would apply +to that incorporation of art and beauty with furniture and interior +surrounding, which is the effort and object of every true artist and +art-lover. + +The fact to be emphasised is, that _objects d'art_--beautiful in +themselves and costly because of the superior knowledge, artistic +feeling, and patient labour which have produced them--demand care and +reserve for their preservation, which is not available in a household +where the first motive of everything must be ministry to comfort. Art +in the shape of pictures is fortunately exempt from this rule, and may +dignify and beautify every room in the house without being imperilled by +contact in the exigencies of use. + +Following out this idea, a house where circumstances demand that there +shall be no drawing-room, and where the family sitting-room must also +answer for the reception of guests, a perfect beauty and dignity may be +achieved by harmony of colour, beauty of form, and appropriateness to +purpose, and this may be carried to almost any degree of perfection by +the introduction and accompaniment of pictures. In this case art is a +part of the room, as well as an adornment of it. It is kneaded into +every article of furniture. It is the daily bread of art to which we are +all entitled, and which can make a small country home, or a smaller +city apartment, as enjoyable and elevating as if it were filled with the +luxuries of art. + +[Illustration: RUSTIC SOFA AND TABLES IN "PENNYROYAL" (IN MRS. BOUDINOT +KEITH'S COTTAGE, ONTEORA)] + +But one may say, "It requires knowledge to do this; much knowledge in +the selection of the comparatively few things which are to make up such +an interior," and that is true--and the knowledge is to be proved every +time we come to the test of buying. Yet it is a curious fact that the +really _good_ thing, the thing which is good in art as well as +construction, will inevitably be chosen by an intelligent buyer, instead +of the thing which is bad in art and in construction. Fortunately, one +can see good examples in the shops of to-day, where twenty years ago at +best only honest and respectable furniture was on exhibition. One must +rely somewhat on the character of the places from which one buys, and +not expect good styles and reliable manufacture where commercial +success is the dominant note of the business. In truth the careful buyer +is not so apt to fail in quality as in harmony, because grade as well as +style in different articles and manufactures is to be considered. What +is perfectly good in one grade of manufacture will not be in harmony +with a higher or lower grade in another. Just as we choose our grade of +floor-covering from ingrain to Aubusson, we must choose the grade of +other furnishings. Even an inexperienced buyer would be apt to feel +this, and would know that if she found a simple ingrain-filling +appropriate to a bed-chamber, maple or enamelled furniture would belong +to it, instead of more costly inlaid or carved pieces. + +It may be well to reiterate the fact that the predominant use of each +room in a house gives the clew to the best rules of treatment in +decoration and furniture. For instance, the hall, being an intermediate +space between in and out of doors, should be coloured and furnished in +direct reference to this, and to its common use as a thoroughfare by all +members of the family. It is not a place of prolonged occupation, and +may therefore properly be without the luxury and ease of lounges and +lounging-chairs. But as long as it serves both as entrance-room to the +house and for carrying the stairways to the upper floors, it should be +treated in such a way as to lead up to and prepare the mind for whatever +of inner luxury there may be in the house. At the same time it should +preserve something of the simplicity and freedom from all attempt at +effect which belong to out-of-door life. The difference between its +decoration and furniture and that of other divisions of the house +should be principally in surface, and not in colour. Difference of +surface is secured by the use of materials which are permanent and +durable in effect, such as wood, plaster, and leather. These may all be +coloured without injury to their impression of permanency, although it +is generally preferable to take advantage of indigenous or "inherent +colour" like the natural yellows and russets of wood and leather. When +these are used for both walls and ceiling, it will be found that, to +give the necessary variation, and prevent an impression of monotony and +dulness, some tint must be added in the ornament of the surface, which +could be gained by a forcible deepening or variation of the general +tone, like a deep golden brown, which is the lowest tone of the scale of +yellow, or a red which would be only a variant of the prevailing tint. +The introduction of an opposing or contrasting tint, like pale blue in +small masses as compared with the general tint, even if it is in so +small a space as that of a water-colour on the wall, adds the necessary +contrast, and enlivens and invigorates a harmony. + +No colour carries with it a more appropriate influence at the entrance +of a house than red in its different values. Certain tints of it which +are known both as Pompeiian and Damascus red have sufficient yellow in +their composition to fall in with the yellows of oiled wood, and give +the charm of a variant but related colour. In its stronger and deeper +tones it is in direct contrast to the green of abundant foliage, and +therefore a good colour for the entrance-hall or vestibule of a +country-house; while the paler tones, which run into pinks, hold the +same opposing relation to the gray and blue of the sea-shore. If walls +and ceiling are of wood, a rug of which the prevailing colour is red +will often give the exact note which is needed to preserve the room from +monotony and insipidity. A stair-carpet is a valuable point to make in a +hall, and it is well to reserve all opposing colour for this one place, +which, as it rises, meets all sight on a level, and makes its contrast +directly and unmistakably. A stair-carpet has other reasons for use in a +country-house than aesthetic ones, as the stairs are conductors of sound +to all parts of the house, and should therefore be muffled, and because +a carpeted stair furnishes much safer footing for the two family +extremes of childhood and age. + +The furniture of the hall should not be fantastic, as some +cabinet-makers seem to imagine. Impossible twists in the supports of +tables and chairs are perhaps more objectionable in this first +vestibule or entrance to the house than elsewhere, because the mind is +not quite free from out-of-door influences, or ready to take pleasure in +the vagaries of the human fancy. Simple chairs, settles, and tables, +more solid perhaps than is desirable in other parts of the house, are +what the best natural, as well as the best cultivated, taste demands. If +there is one place more than another where a picture performs its full +work of suggestion and decoration, it is in a hall which is otherwise +bare of ornament. Pictures in dining-rooms make very little impression +as pictures, because the mind is engrossed with the first and natural +purpose of the room, and consequently not in a waiting and easily +impressible mood; but in a hall, if one stops for even a moment, the +thoughts are at leisure, and waiting to be interested. Aside from the +colour effect, which may be so managed as to be very valuable, pictures +hung in a hall are full of suggestion of wider mental and physical life, +and, like books, are indications of the tastes and experiences of the +family. Of course there are country-houses where the halls are built +with fireplaces, and windows commanding favourite views, and are really +intended for family sitting-rooms and gathering-places; in this case it +is generally preceded by a vestibule which carries the character of an +entrance-hall, leaving the large room to be furnished more luxuriously, +as is proper to a sitting-room. + +The dining-room shares with the hall a purpose common to the life of the +family, and, while it admits of much more variety and elaboration, that +which is true of the hall is equally true of the dining-room, that it +should be treated with materials which are durable and have surface +quality, although its decoration should be preferably with china rather +than with pictures. It is important that the colour of a dining-room +should be pervading colour--that is, that walls and ceiling should be +kept together by the use of one colour only, in different degrees of +strength. + +For many reasons, but principally because it is the best material to use +in a dining-room, the rich yellows of oiled wood make the most desirable +colour and surface. The rug, the curtains, the portieres and screen, can +then be of any good tint which the exposure of the room and the +decoration of the china seem to indicate. If it has a cold, northern +exposure, reds or gold browns are indicated; but if it is a sunny and +warm-looking room, green or strong India blue will be found more +satisfactory in simple houses. The materials used in curtains, +portieres, and screens should be of cotton or linen, or some plain +woollen goods which are as easily washable. A one-coloured, +heavy-threaded cotton canvas, a linen in solid colour, or even +indigo-blue domestic, all make extremely effective and appropriate +furnishings. The variety of blue domestic which is called denim is the +best of all fabrics for this kind of furnishing, if the colour is not +too dark. + +The prettiest country house dining-room I know is ceiled and wainscoted +with wood, the walls above the wainscoting carrying an ingrain paper of +the same tone; the line of division between the wainscot and wall being +broken by a row of old blue India china plates, arranged in groups of +different sizes and running entirely around the room. There is one small +mirror set in a broad carved frame of yellow wood hung in the centre of +a rather large wall-space, its angles marked by small Dutch plaques; but +the whole decoration of the room outside of these pieces consists of +draperies of blue denim in which there is a design, in narrow white +outline, of leaping fish, and the widening water-circles and showery +drops made by their play. The white lines in the design answer to the +white spaces in the decorated china, and the two used together in +profusion have an unexpectedly decorative effect. The table and chairs +are, of course, of the same coloured wood used in the ceiling and +wainscot, and the rug is an India cotton of dark and light blues and +white. The sideboard is an arrangement of fixed shelves, but covered +with a beautiful collection of blue china, which serves to furnish the +table as well. If the dining-room had a northern exposure, and it was +desirable to use red instead of blue for colouring, as good an effect +could be secured by depending for ornament upon the red Kaga porcelain +so common at present in Japanese and Chinese shops, and using with it +the Eastern cotton known as _bez_. This is dyed with madder, and exactly +repeats the red of the porcelain, while it is extremely durable both in +colour and texture. Borders of yellow stitchery, or straggling fringes +of silk and beads, add very much to the effect of the drapery and to the +character of the room. + +[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN "STAR ROCK" (COUNTRY HOUSE OF W.E. CONNOR, +ESQ., ONTEORA)] + +A library in ordinary family life has two parts to play. It is not only +to hold books, but to make the family at home in a literary atmosphere. +Such a room is apt to be a fascinating one by reason of this very +variety of use and purpose, and because it is a centre for all the +family treasures. Books, pictures, papers, photographs, bits of +decorative needlework, all centre here, and all are on most orderly +behaviour, like children at a company dinner. The colour of such a room +may, and should, be much warmer and stronger than that of a parlour pure +and simple, the very constancy and hardness of its use indicating tints +of strength and resistance; but, keeping that in mind, the rules for +general use of colour and harmony of tints will apply as well to a room +used for a double purpose as for a single. Of course the furniture +should be more solid and darker, as would be necessary for constant use, +but the deepening of tones in general colour provides for that, and for +the use of rugs of a different character. In a room of this kind perhaps +the best possible effect is produced by the use of some textile as a +wall-covering, as in that case the same material with a contrasted +colour in the lining can be used for curtains, and to some extent in the +furniture. This use of one material has not only an effect of richness +which is due to the library of the house, but it softens and brings +together all the heterogeneous things which different members of a large +family are apt to require in a sitting-room. + +To those who prefer to work out and adapt their own surroundings, it is +well to illustrate the advice given for colour in different exposures by +selecting particular rooms, with their various relations to light, use, +and circumstances, and seeing how colour-principles can be applied to +them. + +We may choose a reception-hall, in either a city or country house, since +the treatment would in both cases be guided by the same rules. If in a +city house, it may be on the shady or the sunny side of the street, and +this at once would differentiate, perhaps the colour, and certainly the +depth of colour to be used. If it is the hall of a country house the +difference between north or south light will not be as great, since a +room opening on the north in a house standing alone, in unobstructed +space, would have an effect of coldness, but not necessarily of shadow +or darkness. The first condition, then, of coldness of light would have +to be considered in both cases, but less positively in the country, than +in the city house. If the room is actually dark, a warm or orange tone +of yellow will both modify and lighten it. + +Gold-coloured or yellow canvas with oak mouldings lighten and warm the +walls; and rugs with a preponderance of white and yellow transform a +dark hall into a light and cheerful one. It must be remembered that few +dark colours can assert themselves in the absolute shadow of a north +light. Green and blue become black. Gold, orange, and red alone have +sufficient power to hold their own, and make us conscious of them in +darkness. + +In a hall which has plenty of light, but no sun, red is an effective and +natural colour, copper-coloured leather paper, cushions and rugs or +carpets of varying shades of red, and transparent curtains of the same +tint give an effect of warmth and vitality. Red is truly a delightful +colour to deal with in shadowed interiors, its sensitiveness to light, +changing from colour-tinted darkness to palpitating ruby, and even to +flame colour, on the slightest invitation of day-or lamp-light, makes it +like a living presence. It is especially valuable at the entrance of the +home, where it seems to meet one with almost a human welcome. + +If we can succeed in making what would be a cold and unattractive +entrance hospitable and cordial by liberal use of warm and strong +colour, by reversing the effort we can just as easily modify the effect +of glaring, or overpowering, sunlight. + +Suppose the entrance-hall of the house to be upon the sunny side of the +street, where in addition to the natural effect of full rays of the sun +there are also the reflections from innumerable other house-fronts and +house-windows. + +In this case we must simulate shadow and mystery, and this can be done +by the colour-tones of blues and greens. I use these in the plural +because the shadows of both are innumerable, and because all, except +perhaps turquoise and apple-green, are natural shadow-tints. Green and +blue can be used together or separately, according to the skill and +what is called the "colour-sense" with which they are applied. + +To use them together requires not only observation of colour-occurrences +in nature but sensitiveness to the more subtle out-of-door effects, +resulting from intermingling of shadows and reflection of lights. Well +done, it is one of the most beautiful and satisfactory of achievements, +but it may easily be bad by reason of sharp contrasts, or unmodified +juxtaposition. + +But a room where blue in all its shades from dark to light alone +predominates, or a room where only green is used, bright and gray tones +in contrast and variation is within the reach of most colour-loving +mortals, and as both of these tints are companionable with oak and gold, +and to be found in nearly all decoration materials, it is easy to +arrange a refined and beautiful effect in either colour. + +It will require little reflection to show that a hall skilfully treated +with green or blue tints would modify the colour of sunlight, without +giving a sense of discord. It would be like passing only from sunlight +to grateful shadow, and this because in all art the actual +representation shadow-colour would be blue or green. The shadow of a +tree falling upon snow on a sunny winter day is blue. The shadow of a +sunheated rock in summer is green, and the success of either of these +schemes of decoration would be because of adherence to an actual +principle of colour, or a knowledge of the peculiar qualities of certain +colours and their proper use. It would be an intelligent application of +the medicinal or healing qualities of colour to the constitution of the +house, as skilful physicians use medicines to overcome constitutional +defects or difficulties in man. + +This may be called _corrective_ treatment of a room, and may, of +course, include all the decorative devices of ornament, design and +furniture, and although it is not, strictly speaking, decoration, it +should certainly and always precede decoration. + +It is sad to see an elaborate scheme of ornament based upon bad +colour-treatment, and unfortunately this not infrequently happens. + +It is difficult to give a formula for the decoration of any room in +relation to its colour-treatment, except by a careful description of +certain successful examples, each one of which illustrates principles +that may be of use to the amateur or student of the art. + +One which occurs to me in this immediate connection is a dining-room in +an apartment house, where this room alone is absolutely without what may +be called exterior light. Its two windows open upon a well, the brick +wall of which is scarcely ten feet away. Fortunately, it makes a part of +the home of a much travelled and exceedingly cultivated pair of beings, +the business of one being to create beauty in the way of pictures and +the other of statues, so perhaps it is less than a wonder that this +square, unattractive well-room should have blossomed under their hands +into a dining-room perfect in colour, style, and fittings. I shall give +only the result, the process being capable of infinite small variations. + +At present it is a room sixteen feet square, one side of which is +occupied by two nearly square windows. The wood-work, including a +five-foot wainscot of small square panels, is painted a glittering +varnished white which is warm in tone, but not creamy. The upper halves +of the square windows are of semi-opaque yellow glass, veined and +variable, but clear enough everywhere to admit a stained yellow light. +Below these, thin yellow silk curtains cross each other, so that the +whole window-space radiates yellow light. If we reflect that the colour +of sunlight is yellow, we shall be able to see both the philosophy and +the result of this treatment. + +The wall above the wainscot is covered with a plain unbleached muslin, +stencilled at the top in a repeating design of faint yellow tile-like +squares which fade gradually into white at a foot below the ceiling. At +intervals along the wall are water-colours of flat Holland meadows, or +blue canals, balanced on either side by a blue delft plate, and in a +corner near the window is a veritable blue porcelain stove, which once +faintly warmed some far-off German interior. The floor is polished oak, +as are the table and chairs. I purposely leave out all the accessories +and devices of brass and silver, the quaint brass-framed mirrors, the +ivy-encircled windows, the one or two great ferns, the choice blue +table-furniture:--because these are personal and should neither be +imitated or reduced to rules. + +The lesson is in the use of yellow and white, accented with touches of +blue, which converts a dark and perfectly cheerless room into a glitter +of light and warmth. + +The third example I shall give is of a dining-room which may be called +palatial in size and effect, occupying the whole square wing of a +well-known New York house. There are many things in this house in the +way of furniture, pictures, historic bits of art in different lines, +which would distinguish it among fine houses, but one particular room +is, perhaps, as perfectly successful in richness of detail, +picturesqueness of effect, and at the same time perfect appropriateness +to time, place, and circumstances as is possible for any achievement of +its kind. The dining-room, and its art, taken in detail, belongs to the +Venetian school, but if its colour-effect were concentrated upon canvas, +it would be known as a Rembrandt. There is the same rich shadow, +covering a thousand gradations,--the same concentration of light, and +the same liberal diffusion of warm and rich tones of colour. It is a +grand room in space, as New York interiors go, being perhaps forty to +fifty feet in breadth and length, with a height exactly proportioned to +the space. It has had the advantage of separate creation--being "thought +out" years after the early period of the house, and is, consequently, a +concrete result of study, travel, and opportunities, such as few +families are privileged to experience. Aside from the perfect +proportions of the room, it is not difficult to analyse the art which +makes it so distinguished an example of decoration of space, and decide +wherein lies its especial charm. It is undoubtedly that of colour, +although this is based upon a detail so perfect, that one hesitates to +give it predominant credit. The whole, or nearly the whole west end of +the room is thrown into one vast, slightly projecting window of clear +leaded glass, the lines of which stand against the light like a weaving +of spiders' webs. There is a border of various tints at its edge, which +softens it into the brown shadow of the room, and the centre of each +large sash is marked by a shield-like ornament glowing with colour like +a jewel. The long ceiling and high wainscoting melt away from this +leaded window in a perspective of wonderfully carved planes of antique +oak, catching the light on lines and points of projection and quenching +it in hollows of relief. + +[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN NEW YORK HOUSE SHOWING LEADED-GLASS +WINDOWS] + +These perpendicular wall panels were scaled from a room in a Venetian +palace, carved when the art and the fortunes of that sea-city were at +their best, and the alternately repeating squares of the ceiling were +fashioned to carry out and supplement the ancient carvings. If this were +a small room, there would be a sense of unrest in so lavish a use of +broken surface, but in one large enough to have it felt as a whole, and +not in detail, it simply gives a quality of preciousness. The soft +browns of the wood spread a mystery of surface, from the edge of the +polished floor until it meets a frieze of painted canvas filled with +large reclining figures clad in draperies of red, and blue, and +yellow--separating the walls from the ceiling by an illumination of +colour. This colour-decoration belongs to the past, and it is a question +if any modern painting could have adapted itself so perfectly to the +spirit of the room, although in itself it might be far more beautiful. +It is a bit of antique imagination, its cherub-borne plates of fruit, +and golden flagons, and brown-green of foliage and turquoise of sky, and +crimson and gold of garments, all softened to meet the shadows of the +room. The door-spaces in the wainscot are hung with draperies of crimson +velvet, the surface frayed and flattened by time into variations of red, +impossible to newer weavings, while the great floor-space is spread with +an enormous rug of the same colour--the gift of a Sultan. A carved table +stands in the centre, surrounded with high-backed carved chairs, the +seats covered with the same antique velvet which shows in the +portieres. A fall of thin crimson silk tints the sides of the +window-frame, and on the two ends of the broad step or platform which +leads to the window stand two tall pedestals and globe-shaped jars of +red and blue-green pottery. The deep, ruby-like red of the one and the +mixed indefinite tint of the other seem to have curdled into the exact +shade for each particular spot, their fitness is so perfect. + +The very sufficient knowledge which has gone to the making of this +superb room has kept the draperies unbroken by design or device, giving +colour only and leaving to the carved walls the privilege of ornament. + +It will be seen that there are but two noticeable colour-tones in the +room--brown with infinite variations, and red in rugs and draperies. + +There is no real affinity between these two tints, but they are here so +well balanced in mass, that the two form a complete harmony, like the +brown waves of a landscape at evening tipped with the fire of a sunset +sky. + +Much is to be learned from a room like this, in the lesson of unity and +concentration of effect. The strongest, and in fact the only, mass of +vital colour is in the carpet, which is allowed to play upwards, as it +were, into draperies, and furniture, and frieze, none of which show the +same depth and intensity. To the concentration of light in the one great +window we must give the credit of the Rembrandt-like effect of the whole +interior. If the walls were less rich, this single flood of light would +be a defect, because it would be difficult to treat a plain surface with +colour alone, which should be equally good in strong light and deep +shadow. + +[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN NEW YORK HOME SHOWING CARVED WAINSCOTTING +AND PAINTED FRIEZE] + +Then, again, the amount of living and brilliant colour is exactly +proportioned to that of sombre brown, the red holding its value by +strength, as against the greatly preponderating mass of dark. On the +whole this may be called a "picture-room," and yet it is distinctly +liveable, lending itself not only to hospitality and ceremonious +function but also to real domesticity. It is true that there is a +certain obligation in its style of beauty which calls for fine manners +and fine behaviour, possibly even, behaviour in kind; for it is in the +nature of all fine and exceptional things to demand a corresponding +fineness from those who enjoy them. + +I will give still another dining-room as an example of colour, which, +unlike the others, is not modern, but a sort of falling in of old +gentility and costliness into lines of modern art--one might almost say +it _happened_ to be beautiful, and yet the happening is only an +adjustment of fine old conditions to modern ideas. Yet I have known many +as fine a room torn out and refitted, losing thereby all the inherent +dignity of age and superior associations. + +A beautiful city home of seventy years ago is not very like a beautiful +city home of to-day; perhaps less so in this than in any other country. +The character of its fineness is curiously changed; the modern house is +fitted to its inmates, while the old-fashioned house, modelled upon the +early eighteenth century art of England, obliged the inmates to fit +themselves as best they might to a given standard. + +The dining-room I speak of belongs to the period when Washington Square, +New York, was still surrounded by noble homes, and almost the limit of +luxurious city life was Union Square. The house fronts to the north, +consequently the dining-room, which is at the back, is flooded with +sunshine. The ceiling is higher than it would be in a modern house, and +the windows extend to the floor, and rise nearly to the ceiling, far +indeed above the flat arches of the doorways with their rococo +flourishes. This extension of window-frame, and the heavy and elaborate +plaster cornice so deep as to be almost a frieze, and the equally +elaborate centre-piece, are the features which must have made it a room +difficult to ameliorate. + +I could fancy it must have been an ugly room in the old days when its +walls were probably white, and the great mahogany doors were spots of +colour in prevailing spaces of blankness. Now, however, any one at all +learned in art, or sensitive to beauty, would pronounce it a beautiful +room. The way in which the ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and +plaster cornice is treated is especially interesting. The whole of this +is covered with an ochre-coloured bronze, while the walls and +door-casings are painted a dark indigo, which includes a faint trace of +green. Over this wall-colour, and joining the cornice, is carried a +stencil design in two coloured bronzes which seem to repeat the light +and shadow of the cornice mouldings, and this apparently extends the +cornice into a frieze which ends faintly at a picture-moulding some +three feet below. This treatment not only lowers the ceiling, which is +in construction too high for the area of the room, but blends it with +the wall in a way which imparts a certain richness of effect to all the +lower space. + +The upper part of the windows, to the level of the picture-moulding, is +covered with green silk, overlaid with an applique of the same in a +design somewhat like the frieze, so that it seems to carry the frieze +across the space of light in a green tracery of shadow. The same green +extends from curtain-rods at the height of the picture-moulding into +long under-curtains of silk, while the over-curtains are of indigo +coloured silk-canvas which matches the walls. + +The portieres separating the dining-room from the drawing-room are of a +wonderfully rich green brocade--the colour of which answers to the green +of the silk under-curtains across the room, while the design ranges +itself indisputably with the period of the plaster work. The blue and +green of the curtains and portiere each seem to claim their own in the +mixed and softened background of the wall. + +The colour of the room would hardly be complete without the three +beautiful portraits which hang upon the walls, and suggest their part of +the life and conversation of to-day so that it stands on a proper plane +with the dignity of three generations. The beautiful mahogany doors and +elaboration of cornice and central ornament belong to them, but the +harmony and beauty of colour are of our own time and tell of the general +knowledge and feeling for art which belongs to it. + +I have given the colour-treatment only of this room, leaving out the +effect of carved teak-wood furniture and subtleties of china and +glass--not alone as an instance of colour in a sunny exposure, but as an +example of fitting new styles to old, of keeping what is valuable and +beautiful in itself and making it a part of the comparatively new art of +decoration. + +[Illustration: SCREEN BY DORA WHEELER KEITH SCREEN AND GLASS WINDOW IN +HOUSE AT LAKEWOOD (Belonging to Clarence Roof, Esq.)] + +There is a dining-room in one of the many delightful houses in +Lakewood, N.J., which owes its unique charm to a combination of +position, light, colour, and perhaps more than all, to the clever +decoration of its upper walls, which is a fine and broad composition of +swans and many-coloured clusters of grapes and vine-foliage placed above +the softly tinted copper-coloured wall. The same design is carried in +silvery and gold-coloured leaded-glass across the top of the wide west +window, as shown in illustration opposite page 222, and reappears with a +shield-shaped arrangement of wings in a beautiful four-leaved screen. + +The notable and enjoyable colour of the room is seen from the very +entrance of the house, the broad main hall making a carpeted highway to +the wide opening of the room, where a sheaf of tinted sunset light seems +to spread itself like a many-doubled fan against the shadows of the +hall. + +All the ranges and intervals, the lights, reflections, and darks +possible to that most beautiful of metals--copper--seem to be gathered +into the frieze and screen, and melt softly into the greens of the +foliage, or tint the plumage of the swans. It is an instance of the kind +of decoration which is both classic and domestic, and being warmed and +vivified by beautiful colour, appeals both to the senses and the +imagination. + +It would be easy to multiply instances of beautiful rooms, and each one +might be helpful for mere imitation, but those I have given have each +one illustrated--more or less distinctly--the principle of colour as +affecting or being affected by light. + +I have not thought it necessary to give examples of rooms with eastern +or western exposures, because in such rooms one is free to consult +one's own personal preferences as to colour, being limited only by the +general rules which govern all colour decoration. + +I have not spoken of pictures or paintings as accessories of interior +decoration, because while their influence upon the character and degree +of beauty in the house is greater than all other things put together, +their selection and use are so purely personal as not to call for remark +or advice. Any one who loves pictures well enough to buy them, can +hardly help placing them where they not only are at their best, but +where they will also have the greatest influence. + +A house where pictures predominate will need little else that comes +under the head of decoration. It is a pity that few houses have this +advantage, but fortunately it is quite possible to give a picture +quality to every interior. This can often be done by following the lead +of some accidental effect which is in itself picturesque. The placing a +jar of pottery or metal near or against a piece of drapery which repeats +its colour and heightens the lustre of its substance is a small detail, +but one which gives pleasure out of all proportion to its importance. +The half accidental draping of a curtain, the bringing together of +shapes and colours in insignificant things, may give a character which +is lastingly pleasing both to inmates and casual visitors. + +Of course this is largely a matter of personal gift. One person may make +a picturesque use of colour and material, which in the hands of another +will be perhaps without fault, but equally without charm. Instances of +this kind come constantly within our notice, although we are not always +able to give the exact reasons for success or failure. We only know that +we feel the charm of one instance and are indifferent to, or totally +unimpressed by, the other. + +It is by no means an unimportant thing to create a beautiful and +picturesque interior. There is no influence so potent upon life as +harmonious surroundings, and to create and possess a home which is +harmonious in a simple and inexpensive way is the privilege of all but +the wretchedly poor. In proportion also as these surroundings become +more perfect in their art and meaning, there is a corresponding +elevation in the dweller among them--since the best decoration must +include many spiritual lessons. It may indeed be used to further vulgar +ambitions, or pamper bodily weaknesses, but truth and beauty are its +essentials, and these will have their utterance. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Principles of Home Decoration, by Candace Wheeler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION *** + +***** This file should be named 14302.txt or 14302.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/3/0/14302/ + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Susan Skinner and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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