ART.
POPULAR ART.—H. DECORATIVE FURNISHING. HAVING made last week some general remarks upon the ignorant character of a great deal of the design which is at present held up to the public for admiration, and is blindly adopted by many of them, in default of knowing any better, I propose in this, and our next number, to try to give some few practical hints, by which those who wish to decorate their houses in a fairly artistic fashion, may be able to profit without the necessity of throwing them- selves (bound hand and foot, so to speak)into the clutches of one of the great fashionable upholsterers. If there are many harpies who take advantage of the ignorance of the poor, there are no less many who live upon the ignorance of the rich, or compara- tively rich, and one of the principal tradesmen's swindles at the present day is charging exorbitantly for any work which they call "artistic." Not that the work really is artistic, on the other hand, it is frequently most inartistic, but it represents a certain fashion, and for this fashion it is charged. A relation of mine showed me his house the other day, and told me his bill for its furniture amounted to £5,000; it was a small house, not much beyond the dimensions of the usual villa residence. The furniture was thoroughly good, but quite unpretending, the only noticeable thing being crimson carpets of the same pattern throughout the house.
Well, £3,000 of this was the fashionable upholsterer's profit. The house might have been done in every respect as well as it was for £2,000, if—and here comes in the great qualifying clause —the owner of the house had known anything about it. But the owner did not know anything, except who was the best man in London (synonomousin his mind, unfortunately, with the dearest), and that he liked everything to be the best of its kind. Happily he was a rich man, and did not feel the expense. But it may be said, where is the remedy for this? If the men who devote their lives to furnishing are not to be trusted to do it, how is it pos- sible for men engaged in other occupations to know anything about it ? If we cannot leave it to the upholsterer, who can we leave it to? The answer to this is very simple. If you don't care whether your house is furnished in good taste or bad taste, by all means order the furniture, and pay the bill, and stop there ; but if you do care, if it is an object to you that when your artistic friend comes to dinner, he should not be offended by gorgeously-inharmonious colour ; if you care to have your rooms furnished so that they will be pleasant to sit in and look at, as well as a protection from the weather, then you must do it yourself, or in a great measure yourself. The one damning slit of the British tradesman (as far as you are concerned) is that his ideas of taste are governed by his ideas of price. If a man makes ten pounds by selling you one species of looking-glass, and five pounds by selling you another, he would be scarcely human if he could resist the temptation to recommend the former. And there is another grievous mistake made by nine out of ten young coupler when they set up a house, and this is that they attempt to furnish it all at once. Now houses are no more alike than people, and it requires time and experience to find out their little idiosyncrasiee- If your house is to be really well furnished, it must be done by degrees ; the furniture must, as it were, grow up round you in the places where it is needed, till the whole becomes complete, like a well-fitting design in mosaic, every piece alike complete in itself, and necessary to the harmony of all the rest. This is so simple a fact, that we should have thought it would have been apparent to every one, did we not know by painful experience, that houses are hardly ever furnished in this manner. It is a common thing, when speaking of old-fashioned houses, to say that no house really see ms as if it had been inhabited till people had lived and died there. What is the meaning of this saying ? It is quite easy to see. The house is bought and furnished, and the people live in it ; gradually, as years go on, one useless, or cumbrous, or hideous piece of furniture after another falls into bad repute, and is replaced by one more suitable (because by this time the inhabitants have learnt to know what they want) ; and this process goes on from year to year, till the place gradually assumes that home-like look, which comes from everything in it being in harmony with the rest, and fulfdling some special function, be it useful or ornamental ; and you have the large library book-case where it's wanted, and the card-table here, and the baby's chair there, and the mother's work-basket in the corner near the fire, and the ornaments Fred brought from India on the mantel-board, and each alike is entwined with some special service and affection, perhaps even with some sacred memory. The first rule, then, about furnishing is not to attempt to do it all at. once, but to furnish well with few necessaries, and allow your abode to become gradually habitable, by supplying carefully every addi- tional piece. I see a good many pamphlets now about artistic house-furnishing, but very few about comfortable house-furnishing, but there is not the slightest use in thinking about the first, till the latter has been thoroughly and successfully studied. Nay, I will venture to make what many people will think a very daring and paradoxical assertion, and to say that a house cannot be artis- tically furnished, unless it is comfortably furnished. The very idea of putting art (in furniture) into opposition to comfort, is a contradictory one, and if examined will be found to be so at once. For what do we mean by artistic furniture ? Do we mean furni- ture made in the most beautiful shapes we can imagine ? Clearly not, for then all our chairs and tables would be carved in the forms of the lotus and the lily. Do we mean the most beautiful shades of colour worked in varied design ? No, for these we must go back to the ancient embroideries in gold and crimson of Persia and India. But what we do mean, or should mean, by artistic furniture, is furniture best fitted to serve the end that it is de- signed for, and ornamental only in such manner, or to such a degree, as will enhance its beauty without impairing its usefulness. So far, then, from comfort being inconsistent with art in house decora- tion, it is necessary to it, and the first great maxim of decoration for any practical person to keep in his mind is this,—to reject without any hesitation any style of furniture which is not thoroughly comfortable. He will find his reward in many ways, not only by his own increased joy in living in a house whose furniture is adapted to its purposes, but in the increased enjoy- ment of his friends, who will admire his sense and taste far more from a substantial arm-chair, than from a ricketty, spindle-legged one.
We have, then, one maxim ; let us try to procure another also of some practical service. There is nothing more common than to hear people allege, as an excuse for trusting everything to a tradesman, that if they do not do so they will be surely guilty of some solecism, and put a Queen-Anne table with a Georgian side- board, and so on. Now this is nonsense, this is an absurd idea, fostered and worked up by shopkeepers and idiots, and should be rejected at once by all sensible people. If you furnish a room to live in—say, in the Queen-Anne style—it is just as incongruous for you to sit there in a nineteenth-century dress as it is for you to put in a Georgian sideboard, and no more. You can't reproduce Queen Anne's time whatever else you reproduce, and however much money you spend in parodying her time, some modern element is sure to creep in. And this being so, it is much more sensible to frankly give up all attempt at absolute historical truth, and only to say, "I like this black wood and yellow damask and blue china," or whatever else it is, "and I will produce in this room that style of effect." But why, when you do that, should you think it necessary to have straight-backed and thin-legged chairs, et id genus onme Do you think that if the people who lived in that reign were allowed to revisit earth and furnish their houses once again, do you think that they would not make use of every modern improvement they could lay their hands on, and chuckle at the increase of comfort since their time? The fact is that a dead age cannot be revived, and it is no good for nineteenth-century people to make their house a living lie, by pretending that it waa furnished a hundred years ago. So when
you are told that such and such a piece of furniture is wrong, not from any artistic deficiency, not because it does not agree in form or colour with the rest, but because it was made at a different time, all you have to say is, that it answers its purpose of decoration, or ornament, or both, and for the rest of it, the time of its creation has as little to do with its appropriateness as the time of your own. But remember that this will not apply, if you insist upon calling your room a Queen-Anne room ; then your friends may rightly object to your anachronism, and you can say nothing. But in my opinion, all such labelling of rooms is for ordinary people quite out of the question ; for an excessively rich man to indulge his taste creating Pompeian courts and Alhambra alcoves in his house is only to allow himself another mode of wasting money ; but for those of moderate means, it re- quires not only a sacrifice of money, but often of the comfort of the whole house.
There are many other fallacies most rampant in the Decorative- Furnishing Department, but I can only mention two or three be- before proceeding with the second part of my subject, the decora- tion and right use of china. I have frequently, while standing in old furniture-shops in Wardour Street and elsewhere, heard the shopkeeper reply to the objecting purchaser, "But, Sir, it's so old, I should think it's,—well, let me see. Ah! two hundred years old !" And then frequently the customer has paid the exorbitant price, and bought the article with perfect satisfaction. Now, we know by experience that that shopkeepers' lie will be repeated to all the customer's friends as an undoubted fact, and that they will be called upon to admire this chair, or whatever it is, because it's so old. Once for all, I beg my readers to lay home to their hearts this undoubted truth, that a thing being old is in itself no reason for admiring it. It may be a reason for the feelings, of affection, reverence, interest, and many others, but no reason for admiration. That must depend upon whether there be any intrinsic merit in the thing itself, whether it has been skilfully fashioned for its purpose, or well wrought, or beautifully ornamented, but always up on something else than its age. This is so self-evident, that I should be ashamed of re- peating it, were it not absolutely contrary to the usual practice.. Weshould imagine, speaking in sober earnest, that at least a quarter of the articles de vertu sold in London are so sold without any recommendation save their supposed age. I put quite on one- side the fact that the great majority of these things are not old at all, but manufactured at Birmingham and elsewhere by the cart- load, and say that any one purchasing an article for such a reason has lost sight altogether of the most rudimentary canon of common-sense. This practice does nothing but increase the for- tunes of the more unscrupulous tradesmen, and the number of ugly things in the world. Why, the manufacture of sham carved-oak furniture and imitation ancient repousse work in Lon- don would be sufficient to support the population of a good-sized village. And every one who buys such brass-work or wood-work, not knowing or caring to know whether it is true or false, is an accessory to the swindle. Then if a thing is not good because of its age, but only because of its use, and its useful beauty, it follows that it is in nowise necessary to good room-decoration that you should fill your house with ancient upholsteries. The only reason why these have been preferred by persons of taste and experience is because the workmen formerly were less hurried and (if the truth must be told) more honest in their execution, and that an oak sideboard, for instance, was really a sideboard made of oak, and not an article of veneer and polish. But a well-made plain wood sideboard, made by a work- ing cabinetmaker now is a much better and truer thing to have in your room than an imitation ancient oak one, made up of scattered bits of old carvings glued together and thickly varnished. Try having plain pine or willow painted dead black, or, if you can afford it, ebonised, and have them made plain, useful shapes, and you will be surprised to see how little in the way of ornamentation, flourished scroll- work, or gilding they will require to set them off. Such are a few of the general principles of furnishing.
I will now enter into such particulars as space wilt allow concerning the choice of rooms and the most effective way of decorating them. The great majority of houses in London, offer great, if not insuperable, difficulties to the de- corator being built upon what may be called the two- roomed principle. This consists, as a rule, of a dining-room below, and behind it a dark, vault-like apartment, generally devoted to the master of the house, and called ironically his " study ; " above this there are commonly a large drawing-room and a smaller one behind, separated by folding doors. The ordinary thing to do is to pull down the folding doors and make a curtained arch of the wall between the two rooms, thus convert- ing them into one gigantic apartment. It is difficult to get any effect of distance worth having out of these rooms arranged in this manner, but a few things may be suggested as to some extent increasing the coup d'otil. The window of the smaller room should be considerably darker than those of the larger apartment, and it would be better to fill it with a case of ferns or flowering shrubs, and glaze it with some stained glass.* Looking into this green semi-obscurity from the lighted room will give in some measure the effect of distance required, and will in any case be a pleasant rest to the eye. Then in the central room, whatever style of deco- ration you adopt, there are some general principles to be observed. If there is more than one door, always use one, and have a portiere over the other ; nothing is more disturbing to people than to have two entrances, and not to know which a person is going to enter at ; and besides, the lines of hanging drapery are the most graceful way of hiding the harsh, vertical and horizontal lines of the doorway. Speaking of door- ways, I could never understand bow it was that no one has ever of late years, revived the old arched door that used to be so common in postern gateways. Surely any arch would be prefer- able to the square lintel so universal at present, besides giving opportunities for infinite variation and adornment, whereas the present doorway hardly admits of any softening or decoration, except on the door itself. Again, as to the curtains. The usual way of hanging them is under a long scrolly abomination of gilt woodwork, hideously ugly and perfectly useless, invented probably by some exasperated gilder in a moment of unhallowed inspira- tion. This is quite inadmissible ; hang your curtains on a plain, straight brass rod, with a simple knob at the end, and let this brass rod fall into plain brackets of the same. It is better to have a separate rod to each window, but not very material, if they are close together.
Then come the two great questions in every room,—What colour or paper are you to have on your walls, and what carpet ? And here I may say at once, that in my opinion all false dados made of paper, and professing to represent the height of panelling, are in bad taste. If you have a panelling in your room, preserve it by all means, but don't try to pretend you have whatyou haven't, by putting up something which is in reality quite unlike it. First, as to the colour of the walls, dismiss from your mind all that you have ever heard about one colour being suitable for a dining, and one for a library, and one for a drawing-room ; that's all spurious tradition (tradition of the shopkeeper). The colour must depend on a thousand things, but not on whether you eat in the room or talk in it, one colour is as good as another for either purpose. And again, remember this, that if you are going to hang pictures on your walls (and in these days of photo- graphs and engravings, it will be your own fault if you don't), you don't want to put on an elaborate paper which will attract the attention. What you want is a soft, dark-hued paper or tint, that will throw up the pictures and relieve the eye. What colour is best for this is a disputed question. I am disposed to think that for the old school of water-colour drawings the tint should be delicate and not too dark, perhaps a light olive-green would be as good as any. For a body-colour drawing, a photo- graph, or an oil-painting, nothing looks so well as red ; but it is an excessively difficult colour to get the right shade of, and is not suitable to a very light room. Some shades of dead blue are very beautiful, and form, with dark-green hangings, one of the most pleasing harmonies of colour you can have ; but whenever you put colours so nearly allied together, you must be very sure of having the right shade, or the effect will be hideous. As in everything else, if you once leave the beaten track of conven- tionality, you must be a law to yourself, and dare failure on your own responsibility. I think, as a rule, light blues and yellows are not advisable, unless the room is a very small one ; they have a cold, cheerless look, in large quantities. For the same reason, French grey and salmon-colour are to be carefully avoided.'
In conclusion, I must say a few words as to the ar- rangement and choice of the furniture. There seems amongst the upper middle classes, of whom I have been speaking, to be a prejudice against having a book-case in the drawing-room, or allowing any books there, save such as are distinguished, not for their contents, but their bindings. This is essentially a mis- take ; there is nothing furnishes a room like a book-case, and plenty of books in it, not in mathematically precise order, but
• A very good imitation of stained glass may be easily made by the process known as °Vitreasanie."
looking as if they were accustomed to be taken down and read con- stantly. Again, it is much better to have small tables about the room or against the wall, than to have one large table in the centre laden with ormolu foolishness and skeleton flowers. But the chief thing in the arrangement of the furniture is that things should be where they are likely to be wanted ; chairs near tables, and music on the piano, and easy-chairs and sofas by the fire, and all that sort of thing ; and above all, do not have a lot of pieces of furniture scattered about without any meaning, under the impression that their "ordered disarray" may be pleasing. And it is not necessary to put a clock exactly in the centre of the mantel-piece, and ormolu candelabra in glass shades on each aide of it. It is quite unnecessary ; a clock as at present made, par- ticularly a drawing-room clock, is generally a monument of com- bined folly and bad taste, and is much better put away in some less conspicuous place. And if you have the good-fortune to possess a really good work of art, put it over the mantel-piece, and take away the eternal mirror, which is another instance of the blind, sheep-like manner in which we English follow one another, with- out having an idea of our own. And finally, have your carpet to harmonise with your walls, but a shade or two darker ; and the less design there is on it, in these days of Manchester designs, the better it will probably be. Above all, in the general effect of your room, try to make it a place where people may sit and talk or work comfortably in any part of it. The more a large sitting- room is broken up into little nooks and corners, the pleasanter it is to its inhabitants. And try and get some special effect of colour or form in each recess.
In my next article I shall speak of modern china and pottery, and their place in Art Decoration.
Previous page
