The Modern Home
Pattern
the furnishing and decoration of a house, the proper use of pattern and patterned materials constitutes a problem which is, on the whole, less frequently solved with real success than any other. If we enter a typical hall or dining-room we are quite likely to see on the walls a patterned paper on which a number of birds of the pheasant family hold strained attitudes among the foliage of some kind of begonia which looks as though it would figure more suitably in a Russian salad. Beneath our feet the highly conventionalized pattern of a Turkish carpet strikes a fresh note by no means to be excused merely because its red is the same as that in the pheasants' eyes and on the stems of the begonias. The curtains of tapestry may show with greater reticence a pattern vaguely Jacobean in feeling; and behind them—more probably than not—additional curtains of net will seek to prove by the presence of a few musical instruments tied loosely together with ribbon that their designer was familiar with the style of Francois I. We may leave it to purists to rage against such a gross (but by no means uncommon) mixture of styles— probably all they might say would be no more than enough : what I wish to examine here is whether such a mass of pattern —of any kind—can possibly be said to justify its presence.
A cynic might argue that all such patterns are serving a most useful purpose in obscuring the outlines of the furniture which fills the room—but we cannot admit the validity of such reasoning here : it must be assumed that the furniture is at least fit to be looked at. Again, if it is period furniture, the whole-hearted devotee of the antique will, no doubt, wish to provide it with surroundings as nearly as possible true to its period (however unsuited to present-day customs and costumes the result may be), and this, too, we must dismiss as a special case. But what is to be said of the ordinary house, with furniture of no special merit or demerit, which shows pattern in such profusion and variety ?
It is, or should be an axiom in the furnishing of a modern house (no less than in the building of it) that nothing is to be present which does not serve a very definite purpose. This does not mean that everything must necessarily fulfil a material function : aesthetic considerations are also to be taken into account ; but it does mean that nothing must be used simply because it is as easily used as not. If a certain feature adds nothing by its presence, it will most certainly add something by its absence. Furthermore there is no possible case in which it might as well be there as not ; if it is doing no good, it is very definitely doing harm. It is at least distracting attention from things which should be seen, and it is confusing the evidence of that coherent planning which should be at once apparent in any room.
The reason for the emergence and establishment of this rule is, I think, to be found in the conditions under which we live to-day. Modern life is exceedingly rapid and exceedingly complex—not to say muddled. What we require in our homes as an antidote to all this, is simplicity and restfulness. Dazed by other people's ideas of music, and shaken by passing lorries—distracted, may be, by the wobble of world events, we. can find a greater measure of peace in a room plainly and simply furnished than in one of the traditional " homely "
type exemplified most purely nowadays in a thousand tea- shops and road-houses.
If we apply this utility test to the room we have been considering, we shall quickly perceive reasons for the sense of discomfort its appearance gives to the pure or relatively pure in vision. Pattern wars against pattern, and little of it has any justification for its presence except that certain of the colours may be vaguely in tune with certain others. A patterned carpet may be said to show footmarks or traces of wear less prominently than a plain. Therefore if the functions of the room entail rather heavy traffic, a patterned carpet may be warranted. In this case it is most probable that pattern anywhere else in the room will be a mistake. Presumably the pattern of the carpet chosen will not be so atrocious that the owner would wish to hide it from the beholder—and so proceeds to render him incapable of clear vision by surrounding him with a welter of distr.xeting and
irrelevant detail. We have assumed, too, that the furniture is at least fit to be looked at : it will be seen to better advantage against plain or very unobtrusively patterned walls. If these show too many unrelieved spaces for the owner's taste, a picture or two will surely prove a better focus for the attention than a pattern meaninglessly repeated all over the area. What business has the top half of a pheasant to be seen coyly displaying itself above the upper edge of a writing desk ?
From this last point we may, I think, deduce one more principle : that purely formal or highly conventionalized pattern is almost always preferable to the more naturalistic type. It may seem at first sight a very pleasant fancy to convert one's bedroom into a bower of roses by papering it with a design of trellis-work, over and through which the flowers peep in never-failing luxuriance. But after the first week or two, the only impression received is that of a mad- deningly repetitive pattern and a welter of ill-assorted colours. If the pattern is indeed necessary, let it be as unobtrusive as may be, and of a type that fills the space well and does not rivet the attention with puerile imitations of something else. the custom has spread recently among wall-paper manu- facturers of providing cut-out pieces of pattern which can be pasted on a plain ground in suitable positions about the room. Thus an upstanding clump of lupins may vie with a tallboy in an arrested race to the ceiling, or a fawn may be shown raising its da-nty nose in disgust from the coal box. The principle is obviously an improvement since it does allow emphasis to be placed where it is demanded by the form of the room and its contents ; but one need not approach too close to the absurdity of the examples I have chosen to see how its possibilities are stultified by the use of naturalistic ornament. It is unlikely that such commercial cut-outs will possess any great artistic merit in themselves : if this is wanted, one is more likely to obtain it by commissioning a competent artist to paint a design in situ—but in my experience even this expedient is rarely justified by the results. Perhaps it is that few artists can be found who will subordinate their own artistic yearnings to the peculiar demands of the situation. It is possible that something might be done with cut-outs of very abstract design, which could be placed and perhaps combined in various ways.
In attempting to formulate any fixed standards by which to assess the merits of pattern, one quickly comes up against considerable difficulties. There are, of course, certain definite points, with which every art student is familiar—as that the pattern must be well balanced and must fill its space aide- - quately, that the colours must harmonize and the design " flow " well—but beyond these it is difficult to avoid the admission that fashion enters into it very much, that there are few eternal principles. Victorian pattern was usually hideous—crude, over-crowded and over-emphatic—and art nouveau was little better. There seems small reason to praise much of the " peasant art," which came next and still survives to a large extent : its vogue seems to be due mainly to reaction and to a feeling of relief engendered by its sim- plicity. One can look at little peasant pottery, for instance, without finding that the pattern is badly placed with reference to the shape of the piece. So long as it is simple, brightly coloured and splodged on with some freedom—not to say carelessness—the executant knows that it must be artistic— and that is that 1
In contrast to these earlier styles, the tendency of modern pattern to become more and more mechanistic does appear to have some basis of reason. Partly no doubt it derives from cubism, but also it is in keeping with the tendencies of the age. Our furniture tends more and more to look what it is, machine made, and to lose the vestigial remains of the hand-work of other days : modern pattern favours those forms most easily produced by machinery—the circle and the plane surface. Since it avoids also the dangers of imitating natural forms and is not, or should not be irritatingly emphatic, its use, in the strictest moderation, can lead to very satisfactory
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