You must forgive me if I dwell on this a little. For it is o

THE ART OF BUILDING A HOME.

MANCHESTER:

Chorlton & Knowles, Mayfield Press.

1901.

THE ART OF

BUILDING

A HOME.

A Collection of Lectures and

Illustrations by Barry Parker

and Raymond Unwin.

Longmans, Green & Co.,

39, Paternoster Row, London,

New York, & Bombay,

1901.

PREFACE.

Some time ago I published a reprint of two of my articles with

illustrations which had appeared in “The Building News.”

This little publication, though long out of print, being still

constantly asked for; and the need of something to take its place being

felt by us; the question of re-issuing it arose. Instead of doing this,

however, it seemed better, as being a later and fuller expression,

to collect two or three of the lectures which my partner and I had

from time to time written for various audiences; and to add by way of

illustration some of the sketches and photographs we had by us.

So came into existence this book in its present form.

BARRY PARKER,

The Quadrant, Buxton, 1901.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK. Page.

Introduction I-VI

I. Of the Smaller Middle Class House 1

Barry Parker.

II. Of the Dignity of All True Art 21

Barry Parker.

III. Of our Education in Art 37

Barry Parker.

IV. Of Art and Simplicity 55

Raymond Unwin.

V. Of Furniture 69

Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin.

VI. Of Building and Natural Beauty 83

Raymond Unwin.

VII. Of Co-operation in Building 91

Raymond Unwin.

VIII. Of the Art of Designing Small Houses and Cottages 109

Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin.

List of Plates and Plates at the end. 136

INTRODUCTION.

The way we run in ruts is wonderful: our inability to find out the

right principles upon which to set to work to accomplish what we take

in hand, or to go to the bottom of things, is simply astonishing: while

the resignation with which we accept the Recognised and Usual as the

Right and Inevitable is really beautiful.

In nothing is this tendency more noticeable than in the art of

house-building. We begin by considering what, in the way of a house,

our neighbours have; what they would expect us to have; what is

customary in the rank of life to which we belong; anything, in fact,

but what are our actual needs. About the last thing we do is to make

our home take just that form which will, in the most straightforward

manner, meet our requirements.

It is too often evident that people, instead of being assisted, and

their lives added to, by the houses they occupy, are but living as well

as may be in spite of them. The house, planned largely to meet supposed

wants which never occur, and sacrificed to convention and custom,

neither satisfies the real needs of its occupants nor expresses in any

way their individuality.

The planning having been dictated by convention, all the details

are worked out under the same influence. To each house is applied a

certain amount of meaningless mechanical and superficial ornamentation

according to some recognised standard. No use whatever is made of

the decorative properties inherent in the construction and in the

details necessary to the building. These are put as far as possible out

of sight. For example, latches and locks are all let into the doors

leaving visible the knob only. The hinges are hidden in the rebate

of the door frame, while the real door frame, that which does the

work, is covered up with the strip of flimsy moulded board styled the

architrave. All constructional features, wherever possible, are smeared

over with a coat of plaster to bring them up to the same dead level of

flat monotony, leaving a clear field for the erection of the customary

abominations in the form of cornices, imitation beams where no beams

are wanted, & plaster brackets which could support, and do support,

nothing. Even with the fire the chief aim seems to be to acknowledge

as few of its properties and characteristics as possible; it is buried

as deep in the wall, and as far out of sight and out of the way as

may be; it is smothered up with as much uncongenial and inappropriate

“enrichment” as can be crowded round it; and, to add the final touch of

senseless incongruity, some form of that massive and _apparently_ very

constructional and essential thing we call a mantelpiece is erected,

in wood, stone, or marble, towering it may be even to the ceiling. If

we were not so accustomed to it, great would be our astonishment to

find that this most prominent feature has really no function whatever,

beyond giving cause for a lot of other things as useful and beautiful

as itself, which exist only that they may be put upon it, “to decorate

it.”

Could we but have the right thing put in the right place and left

alone, each object having some vital reason for being where it is, and

obviously revealing its function; could we but have that form given to

everything which would best enable it to answer the real purpose for

which it exists; our houses would become places of real interest.

The essence and life of design lies in finding that form for anything

which will, with the maximum of convenience and beauty, fit it for the

particular functions it has to perform, and adapt it to the special

circumstances in which it must be placed. Perhaps the most fruitful

source whence charm of design arises in anything, is the grace with

which it serves its purpose and conforms to its surroundings. How

many of the beautiful features of the work of past ages, which we now

arbitrarily reproduce and copy, arose out of the skilful and graceful

way in which some old artist-craftsman, or chief mason, got over a

difficulty! If, instead of copying these features when and where the

cause for them does not exist, we would rather emulate the spirit in

which they were produced, there would be more hope of again seeing life

and vigour in our architecture and design.

When the architect leaves the house, the subservience to convention is

not over. After him follow the decorator and the furnisher, who try

to overcome the lifelessness and vapidity by covering all surfaces

with fugitive decorations and incongruous patterns, and filling the

rooms with flimsy stereotyped furniture and nick-nacks. To these the

mistress of the house will be incessantly adding, from an instinctive

feeling of the incompleteness and unsatisfactoriness of the whole.

Incidentally we see here one reason why the influence of the architect

should not stop at the completion of the four walls, but should extend

to the last detail of the furnished house. When his responsibility

ceases with the erection of the shell, it is natural that he should

look very little beyond this. There is no inducement for him to work

out any definite scheme for a finished room, for he knows that if he

had any aim the decorator and furnisher would certainly miss it and

would fail to _complete_ his creation. If, when designing a house, the

architect were bearing in mind the effect each room would have when

finished and furnished, his conceptions would be influenced from the

very beginning, and his attitude towards the work would tend to undergo

an entire change. At present he but too readily accepts the popular

idea of art as a thing quite apart from life, a sort of trimming to be

added if funds allow.

It is this prevalent conception of beauty as a sweetmeat, something

rather nice which may be taken or left according to inclination after

the solid meal has been secured, which largely causes the lack of

comeliness we find in our houses. Before this idea can be dispelled &

we can appreciate either the place which art should hold in our lives

or the importance of rightly educating the appreciation of it, we must

realise that beauty is part of the necessary food of any life worth

the name; that art, which is the expression of beauty as conceived and

created by man, is primarily concerned with the making of the useful

garments of life beautiful, not with the trimming of them; and that,

moreover, in its higher branches art is the medium through which the

most subtle ideas are conveyed from man to man.

Understanding something of the true meaning of art, we may set about

realising it, at least in the homes which are so much within our

control. Let us have in our houses, rooms where there shall be space to

carry on the business of life freely and with pleasure, with furniture

made for use; rooms where a drop of water spilled is not fatal;

where the life of a child is not made a burden to it by unnecessary

restraint; plain, simple, and ungarnished if necessary, but honest. Let

us have such ornament as we do have really beautiful and wrought by

hand, carving, wrought metal, embroidery, painting, something which it

has given pleasure to the producer to create, and which shows this in

every line--the only possible work of art. Let us call in the artist,

bid him leave his easel pictures, and paint on our walls and over the

chimney corner landscapes and scenes which shall bring light and life

into the room; which shall speak of nature, purity, and truth; shall

become part of the room, of the walls on which they are painted, and

of the lives of us who live beside them; paintings which our children

shall grow up to love, and always connect with scenes of home with that

vividness of a memory from childhood which no time can efface. Then,

if necessary, let the rest of the walls go untouched in all the rich

variety of colour and tone, of light and shade, of the naked brickwork.

Let the floor go uncarpeted, and the wood unpainted, that we may have

time to think, and money with which to educate our children to think

also. Let us have rooms which once decorated are always decorated,

rooms fit to be homes in the fullest poetry of the name; in which no

artificiality need momentarily force us to feel shame for things of

which we know there is nothing to be ashamed: rooms which can form

backgrounds, fitting and dignified, at the time and in our memories,

for all those little scenes, those acts of kindness and small duties,

as well as the scenes of deep emotion and trial, which make up the

drama of our lives at home.

B. P.

R. U.

THE SMALLER MIDDLE CLASS HOUSE.

A lecture delivered before an audience of architects in 1895.

In the class of house with which we are to deal to-night, there are

so many directions in which improvement is needed, that it will only

be possible for me, in the space of one lecture, to refer to a few of

them, and to those specially which will illustrate most suggestively

the main principles for which I contend: suggestively, in the hope that

some present will do me the honour of giving further thought to what I

shall touch upon, than is possible to them during the length of time

assigned to me this evening.

The influences which our common every-day surroundings have upon our

characters, our conceptions, our habits of thought and conduct, are

often very much underrated; we do not realise the power they have of

either aiding or hindering the development in us of the best or worst

of which we are capable.

Of the capacity the mere contour of a moulding has to bear the

impression of refinement or vulgarity, we, as architects, are fully

aware; but, I think, may not quite as fully realise the harmful

influence of imperfect and unspontaneous drawing, or ill-conception in

pattern design, or ill-assorted combinations of colour.

The thing of first consideration in designing a house is convenience,

workability. The plan is that which should be first thought of; so, in

our small middle class house, I will try to suggest one or two of the

improvements that seem to be most wanted in planning.

[Illustration: Diagrams 1, 2, 3]

First of all, for the sake of any who may be here who are not

architects, I will just point out what is the most comfortable form of

room for a sitting room with respect to the relative positions of the

door, windows, and fire. If your room must, of necessity, be square or

oblong (which should be the case as seldom as possible), the form most

conducive to comfort, is of course this: diagram 1. The second best

arrangement, (when this cannot be got) is to have the door and fire

both on the long wall, diagram 2. When the door is on the opposite wall

to the fire, you never feel to be able to get out of the draught of it;

and of course this kind of thing, diagram 3, is too palpably bad to

need that anything should be said regarding it.

One of the first defects we notice in the plans of houses of the class

we are speaking of, as usually laid down, is that there are too many

rooms & all therefore necessarily too small. In the larger middle class

house there are generally drawing room, dining room, library, kitchens,

and offices, all tolerably good rooms. Now, when a smaller house is

wanted, the general custom seems to be, to put exactly the same number

of rooms, only reducing all in size. Would it not be far better to

reduce the number of rooms, keeping such rooms as we do retain, large

enough to be healthy, comfortable, and habitable?

Are not many of the houses we know only too well, most distressing

in this respect, divided up, as they are, into a number of small

compartments, we cannot call them rooms, all far too small to be

healthy; too small to be really fit for human habitation. And what is

gained by this cramping? Only that there shall be one or more of these

compartments practically useless. In far the greater number of these

houses the third room is never used, or used merely because it happens

to be there, and its chief end seems to be to provide a place for the

women of the household to spend any spare time they may have, cleaning

down, dusting &c.

Now many people have a feeling that there is a certain cosiness in a

small room entirely unattainable in a large one; this is a mistake

altogether; quite the reverse has been my experience, which is that

such a sense of cosiness as can be got in the recesses of a large

room, can never be attained in a small one, be it no larger than a

sentry box. But if your big room is to be comfortable it _must_ have

recesses. There is a great charm in a room broken up in plan, where

that slight feeling of mystery is given to it which arises when you

cannot see the whole room from any one point in which you are likely to

sit; when there is always something _round the corner_.

And what is made of the hall? Generally one of two things; either it is

a passage with a kind of step-ladder for a staircase and a hat stand

in it, with not room enough for you to hold the door and let a friend

out; or it is a great bare cold comfortless waste space, in the centre

of the house: instead of being, as it might, the most comfortable and

homely room, the centre of the common life of the household.

Of course a hall of this kind needs some care in planning. In the first

place, the staircase must occupy exactly that position in which it can

be made an ornament and a pleasing feature in the room, all of which it

is quite capable of being, and a position in which it does not detract

from the cosiness, or give any unpleasant feeling of draughtiness, or

too great openness. In the second place, the doors necessarily opening

into a hall must be carefully so grouped that the parts of the room in

which anyone would sit, shall be out of the draught of them as far as

possible.

Any house is cold all through the winter months unless a fire of some

kind is kept burning in the hall; many people, therefore, find it

necessary to have a stove or heating apparatus; and, in most houses,

it is thought necessary to have two other fires burning, one in the

living room, and one in some other room that there may be somewhere

to show visitors. Now when the hall is also a sitting room, with a

fire in it, we get, for the trouble and expense of two fires, all the

advantages ordinarily attaching to three.

I must now pass on to Decoration and Furniture. The best test of the

artistic merits or demerits of a room _as a whole_, is the impression

it makes, on one’s entering for the first time. We can get accustomed

to anything, and it is from this fact, taken in conjunction with what

we have already noted, of the power as an influence for advancement

or degradation of beautiful or unbeautiful surroundings, that the

importance of our subject to-night is partly drawn. And what _should_

be our feeling, on entering a room? Simply this: How exquisitely

comfortable! For _the first essential in the form and design of any

decorative object_, (_and everything in a room should be a decorative

object_), _is reposefulness_. I feel herein to be guilty of giving

utterance to a truism, and I should hardly dare to state so obvious a

fact, were it not that I see this first principle so almost universally

violated; for, if this test of reposefulness is _the_ test, the average

farm house kitchen has an artistic value far beyond that of ninety-nine

out of every hundred drawing rooms in the kingdom; and I will endeavour

to show why.

The first fault in our rooms which contributes to this result is _over

decoration_. This is an almost universal failing. Everything has a

pattern on it and almost every pattern is mechanically produced, run

out by the yard, and cut off just where it happens to be when the

time comes for it to finish. No pattern bears any relation to any

other pattern, and the whole effect is fidgety, fussy, and painful

to a degree. Nothing is let alone, but every surface must needs be

worried and tortured into some unwholesome form of altogether soul-less

ornament. We cannot even find rest for our weary eyes on the ceiling,

for tortuous intricacies of design meet them there also.

The second fault I wish to refer to, is that all this ornament is

made to shout, everything is clamouring for notice. It would not

be in place for me to say much here about those rooms in which any

one element of decoration is in such flagrantly bad taste as to be

noticed, immediately on entering, with a sort of start and feeling of

“Oh! wall-paper,” or “Oh! carpet,” or whatever it may happen to be.

(A designer will often aim at this for the sake of the advertisement

and at the sacrifice of his artistic principles). But even when this

extreme is not reached, everything seems trying within certain limits

to assert itself, to attract attention.

Now any ornament you notice when you do not look for it, or perhaps

I might better say, when you do not wish to think of it, is

necessarily in bad taste. The degree of assertiveness admissible in

a decorative object depends upon the degree of its naturalisation or

conventionalisation, or, to put it another way, on the degree in which

it is fine or mechanical. And though we cannot pretend to regulate

by rules of this kind, pictures which are direct mirrors as far as

possible of real things, yet, in so far as they are mural decorations,

they come under this law.

Mr. Ruskin’s wall, painted to look like a vinery, would admit of

much more forcible treatment, being entirely painted by hand and as

true to nature as possible, than would a wall with a _printed_ vine

pattern on it in which there necessarily was repetition. And natural

flowers painted may fittingly be treated much more forcibly than

would be admissible in a purely conventional design, because natural

flowers, hills, & trees, cannot become assertive enough to influence

one disquietingly. Therefore the more nearly approaching to nature,

the more assertive may be our ornament, or rather the less assertive

it _will_ be from this very reason, and therefore may be the more

_forcible_ in treatment. So we can stand, in a conventional pattern

design, a degree of contrast in tones, which we could not tolerate in

flat masses of colour.

One of the chief underlying causes of this failing of fussiness we

have noted, is, that a room is scarcely ever designed _as a whole_,

never enough thought of as a whole. The designer of each individual

thing, knowing nothing of the form or character which anything else in

the room was going to take, thought only of his own design, & worked

enough interest into it to make it all-sufficient in itself; and the

consequence, when his design gets put into a room in conjunction with

a lot of other things, all designed in just the same spirit, is, that

restlessness we have been deploring.

A room is a place in which to think of other things besides those

relating exclusively to the room itself, and so much incident and

interest should not be worked into it as to distractingly affect the

pursuance of these thoughts & occupations. I say again, any ornament

which you notice when you do not wish to is necessarily in bad taste.

When choosing anything, a wall paper for instance, we forget that

we are, while so doing, devoting all our thought and attention to

the design we are considering; and that, though pleasing under these

circumstances, it may not be equally so to have by us when we wish to

think of other things, or in the position for which we intend it. Now

no flat mechanical ornament, designed to cover a large space, should

ever be so designed that you are able easily to trace the pattern at

the other side of the room. Please do not understand from this that it

should be _small_ in design; far from it; things small in design are,

almost necessarily, finikin and therefore unreposeful; but being quiet

and retiring in colour and contrast of tones, whether large or small,

let it reveal, when you come to have _leisure_ to examine it, vigorous

broad and direct treatment, good loving thoughtful drawing, real

artistic conception, and perception of beauty in form and line.

How seldom we get these qualities: how laboured and unspontaneous most

patterns are! Into what unwholesome forms the ornament is tortured, how

the one aim seems to be to make the design as restless and fussy as

possible! A sort of feeling pervades the whole, that the designer could

not let the thing alone.

I think we must not now go far into the faults in actual

draughtsmanship most common in our designs. But one thing is very

striking: our designers, almost without exception, seem to be out of

their depth directly anything in the way of foreshortening is required

of them; this cannot but lead us to the conclusion, that drawing from

Nature does not form a sufficiently important part of their training.

In fact I have myself known several men, engaged entirely in drawing

ornament, who never drew a bud or twig from Nature in their lives.

However this may be, the fact remains that very few of our designers

seem able to draw a leaf turning over with any truth and accuracy.

Another cause of failure in our rooms is _the dread of repeating

ourselves_. With my wish that a more wholesome feeling in this may

spring up among all engaged in artistic work, I am perhaps more anxious

to have your sympathy than with anything which has gone before. Let us

then _do nothing different from what we have done before, until we feel

it to be better than what we have done before_.

Now this fear of repetition is no imaginary evil, but a very real and

living one. How often do we all attempt something fresh, knowing it not

to be the best we can do, (best I mean more in kind than degree) simply

from a weak dislike that people should say of us, that we have only one

style. How often do we turn out a design for a certain purpose and

position, knowing it to be not so good as one we have before made for

a similar purpose and position, simply because we have not strength to

repeat what we believe to be best, lest people should think that is

_all_ we can do. In so doing we preclude all possibility of development.

Now observe, this never occurs during the progress of any living art

in the past. The man who had carved one Early English capital did

not, when next he had a capital to carve, say, “I know nothing more

_beautiful_, but I must at any rate do something different, I must not

put the same capital here again.” On the contrary, his aim was to carve

a similar capital again, only he would try to do a better one; for

probably he had noticed some little point in which he could improve on

the last he did; some way in which he could mass his light and shade so

as to give them a more pleasing form when seen at a distance; or some

more lovely feeling it was possible to introduce into the reveal of a

leaf or the curve of a stem.

You must forgive me if I dwell on this a little. For it is of vital

importance that all of us who have any hope or wish to see a living

art again existent among us, should realise the full significance

of this. There are many other changes which must take place in our

practice of the arts, and these very radical changes, before living art

is again possible to us; but if I can bring home to anyone, directly

or indirectly, the full significance of this, I shall have done

_something_ towards this great end.

In excuse it may be and is said, “This aiming at change, variety,

novelty, &c. is demanded of the designer by a capricious change-loving

public, broadly speaking, incapable of any true judgment or

appreciation of good and bad in art.” In reply to this, I think we

cannot do better than recall what Mr. Ruskin says on this head. “You

may like making money exceedingly; but if it come to a fair question,

whether you are to make five hundred pounds less by this business, or

to spoil your building, and you choose to spoil your building, there’s

an end of you. So you may be as thirsty for fame as a cricket is for

cream; but, if it come to a fair question, whether you are to please

the mob, or do the thing as you know it ought to be done; and you can’t

do both, and choose to please the mob,--its all over with you;--there’s

no hope for you; nothing that you can do will ever be worth a man’s

glance as he passes by.”

A further cause of failure in decorating and furnishing is virtually

the same as we noticed when speaking of planning. When a small middle

class house is wanted, what is usually done, we saw, is virtually

to take a plan suitable for a larger house and reduce it every way,

instead of designing a house suited to the new requirements. This same

mistake is generally made in the decoration and furniture; instead of

these being designed to suit the condition or circumstances in which

they are to be placed, each designed for its position and purpose,

and good and honest as far as it goes, what do we find? Cheapened

imitations of the sort of thing common in the larger house, cheapened

by being badly made, by veneer on pine instead of solid wood, by cast

metals and ornament made to look like wrought, by machine carved wood,

by marbled slate, &c. P. G. Hubert in his little book entitled “Liberty

and a Living,” says: “One of my critics, for whom I have great personal

deference, tells me that my theory of life tends to a relapse into

barbarism, and in illustration of the truth of his position, he pointed

one evening to a music stand near the piano with the remark: “With

your ideas, that stand would never be made of mahogany and elaborately

ornamented, but would be of pine, perhaps stained.”

“Well, suppose it was, I am inclined to think that the greater use of

common material, stained pine and other cheap wood, in the houses of

people of taste is a distinct indication of a needed reform. Take the

little music stand in illustration. Its purpose is to hold a number of

music books and loose sheets of music. It has three or four shelves,

and is so made as to stand in a corner near the piano and take up but

little room. It is made of mahogany, highly polished, & is ornamented,

as most people would call it, with a sort of stucco-beading, which to

me is distasteful. But it cost money, and therefore has its reasons

for being in certain eyes. I have forgotten what it cost me--probably

from fifteen to twenty dollars. Thanks to the growth of good taste, I

can to-day pick out from half-a-dozen books I know of a little design

for a music stand, or sketch it myself, and the nearest carpenter will

make the thing in a day at a cost of two or three dollars for wood,

labor, and staining. The result will be something which is pleasanter

to my eye, and I will venture to say to the eyes of nine out of ten

persons of educated taste. The other fifteen or sixteen dollars saved

may be devoted to books, pictures, music--any of the things which

really add something to life. The music stand of stained pine will do

its work just as well as the one made of mahogany, inlaid with stucco

beading--in fact it will do it better, for it will not need a periodic

rubbing on the part of the parlour-maid to keep it bright and polished,

and it can be moved about when occasion demands, as it weighs but

little. It is as strong as the other, and it will last a hundred years.”

And now for the last cause of failure of which I shall speak, and this

is: the very marked feeling which everything has of not having been

designed for its place: the look everything has of being ready to move

at any moment. Most things to look right and happy in their places must

be designed _for_ their places. The advantages attaching to a room

furnished in this way, and largely by means of _fixtures_, I think the

accompanying sketches will do something to illustrate.

There is a unity, completeness, comfort, and repose about such a

room, which can never be got in a room in which the furniture &c. is

not designed for its position and looking at home there, but is just

temporarily stuck where it happens to stand, with a look of being on

the alert, and ready to move on at a moment’s notice.

But it is time to sum up our position and note the general conclusions

to which we are led. I have described some of the defects we most

commonly see in planning, and the arrangement of the hall; the entire

want of reposefulness, (that infallible criterion of good ornament),

that troubles the man of taste in nearly all domestic decorative work;

and the lack of fitness in the furniture that is generally crowded into

the rooms of smaller middle class houses, which adds the final touch

to the complete failure, from an artistic point of view, of the great

majority of such rooms.

I further mentioned as causes generally contributing to this

failure, over-decoration, the covering of all surfaces with a mass

of incongruous patterns, quite fatal, even where the designs are in

themselves good: the effortfulness of most ornament, by which every

pattern seems to clamour for notice, in which connexion I stated as a

guiding principle, that any ornament you notice before you look for

it, is likely to be in bad taste. Further I noticed the laboured and

unspontaneous character of so many of the designs themselves and the

lack of good drawing in them, and hinted that this arose partly from

the designer’s dread of repeating himself, and his eagerness to produce

something fresh without considering whether it was better. Finally I

drew attention to the way in which so many rooms are furnished with

cheap imitations of better or more esteemed materials, decorated with

cast, or otherwise mechanically produced imitations of hand-wrought

ornament, and the general unfitness, and ready-to-move look, which

results from there being no fixed furniture, but all having been

designed without any thought of the room, and the room planned without

any view to its furniture.

I have several times hinted that the entire lack of unity, which is the

inevitable result of all this, must continue, so long as our rooms and

our houses are never thought out as a whole, so long as one man plans

the building, another arranges the decorations, and a third picks up

the furniture of twenty designers, here and there and everywhere. It

is essential to any good result, that one man should design the house

as a whole. I do not mean necessarily that he should design everything

in it, or draw with his own hand every detail; but he must exercise a

controlling power, selecting where he does not design, and ensuring

that the work of all may be done in a spirit of co-operation towards

the complete whole which he planned.

You will all be wishing to ask me, I doubt not, how this is possible in

our days of speculative building, short leases & shorter tenancies. I

must at once admit that to a large part of this work such a system is

inapplicable, though even here much could be done if each department

made what improvements are possible irrespective of the others. The

lack of power to control the decorations does not excuse a badly

planned hall. But outside the purely speculative building there is yet

a large amount of work to which the system is applicable, in greater or

less degree, such degree mainly depending on our clients: and here we

have the real difficulty. We are powerless to compel our clients, nay,

to a large extent, the client has a right to have his own way.

I suppose a doctor is in a similar fix; he is called in to prescribe

for a patient and finds his prescription is useless because the

patient will continue to smoke; he does not, if he is worth anything,

accept the situation; but he explains that smoking is, in this case,

fatal, that it renders his skill unavailing; and, if all his advice is

neglected, he will finally refuse to act.

Architecture is rightly called a profession only when the architect

advises his client what is best, and brings the whole weight of his

knowledge and experience to persuade him from anything foolish, or

in bad taste. When he produces to order some plan of which he cannot

approve, he is merely a merchant of plans.

While speaking of this duty of the architect, I would not be thought

to make light of many conditions of modern life which will, so long

as they continue, and to the extent to which they spread, hinder all

attempts to produce beautiful and dignified homes. One such condition

is the instability of social position; everyone is seeking to get a

step further up the social ladder. The result is a demand for houses

which look as though they belonged to the social grade next above

that of the people who are to live in them. To such untrue aims art

refuses any countenance; and it is well. But there is an already great

and daily increasing number of those who are weary of this fruitless

struggle, of a life spent in work entirely without interest or beauty,

or the power of giving a vestige of real pleasure, that they may have

the means to _acquire_ things without interest, beauty, or the power

of giving any pleasure beyond the sordid satisfaction of letting Mr.

and Mrs. So-and-So see they can afford to have them. These are anxious

to find houses suited to their genuine wants, houses in which the work

will be reduced to a minimum, and the beauty increased to a maximum,

by the only true method of making all the useful and necessary things

beautiful; not by the false method of keeping all useful & necessary

things out of sight, trying to conceal their purpose or to appear

unconscious of their existence, and substituting for them things

recognised to be useless but regarded (so long as the fashion lasts at

any rate) as beautiful.

This polished mahogany life of ours, with stucco trimmings and jerry

joints presented for view to our visitors and acquaintances in the

front room, is not, I believe, what many of us really want; we are

tired also of the dismal and cramped, but at anyrate real, back office,

back room, and kitchen life; & many are looking for houses in which

they shall not spend their labour for that which is not bread, but

shall be able to live a life of less artificiality than our present

complex 19th century existence, a truer, healthier life altogether.

I have just said, that the true method of making a room beautiful is

to make all the necessary and useful things in it beautiful; so much

is this true that it becomes almost impossible to design a really

beautiful room that is to have no useful work done in it or natural

life lived in it. An architect called upon to design a room in which

nothing more earnest is to be done than to gossip over afternoon tea

has, indeed, a sad job.

For a room must always derive its dignity or meanness from, and reflect

somewhat, the character and kind of occupation which is carried on

in it. For instance, the studio of an artist, the study of a man of

letters, the workshop of a carpenter, or the kitchen of a farmhouse,

each in its position and degree, derives a dignity and interest from

the work done in it. And the things in the room bear some relation to

that work, and will be the furniture and surroundings natural to it; as

the bench and tools in the carpenter’s shop; the easels and canvasses

in the studio; the books and papers in the study; and the bright pans

and crockery in the kitchen. All these lend a sense of active, useful,

human life to the room, which redeems it from vulgarity, though it be

the simplest possible; and no amount of decoration or ornamentation

can give dignity or homeliness to a room which is used as a show room,

or in which no regular useful life is lived. For in the work room all

things _have a place_, by reason of their usefulness, which gives a

sense of fitness and repose entirely wanting in a room where a place

has obviously _had to be found_ for everything, as in a drawing room.

How far things _beautiful_ alone, are to be allowed place in our

rooms I am not prepared to say. Thoreau, you will remember, threw

away his fossil, the only ornament in his room, because it required

dusting. While not suggesting that we should follow his example to such

an extreme, I yet think that in retaining his spade and his axe he

retained more of true decoration. And I believe in the main that the

more adapted to its use anything is, the more graceful will it be in

shape. The bent handle of the axe, more comfortable to hold, is also

more beautiful than the straight, and in the degree the curve and form

of the handle is adapted to its uses as an axe, by just so much the

more beautiful it becomes.

The charm of the farmhouse kitchen, with everything in its place

because of its usefulness, can of course be increased to an unlimited

extent by making all the useful articles also beautiful in form, and

harmonious in color. This is the line on which alone, I contend, a

really beautiful room is to be got; and I would discourage all attempts

at adornment by finding places for useless things.

I am glad to think that, owing to the great increase of education and

employment among ladies, there will be less and less call for the

old-fashioned drawing room; ladies will want a room to work in, not to

dawdle in.

Pardon me if I seem to have dwelt over long on some of these

difficulties in the way of designing really beautiful rooms. I have

done so in the belief that they do not, as at first may appear, lie

outside our province. For I believe, as professional men, we have

just such power of influencing our clients by helping them towards

a more natural life as the doctor has in such matters as diet; and

particularly is this power evident in the domestic branch of the

profession, with which we are dealing.

In building a man’s shell for him we certainly can influence very

largely the life he will live within it; and while it is our duty to

make that shell fit the life as well as possible, it is surely also our

privilege to make it conduce to the realisation of the best of which he

is capable.

In so far as we do this, we shall rise above the mere planner of houses

and take our places in the work of planning and moulding the future

life of the people.

BARRY PARKER.

THE DIGNITY OF ALL TRUE ART.

The kinship between all the various branches of art is so very close,

that instead of speaking of them as different arts, it would really be

more accurate to describe them as only different media for expression

of the same truth. Our object in trying to express ourselves in some

one form of art, is to bring home to those to whom this _form_ most

appeals, truths which we see are passed over by them unheeded and

uncomprehended when expressed in another. Many of the principles and

truths I hope to bring before you are so much more easily set forth

in other arts than that of language, that the attempt to use this

form would seem unnecessary and undesirable were it not for the truth

of what I have just said, that each of the arts appeals & clearly

expresses its meanings and teachings only to a part of those to whom it

is addressed. All feel something of the meanings expressed through art,

no matter what _form_ of expression may have been chosen, but every

one will be more directly appealed to and will more clearly understand

the message expressed in one art than they would that, or some other

message, expressed in another.

It cannot be denied that many get from music what they see not in

poetry, while others learn from poetry what they miss in music,

painting, sculpture, or architecture; that some can feel and know truth

in architecture they find not in the drama, and many learn from the

drama what no other art can teach them.

For though it is true that many of our greatest artists could have

expressed themselves, as some have expressed themselves, with equal

power through several media; many of our greatest poets might have

made equally great painters, and our painters, poets; still few could

possibly find time to acquire equal knowledge of several arts. And

though most men, being masters of one art, will have abundant sympathy

and love for the others, yet life will prove too short for them to

come to feel and know the messages or truths of any other with equal

clearness. But, having them in the depths of their natures, they will

feel, though dimly perhaps, that they are all one, and that their vital

truths belong to all alike, and are essentially the same in all, and

are of the very life of all that is worthy, all that is beautiful,

true, or noble.

Now all the greatest truths are so broad and universal in their very

elements, that they are incapable of clear definition and _must_ depend

on the subtleties of true art for expression. And in this lies the

dignity of all true art, in that by it and through it only can the

highest truths be taught, or true education reached.

Music is the most perfect means of saying what cannot be expressed

in words. None of us can translate into words what has been revealed

to us through music, it is a means of expression above and beyond

words; painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, even a mere colour

scheme, can all tell us much which is beyond the power of any direct

expression. The deeper the truth the more dependent it is upon one or

other of these arts for its expression. None of us can say what music

has brought home to us, none of us can tell what a beautiful building

has said to us. If we try to give all these things in words, “beauty,”

“truth,” or that hopelessly feeble phrase “elevating influence,” and

kindred terms, are all that come to our aid with which to tell of them.

Into these weak inadequate words we have to read all that which we have

learned from other arts, & so give them a meaning they are incapable of

conveying, unless we have felt it through influences above and beyond

them. Music, the most perfect of the arts, is the most subtle, the

most inexplicable. It seems to be, (if I may use the expression), the

most direct gift of God to man, excepting of course that revelation of

Himself which we call Nature, and which is above all arts or anything

needing man’s instrumentality.

Why has music this power of calling forth all that is best in us, of

making us feel the great things beyond expression? We cannot say.

We feel, and so we know and realise, that music never deceives, and is

the only art which is never misunderstood. Her revelation is either

taken or left, it is either comprehended or passed by unheeded, but

it is never misconstrued. It may be understood and felt in a degree

only. It may give more of its message to one than to another, but in

so far as it is understood at all, it is _truly_ understood and never

misleads, and herein lies its greatness.

Some there are who say they can express by language or other arts

what the musician is speaking of in his music; this only shows that

all in which music transcends other arts is beyond their conception.

The messages music has for us are above and beyond such things as can

be put into words, and to have it merely telling a story which could

equally well, or perhaps even better, have been told in words, or even

to have it imitating the sounds of the sea, the voices of the storm,

the whisper of the trees, or the sorrow of the wind, is to miss much of

its greatness.

The messages of music may have been at some times the same as those of

Nature, in the sea, the stream, or the trees, but to make it merely

a less comprehensible language, telling us what written or spoken

language can tell us, is to take from it much of its nobility and to

deprive it of some of its most sacred prerogatives.

So if we follow this through we see its truth in all the arts. Poetry,

partaking of the character of music, can bring home to us things too

subtle, too high, to be told to us in prose, but may be misunderstood

as music cannot be. In its highest influences, in those elements which

it has in common with music, it is, like music, either taken rightly or

not comprehended at all, but in many of its lesser and more definable

messages it may be misunderstood.

A very little thought will show how absolutely true in literature

is what I have said, as to the position _art_ must hold as the only

means of expressing the greatest truths, and will show too, that

just as our theme advances in dignity, will it increasingly need the

aid of art to give it expression. The meanest things of life are most

easily expressed. We can give our financial position with clearness in

figures. We can express the composition of a gas with absolute accuracy

in a formula. We can give almost any mere scientific fact in words. We

can even state the properties of a triangle with some definiteness. But

beyond this we cannot go without calling Art to our aid; and the higher

we attempt to soar the more dependent upon her do we become.

Our laws and legal documents are a constant comment upon and

illustration of the utter failure inevitably resulting from any attempt

to express with absolute accuracy, without the aid of art, any of those

things which involve questions of morality, love, truth, justice, or

any of the higher qualities of our nature; for they have always been

and must always be the most obscure, involved, and incomprehensible

attempts at expression in any language.

So we go upwards from the scientific formula and the laws of geometry,

past the legal document to the newspaper article, and everyday prose,

until we come to the more matter-of-fact forms of philosophy, thence

on to parable, fiction and fairy tale, & from these to sculpture,

architecture, painting, and poetry, calling in at every stage more and

more of the aid of art, until we arrive at last at that most perfect

art, and most complete expression, _music_. And observe, all the way

through the series we have moved less and less within the regions of

definitely statable facts, and more and more in the regions of those

truths which can be felt & known, but not definitely expressed.

Great truths, which are for all time and all peoples, must be expressed

in an art at any rate as high in dignity as parable in one of its many

forms. The greatest teachers have recognised this. All great truths

must be presented in a form in which those who are capable of realising

them can find them, while others miss, & each can take away what he can

comprehend. This is only another way of saying again, great truths can

only be expressed through the medium of art, for it is an essential

property of all true art that it shall suggest and imply more than it

actually says.

I have said art is the only true educator between man and man, and a

knowledge and appreciation of those things which through art alone we

can learn, is the only true education. But I would not for one moment

be thought to lose sight of the fact that _Nature_ can and does teach

us more than any work of man. She has influences over us tending to

the highest education; with these I was not concerning myself in the

above, for I was speaking of man’s influence upon his fellow man. I am

to try and give some idea of wherein lies the life and vitality of some

of the humbler branches of art. I say humbler, for I will have none of

the shallow hypocrisy of those who, not being able to paint a great

realistic picture, pretend that their little conventional decorations

are a higher and nobler branch of art, and who, because the great

picture may be still greater by being _also_ decorative, and can only

attain to its greatest when it _is also_ decorative, argue that all

decorative art is greater than pictorial.

It is my aim to show that to these applied arts also belongs much of

that power to express those higher things which are felt and known only

through art.