TABLE DECORATION
For the young and inexperienced we state a few rules for table
decoration. If you have furnished your dining-room to accord not only
with your taste, but the scale upon which you intend living, be
careful that the dining-table never strikes a false note, never "gets
out of the picture" by becoming too important as to setting or menu.
You may live very formally in your town house and very simply, without
any ostentation, in the country, but be sure that in all of your
experimenting with table decoration you observe above all the law of
appropriateness.
Your decoration, flowers, fruit, character of bowl or dish which holds
them, or _objet d'art_ used in place of either; linen or lace, china,
glass and silver,--each and all must be in keeping. The money value
has nothing whatever to do with this question of appropriateness, when
considered by an artist decorator. Remember that in decorating,
things are classified according to their colour value, their lines and
the purpose for which they are intended. The dining-table is to eat
at, therefore it should primarily hold only such things as are
required for the serving of the meal. So your real decoration should
be your silver, glass and china, with its background of linen or lace.
The central decoration, if of flowers or fruit, must be in a bowl or
dish decorative in the same sense that the rest of the tableware is.
Flowers should be kept in the same key as your room. One may do this
and yet have infinite variety. Tall stately lilies, American Beauty
roses, great bowls of gardenias and orchids are for stately rooms.
Your small house, flat or bungalow require modest garden flowers such
as daffodils, jonquils, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, snapdragons, one
long-stemmed rose in a vase, or a cluster of shy moss-buds or nodding
tea-roses.
A table set with art in the key of a small menage and on a scale of
simple living, often strikes the note of perfection from the expert's
point of view because perfect of its kind and suitable for the
occasion. This appropriateness is what makes your "smart" table quite
as it makes your "smart" woman.
Wedgwood cream colour ware "C.C." is beautiful and always good form.
For those wanting colour, the same famous makers of England have an
infinite variety, showing lovely designs.
Unless you are a collector in the museum sense, press into service all
of your beautiful possessions. If you have to go without them, let it
be when you no longer own them, and not because they are hoarded out
of sight. You know the story of the man who bought a barrel of apples
and each day carefully selected and ate those that were rotten,
feeling the necessity of not being wasteful. When the barrel was empty
he realised that be had deliberately wasted all his good apples _by
not eating one_! Let this be a warning to him who would save his
treasures. If you love antiques and have joyously hunted them down
and, perhaps, denied yourself other things to obtain them, you are the
person to use them, even though the joy be transient and they perish
at the hand of a careless man or maid-servant. Remember, posterity
will have its own "fads" and prefer adding the pleasure of pursuit to
that of mere ownership. So bring out your treasures and use them!
As there are many kinds of dining-rooms, each good if planned and
worked out with an art instinct, so there are many kinds of tables.
The usual sort is the round, or square, extension table, laid with
fine damask and set with conventional china, glass and silver, rare in
quality and distinguished in design. For those who prefer the unusual
there are oblong, squarely built Jacobean and Italian refectory
tables. With these one makes a point of showing the rich colour of the
time-worn wood and carving, for the old Italian tables often have the
bevelled edge and legs carved. When this style of table is used, the
wood instead of a cloth, is our background, and a "runner" with
doilies of old Italian lace takes the place of linen.
In Feudal Days, when an entire household, master and retainers, sat in
the baronial hall "above and below the salt," tables were made of
great length. When used out of their original setting, they must be
cut down to suit modern conditions. In Krakau, Poland, the writer
often dined at one of these feudal boards which had been in our
hostess's family for several hundred years. To get it into her
dining-room a large piece had been cut out at the centre and the two
ends pushed together.
* * * * *
For those who live informally, delightfully decorative china can be
had at low prices. It was once made only for the peasants, and comes
to us from Italy, France, Germany and England. This fact reminds us
that when we were travelling in Southern Hungary and were asked to
dine with a Magyar farmer, out on the windy Pasta, instead of their
usual highly coloured pottery, gay with crude, but decorative flowers,
they honoured us by covering the table with American ironstone china!
The Hungarian crockery resembles the Brittany and Italian ware, and
some of it is most attractive when rightly set.
When once the passion to depart from beaten paths seizes us it is very
easy to make mistakes. Therefore to the housekeeper, accustomed to
conventional china, but weary of it, we would commend as a safe
departure, modern Wedgwood and Italian reproductions of classic
models, which come in exquisite shapes and in a delicious soft cream
tone. If one prefers, it is possible to get these varieties decorated
with charming designs in artistic colourings, as previously stated.
For eating meals out of doors, or in "sun-rooms," where the light is
strong, the dark peasant pottery, like Brittany, Italian and
Hungarian, is very effective on dull-blue linen, heavy cream linen or
coarse lace, such as the peasants make.
Copper lustre, with its dark metallic surface; is enchanting on dark
wood or coloured linen of the right tone.
Your table must be a _picture_ composed on artistic lines. That is, it
must combine harmony of line and colour and above all, appropriateness.
Gradually one acquires skill in inventing unusual effects; but only
the adept can go against established rules of art and yet produce a
pleasing _ensemble_. We can all recall exceptions to this rule
for simplicity, beautiful, artistic tables, covered with rare and
entrancing objects,--irrelevant, but delighting the eye. Some will
instantly recall Clyde Fitch's dinners in this connection, but here
let us emphasise the dictum that for a great master of the art of
decoration there need be no laws.
A careful study of the Japanese principles of decoration is an ideal
way of learning the art of simplicity. It is impossible to deny the
immense decorative value of a single _objet d'art_, as one flower in a
simple vase, provided it is given the correct background.
Background in decoration is like a pedal-point in music; it must
support the whole fabric, whether you are planning a house, a room or
a table.
PLATE XXIX
Shows how a too pronounced rug which is out of character, though
a valuable Chinese antique, can destroy the harmony of a
composition even where the stage is set with treasures; Louis XV
chairs, antique fount with growing plants, candelabra, rare
tapestry, reflected by mirror, and a graceful console and a
settee with grey-green brocade cushions.
[Illustration: _Example of a Charming Hall Spoiled by Too Pronounced a
Rug_]