A drawing-room is the logical place for the elegancies of family life.
The ideal drawing-room, to my mind, contains many comfortable chairs and
sofas, many softly shaded lights by night, and plenty of sunshine by
day, well-balanced mirrors set in simple paneled walls, and any number
of small tables that may be brought out into the room if need be, and an
open fire.
The old idea of the drawing-room was a horrible apartment of stiffness
and formality and discomfort. No wonder it was used only for weddings
and funerals! The modern drawing-room is intended, primarily, as a place
where a hostess may entertain her friends, and it must not be chill and
uninviting, whatever else it may be. It should not be littered up with
personal things--magazines, books and work-baskets and objects that
belong in the living-room--but it welcomes flowers and _objets d'art_,
collections of fans, or miniatures, or graceful mirrors, or old French
prints, or enamels, or porcelains. It should be a place where people may
converse without interruption from the children.
Most houses, even of the smaller sort, have three day rooms--the
dining-room, the parlor and the sitting-room, as they are usually
called. People who appreciate more and more the joy of living have
pulled hall and sitting-room together into one great family meeting
place, leaving a small vestibule, decreased the size of the dining-room
and built in many windows, so that it becomes almost an outdoor room,
and given the parlor a little more dignity and serenity and its right
name--the drawing-room.
We use the terms drawing-room and _salon_ interchangeably in
America--though we are a bit more timid of the _salon_--but there is a
subtle difference between the two that is worth noting. The withdrawing
room of old England was the quiet room to which the ladies retired,
leaving their lords to the freer pleasures of the great hall. Indeed,
the room began as a part of my lady's bedroom, but gradually came into
its proper importance and took on a magnificence all its own. The
_salon_ of France also began as a part of the great hall, or _grande
salle_. Then came the need for an apartment for receiving and so the
great bed chamber was divided into two parts, one a real sleeping-room
and the other a _chambre de parade,_ with a great state bed for the
occasional visitors of great position. The great bed, or _lit de
parade_, was representative of all the salons of the time of Louis XIII.
Gradually the owners of the more magnificent houses saw the opportunity
for a series of salons, and so the state apartment was divided into two
parts: a _salon de famille_, which afforded the family a certain
privacy, and the _salon de compagnie_, which was sacred to a
magnificent hospitality. And so the salon expanded until nowadays we use
the word with awe, and appreciate its implication of brilliant
conversation and exquisite decoration, of a radiant hostess, an amusing
and distinguished circle of people. The word has a graciousness, a
challenge that we fear. If we have not just the right house we should
not dare risk belittling our pleasant drawing-room by dubbing it
"salon." In short, a drawing-room may be a part of any well regulated
house. A salon is largely a matter of spirit and cleverness.
A drawing-room has no place in the house where there is no other
living-room. Indeed, if there are many children, and the house is of
moderate size, I think a number of small day rooms are vastly better
than the two usual rooms, living-room and drawing-room, because only in
this way can the various members of the family have a chance at any
privacy. The one large room so necessary for the gala occasions of a
large family may be the dining-room, for here it will be easy to push
back tables and chairs for the occasion. If the children have a nursery,
and mother has a small sitting-room, and father has a little room for
books and writing, a living-room may be eliminated in favor of a small
formal room for visitors and talk.
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM SHOULD BE INTIMATE IN SPIRIT]
No matter how large your drawing-room may be, keep it intimate in
spirit. There should be a dozen conversation centers in a large room.
There should be one or more sofas, with comfortable chairs pulled up
beside them. No one chair should be isolated, for some bashful person
who doesn't talk well anyway is sure to take the most remote chair and
make herself miserable. I have seen a shy young woman completely changed
because she happened to sit upon a certain deep cushioned sofa of
rose-colored damask. Whether it was the rose color, or the enforced
relaxation the sofa induced, or the proximity of some very charming
people in comfortable chairs beside her, or all of these things--I don't
know! But she found herself. She found herself gay and happy and
unafraid. I am sure her personality flowered from that hour on. If she
had been left to herself she would have taken a stiff chair in a far
corner, and she would have been miserable and self-conscious. I believe
most firmly in the magic power of inanimate objects!
Don't litter your drawing-room with bric-a-brac. Who hasn't seen what I
can best describe as a souvenir drawing-room, a room filled with
curiosities from everywhere! I shall never forget doing a drawing-room
for a woman of no taste. I persuaded her to put away her heavy velvets
and gilt fringes and to have one light and spacious room in the house.
She agreed. We worked out a chintz drawing-room that was delicious. I
was very happy over it and you can imagine my amazement when she came to
me and said, "But Miss de Wolfe, what am I to do with my blue satin
tidies?"
In my own drawing-room I have so many objects of art, and yet I think
you will agree with me that the room has a great serenity. Over the
little desk in one corner I have my collection of old miniatures and
fans of the golden days of the French court. There are ever so many
vases and bowls for flowers, _but they are used_. There are dozens of
lighting-fixtures, brackets, and lamps, and a chandelier, and many
candlesticks, and they are used, also. Somehow, when a beautiful object
becomes a useful object, it takes its place in the general scheme of
things and does not disturb the eye.
The ideal drawing-room has a real fireplace, with a wood fire when there
is excuse for it. An open fire is almost as great an attribute to a
drawing-room as a tactful hostess; it puts you at ease, instantly, and
gives you poise. And just as an open fire and sunshine make for ease, so
do well placed mirrors make for elegance. Use your mirrors as decorative
panels, not only for the purpose of looking at yourself in them, and you
will multiply the pleasures of your room. I have the wall space between
mantel and frieze-line filled with a large mirror, in my New York
drawing-room, and the two narrow panels between the front windows are
filled with long narrow mirrors that reflect the color and charm of the
room. Whenever you can manage it, place your mirror so that it will
reflect some particularly nice object.
Given plenty of chairs and sofas, and a few small tables to hold lights
and flowers, you will need very little other furniture in the
drawing-room. You will need a writing-table, but a very small and
orderly one. The drawing room desk may be very elegant in design and
equipment, for it must be a part of the decoration of the room, and it
must be always immaculate for the visitor who wants to write a note. The
members of the family are supposed to use their own desks, leaving this
one for social emergencies. A good desk is a godsend in a drawing-room,
it makes a room that is usually cold and formal at once more livable and
more intimate. In my own drawing-room I have a small French
writing-table placed near a window, so that the light falls over one's
left shoulder. The small black lacquer desks that are now being
reproduced from old models would be excellent desks for drawing-rooms,
because they not only offer service, as all furniture should, but are
beautiful in themselves. Many of the small tables of walnut and mahogany
that are sold as dressing-tables might be used as writing-tables in
formal rooms, if the mirrors were eliminated.
[Illustration: THE FINE FORMALITY OF WELL-PLACED PANELING]
There is a great difference in opinion as to the placing of the piano in
the drawing-room. I think it belongs in the living-room, if it is in
constant use, though of course it is very convenient to have it near by
the one big room, be it drawing-room or dining-room, when a small dance
is planned. I am going to admit that in my opinion there is nothing more
abused than the piano, I have no piano in my own house in New York. I
love music--but I am not a musician, and so I do not expose myself to
the merciless banging of chance callers. Besides, my house is quite
small and a good piano would dwarf the other furnishings of my rooms. I
think pianos are for musicians, not strummers, who spoil all chance for
any real conversation. If you are fortunate enough to have a musician in
your family, that is different. Go ahead and give him a music room.
Musicians are not born every day, but lovers of music are everywhere,
and I for one am heartily in favor of doing away with the old custom of
teaching every child to bang a little, and instead, teaching him to
_listen_ to music. Oh, the crimes that are committed against music in
American parlors! I prefer the good mechanical cabinet that offers us
"canned" music to the manual exercise of people who insist on playing
wherever they see an open piano. Of course the mechanical instrument is
new, and therefore, subject to much criticism from a decorative
standpoint, but the music is much better than the amateur's. We are
still turning up our noses a little at the mechanical piano players, but
if we will use our common sense we must admit that a new order of things
has come to pass, and the new "canned" music is not to be despised.
Certainly if the instrument displeases you, you can say so, but if a
misguided friend elects to strum on your piano you are helpless. So I
have no piano in my New York house. I have a cabinet of "canned" music
that can be turned on for small dances when need be, and that can be
hidden in a closet between times. Why not?
But suppose you have a piano, or need one: do give it a chance! Its very
size makes it tremendously important, and if you load it with senseless
fringed scarfs and bric-a-brac you make it the ugliest thing in your
room. Give it the best place possible, against an inside wall,
preferably. I saw a new house lately where the placing of the piano had
been considered by the architect when the house was planned. There was a
mezzanine floor overhanging the great living-room, and one end of this
had been made into a piano alcove, a sort of modern minstrel gallery.
The musician who used the piano was very happy, for your real musician
loves a certain solitude, and those of us who listened to his music in
the great room below were happy because the maker of the music was far
enough away from us. We could appreciate the music and forget the
mechanics of it. For a concert, or a small dance, this balcony
music-room would be most convenient. Another good place for the piano is
a sort of alcove, or small room opening from the large living or
drawing-room, where the piano and a few chairs may be placed. Of course
if you are to have a real music-room, then there are great
possibilities.
A piano may be a princely thing, properly built and decorated. The old
spinets and harpsichords, with their charming inlaid cases, were
beautiful, but they gave forth only tinkly sounds. Now we have a
magnificent mechanism, but the case which encloses it is too often
hideous.
There is an old double-banked harpsichord of the early Eighteenth
Century in the Morgan collection at the Metropolitan Museum that would
be a fine form for a piano, if it would hold the "works." It is long and
narrow, fitting against the wall so that it really takes up very little
room. The case is painted a soft dark gray and outlined in darker gray,
and the panels and the long top are in soft colors. The legs are carved
and pointed in polychrome. This harpsichord was made when the beauty of
an object was of as real importance as the mechanical perfection.
Occasionally one sees a modern piano that has been decorated by an
artist. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Alma Tadema, and many of the other
English artists of our generation have made beautiful pianos. Sir Robert
Lorimer recently designed a piano that was decorated, inside and out, by
Mrs. Traquair. From time to time a great artist interests himself in
designing and decorating a piano, but the rank and file, when they
decide to build an extraordinary piano, achieve lumpy masses of wood
covered with impossible nymphs and too-realistic flowers, pianos
suggestive of thin and sentimental tunes, but never of _music_.
When you are furnishing your music-room or drawing-room, be careful
always of your colors. Remember that not only must the room be beautiful
in its broad spaces and long lines and soft colors, but it must be a
background for the gala gowns of women. I once saw a music-room that was
deliberately planned as a background to the gay colors of women's gowns
and the heavy black masses of men's evening clothes, a soft shimmering
green and cream room that was incomplete and cold when empty of the
color of costume. Such a room must have an architectural flavor. The
keynote must be elegant simplicity and aristocratic reserve. Walls
broken into panels, and panels in turn broken by lighting-fixtures, a
polished floor, a well-considered ceiling, any number of chairs, and the
room is furnished. This room, indeed, may evolve into a _salon_.