but, like the curtain, in earlier days it was simply intended to keep
out currents of air, and was consequently seldom seen in well-built
houses, where double sets of doors served far better to protect the
room from draughts. In less luxurious rooms, where there were no
double doors, and portières had to be used, these were made as scant
and unobtrusive as possible. The device of draping stuffs about the
doorway, thus substituting a textile architrave for one of wood or
stone, originated with the modern upholsterer; and it is now not
unusual to see a wide opening with no door in it, enclosed in yards
and yards of draperies which cannot even be lowered at will.
The portière, besides causing a break in architectural lines, has
become one of the chief expenses in the decoration of the modern room;
indeed, the amount spent in buying yards of plush or damask, with the
addition of silk cord, tassels, gimp and fringe, often makes it
necessary to slight the essential features of the room; so that an
ugly mantelpiece or ceiling is preserved because the money required to
replace it has been used in the purchase of portières. These
superfluous draperies are, in fact, more expensive than a well-made
door with hinges and box-lock of chiselled bronze.
The general use of the portière has also caused the disappearance of
the over-door. The lines of the opening being hidden under a mass of
drapery, the need of connecting them with the cornice was no longer
felt, and one more feature of the room passed out of the architect's
hands into those of the upholsterer, or, as he might more fitly be
called, the house-dressmaker.
The return to better principles of design will do more than anything
else to restore the architectural lines of the room. Those who use
portières generally do so from an instinctive feeling that a door is
an ugly thing that ought to be hidden, and modern doors are in fact
ugly; but when architects give to the treatment of openings the same
attention they formerly received, it will soon be seen that this
ugliness is not a necessity, and portières will disappear with the
return of well-designed doors.
Some general hints concerning the distribution of openings have been
given in the chapter on walls. It may be noted in addition that while
all doorways in a room should, as a rule, be of one height, there are
cases where certain clearly subordinate openings may be lower than
those which contain doors _à deux battants_. In such cases the
panelling of the door must be carefully modified in accordance with
the dimensions of the opening, and the treatment of the over-doors
in their relation to each other must be studied with equal attention.
Examples of such adaptations are to be found in many old French and
Italian rooms.[18]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVII._
EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCH LOCKSMITHS' WORK.]
Doors should always swing _into_ a room. This facilitates entrance and
gives the hospitable impression that everything is made easy to those
who are coming in. Doors should furthermore be so hung that they
screen that part of the room in which the occupants usually sit. In
small rooms, especially those in town houses, this detail cannot be
too carefully considered. The fact that so many doors open in the
wrong way is another excuse for the existence of portières.
A word must also be said concerning the actual making of the door.
There is a general impression that veneered doors or furniture are
cheap substitutes for articles made of solid blocks of wood. As a
matter of fact, owing to the high temperature of American houses, all
well-made wood-work used in this country is of necessity composed of
at least three, and often of five, layers of wood. This method of
veneering, in which the layers are so placed that the grain runs in
different directions, is the only way of counteracting the shrinking
and swelling of the wood under artificial heat.
To some minds the concealed door represents one of those architectural
deceptions which no necessity can excuse. It is certain that the
concealed door is an expedient, and that in a well-planned house there
should be no need for expedients, unless the architect is hampered by
limitations of space, as is the case in designing the average American
town house. Architects all know how many principles of beauty and
fitness must be sacrificed to the restrictions of a plot of ground
twenty-five feet wide by seventy-five or a hundred in length. Under
such conditions, every device is permissible that helps to produce an
effect of spaciousness and symmetry without interfering with
convenience: chief among these contrivances being the concealed door.
Such doors are often useful in altering or adding to a badly planned
house. It is sometimes desirable to give increased facilities of
communication without adding to the visible number of openings in any
one room; while in other cases the limited amount of wall-space may
make it difficult to find place for a doorway corresponding in
dimensions with the others; or, again, where it is necessary to make a
closet under the stairs, the architrave of a visible door may clash
awkwardly with the stringboard.
Under such conditions the concealed door naturally suggests itself. To
those who regard its use as an offense against artistic integrity, it
must once more be pointed out that architecture addresses itself not
to the moral sense, but to the eye. The existing confusion on this
point is partly due to the strange analogy drawn by modern critics
between artistic sincerity and moral law. Analogies are the most
dangerous form of reasoning: they connect resemblances, but disguise
facts; and in this instance nothing can be more fallacious than to
measure the architect's action by an ethical standard.
[Illustration: _PLATE XVIII._
CARVED DOOR, PALACE OF VERSAILLES.
LOUIS XV PERIOD.
(SHOWING PAINTED OVER-DOOR.)]
"Sincerity," in many minds, is chiefly associated with speaking the
truth; but architectural sincerity is simply obedience to certain
visual requirements, one of which demands that what are at once seen
to be the main lines of a room or house shall be acknowledged as such
in the application of ornament. The same architectural principles
demand that the main lines of a room shall not be unnecessarily
interrupted; and in certain cases it would be bad taste to disturb the
equilibrium of wall-spaces and decoration by introducing a visible
door leading to some unimportant closet or passageway, of which the
existence need not be known to any but the inmates of the house. It is
in such cases that the concealed door is a useful expedient. It can
hardly be necessary to point out that it would be a great mistake to
place a concealed door in a main opening. These openings should always
be recognized as one of the chief features of the room, and so treated
by the decorator; but this point has already been so strongly insisted
upon that it is reverted to here only in order to show how different
are the requirements which justify concealment.
The concealed door has until recently been used so little by American
architects that its construction is not well understood, and it is
often hung on ordinary visible hinges, instead of being swung on a
pivot. There is no reason why, with proper care, a door of this kind
should not be so nicely adjusted to the wall-panelling as to be
practically invisible; and to fulfil this condition is the first
necessity of its construction (see concealed door in Plate XLV).
FOOTNOTES:
[11] See Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture
française_, under _Porte_.
[12] This painting has now been restored to its proper position in the
Scuola della Carità, and the door which had been _painted in_ under
the stairs has been removed to make way for the actual doorway around
which the picture was originally painted.
[13] See the doors of the Sala dello Zodiaco in the ducal palace at
Mantua (Plate XVI).
[14] Some rooms of the rocaille period, however, contain doors as
elaborately carved as those seen in France (see the doors in the royal
palace at Genoa, Plate XXXIV).
[15] See the doors at Vaux-le-Vicomte and in the Palais de Justice at
Rennes.
[16] Only in the most exaggerated German baroque were the vertical
lines of the door-panels sometimes irregular.
[17] The inlaid doors of Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
Walpole, were noted for their beauty and costliness. The price of each
was £200.
[18] See a room in the Ministère de la Marine at Paris, where a
subordinate door is cleverly treated in connection with one of more
importance.
V
WINDOWS
In the decorative treatment of a room the importance of openings can
hardly be overestimated. Not only do they represent the three chief
essentials of its comfort,--light, heat and means of access,--but they
are the leading features in that combination of voids and masses that
forms the basis of architectural harmony. In fact, it is chiefly
because the decorative value of openings has ceased to be recognized
that modern rooms so seldom produce a satisfactory and harmonious
impression. It used to be thought that the effect of a room depended
on the treatment of its wall-spaces and openings; now it is supposed
to depend on its curtains and furniture. Accessory details have
crowded out the main decorative features; and, as invariably happens
when the relation of parts is disturbed, everything in the modern room
has been thrown out of balance by this confusion between the essential
and the incidental in decoration.[19]
The return to a more architectural treatment of rooms and to a
recognition of the decorative value of openings, besides producing
much better results, would undoubtedly reduce the expense of
house-decoration. A small quantity of ornament, properly applied, will
produce far more effect than ten times its amount used in the wrong
way; and it will be found that when decorators rely for their effects
on the treatment of openings, the rest of the room will require little
ornamentation. The crowding of rooms with furniture and bric-à-brac is
doubtless partly due to an unconscious desire to fill up the blanks
caused by the lack of architectural composition in the treatment of
the walls.
The importance of connecting the main lines of the openings with the
cornice having been explained in the previous chapter, it is now
necessary to study the different openings in turn, and to see in how
many ways they serve to increase the dignity and beauty of their
surroundings.
As light-giving is the main purpose for which windows are made, the
top of the window should be as near the ceiling as the cornice will
allow. Ventilation, the secondary purpose of the window, is also
better served by its being so placed, since an opening a foot wide
near the ceiling will do more towards airing a room than a space twice
as large near the floor. In our northern States, where the dark winter
days and the need of artificial heat make light and ventilation so
necessary, these considerations are especially important. In Italian
palaces the windows are generally lower than in more northern
countries, since the greater intensity of the sunshine makes a much
smaller opening sufficient; moreover, in Italy, during the summer,
houses are not kept cool by letting in the air, but by shutting it
out.
Windows should not exceed five feet in width, while in small rooms
openings three feet wide will be found sufficient. There are
practical as well as artistic reasons for observing this rule, since a
sash-window containing a sheet of glass more than five feet wide
cannot be so hung that it may be raised without effort; while a
casement, or French window, though it may be made somewhat wider, is
not easy to open if its width exceeds six feet.
The next point to consider is the distance between the bottom of the
window and the floor. This must be decided by circumstances, such as
the nature of the view, the existence of a balcony or veranda, or the
wish to have a window-seat. The outlook must also be considered, and
the window treated in one way if it looks upon the street, and in
another if it gives on the garden or informal side of the house. In
the country nothing is more charming than the French window opening to
the floor. On the more public side of the house, unless the latter
gives on an enclosed court, it is best that the windows should be
placed about three feet from the floor, so that persons approaching
the house may not be able to look in. Windows placed at this height
should be provided with a fixed seat, or with one of the little
settees with arms, but without a back, formerly used for this purpose.
Although for practical reasons it may be necessary that the same room
should contain some windows opening to the floor and others raised
several feet above it, the tops of all the windows should be on a
level. To place them at different heights serves no useful end, and
interferes with any general scheme of decoration and more specially
with the arrangement of curtains.
Mullions dividing a window in the centre should be avoided whenever
possible, since they are an unnecessary obstruction to the view. The
chief drawback to a casement window is that its sashes join in the
middle; but as this is a structural necessity, it is less
objectionable. If mullions are required, they should be so placed as
to divide the window into three parts, thus preserving an unobstructed
central pane. The window called Palladian illustrates this point.
Now that large plate-glass windows have ceased to be a novelty, it
will perhaps be recognized that the old window with subdivided panes
had certain artistic and practical merits that have of late been
disregarded.
Where there is a fine prospect, windows made of a single plate of
glass are often preferred; but it must be remembered that the
subdivisions of a sash, while obstructing the view, serve to establish
a relation between the inside of the house and the landscape, making
the latter what, _as seen from a room_, it logically ought to be: a
part of the wall-decoration, in the sense of being subordinated to the
same general lines. A large unbroken sheet of plate-glass interrupts
the decorative scheme of the room, just as in verse, if the distances
between the rhymes are so great that the ear cannot connect them, the
continuity of sound is interrupted. Decoration must rhyme to the eye,
and to do so must be subject to the limitations of the eye, as verse
is subject to the limitations of the ear. Success in any art depends
on a due regard for the limitations of the sense to which it appeals.
The effect of a perpetually open window, produced by a large sheet of
plate-glass, while it gives a sense of coolness and the impression of
being out of doors, becomes for these very reasons a disadvantage in
cold weather.
It is sometimes said that the architects of the eighteenth century
would have used large plates of glass in their windows had they been
able to obtain them; but as such plates were frequently used for
mirrors, it is evident that they were not difficult to get, and that
there must have been other reasons for not employing them in windows;
while the additional expense could hardly have been an obstacle in an
age when princes and nobles built with such royal disregard of cost.
The French, always logical in such matters, having tried the effect of
plate-glass, are now returning to the old fashion of smaller panes;
and in many of the new houses in Paris, where the windows at first
contained large plates of glass, the latter have since been subdivided
by a network of narrow mouldings applied to the glass.
As to the comparative merits of French, or casement, and sash windows,
both arrangements have certain advantages. In houses built in the
French or Italian style, casement windows are best adapted to the
general treatment; while the sash-window is more in keeping in English
houses. Perhaps the best way of deciding the question is to remember
that "les fenêtres sont intimement liées aux grandes lignes de
l'architecture," and to conform to the rule suggested by this axiom.
The two common objections to French windows--that they are less
convenient for ventilation, and that they cannot be opened without
letting in cold air near the floor--are both unfounded. All properly
made French windows have at the top an impost or stationary part
containing small panes, one of which is made to open, thus affording
perfect ventilation without draught. Another expedient, seen in one of
the rooms of Mesdames de France at Versailles, is a small pane in the
main part of the window, opening on hinges of its own. (For examples
of well-designed French windows, see Plates XXX and XXXI.)
[Illustration: _PLATE XIX._
SALON DES MALACHITES, GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES.
LOUIS XIV PERIOD.
(SHOWING WELL-DESIGNED WINDOW WITH SOLID INSIDE SHUTTER, AND
PICTURES FORMING PART OF WALL-DECORATION.)]
Sash-windows have the disadvantage of not opening more than half-way,
a serious drawback in our hot summer climate. It is often said that
French windows cannot be opened wide without interfering with the
curtains; but this difficulty is easily met by the use of curtains
made with cords and pulleys, in the sensible old-fashioned manner. The
real purpose of the window-curtain is to regulate the amount of light
admitted to the room, and a curtain so arranged that it cannot be
drawn backward and forward at will is but a meaningless accessory. It
was not until the beginning of the present century that curtains were
used without regard to their practical purpose. The window-hangings of
the middle ages and of the Renaissance were simply straight pieces of
cloth or tapestry hung across the window without any attempt at
drapery, and regarded not as part of the decoration of the room, but
as a necessary protection against draughts. It is probably for this
reason that in old prints and pictures representing the rooms of
wealthy people, curtains are so seldom seen. The better the house, the
less need there was for curtains. In the engravings of Abraham Bosse,
which so faithfully represent the interior decoration of every class
of French house during the reign of Louis XIII, it will be noticed
that in the richest apartments there are no window-curtains. In all
the finest rooms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
inside shutters and embrasures of the windows were decorated with a
care which proves that they were not meant to be concealed by curtains
(see the painted embrasures of the saloon in the Villa Vertemati,
Plate XLIV). The shutters in the state apartments of Fouquet's château
of Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Melun, are painted on both sides with
exquisite arabesques; while those in the apartments of Mesdames de
France, on the ground floor of the palace of Versailles, are examples
of the most beautiful carving. In fact, it would be more difficult to
cite a room of any importance in which the windows were not so
treated, than to go on enumerating examples of what was really a
universal custom until the beginning of the present century. It is
known, of course, that curtains were used in former times: prints,
pictures and inventories alike prove this fact; but the care expended
on the decorative treatment of windows makes it plain that the
curtain, like the portière, was regarded as a necessary evil rather
than as part of the general scheme of decoration. The meagreness and
simplicity of the curtains in old pictures prove that they were used
merely as window shades or sun-blinds. The scant straight folds pushed
back from the tall windows of the Prince de Conti's salon, in
Olivier's charming picture of "Le Thé à l'Anglaise chez le Prince de
Conti," are as obviously utilitarian as the strip of green woollen
stuff hanging against the leaded casement of the mediæval bed-chamber
in Carpaccio's "Dream of St. Ursula."
Another way of hanging window-curtains in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries was to place them inside the architrave, so that
they did not conceal it. The architectural treatment of the trim, and
the practice prevalent at that period of carrying the windows up to
the cornice, made this a satisfactory way of arranging the curtain;
but in the modern American house, where the trim is usually bad, and
where there is often a dreary waste of wall-paper between the window
and the ceiling, it is better to hang the curtains close under the
cornice.
It was not until the eighteenth century that the window-curtain was
divided in the middle; and this change was intended only to facilitate
the drawing of the hangings, which, owing to the increased size of the
windows, were necessarily wider and heavier. The curtain continued to
hang down in straight folds, pulled back at will to permit the opening
of the window, and drawn at night. Fixed window-draperies, with
festoons and folds so arranged that they cannot be lowered or raised,
are an invention of the modern upholsterer. Not only have these fixed
draperies done away with the true purpose of the curtain, but they
have made architects and decorators careless in their treatment of
openings. The architrave and embrasure of a window are now regarded as
of no more importance in the decorative treatment of a room than the
inside of the chimney.
The modern use of the lambrequin as an ornamental finish to
window-curtains is another instance of misapplied decoration. Its
history is easy to trace. The mediæval bed was always enclosed in
curtains hanging from a wooden framework, and the lambrequin was used
as a kind of cornice to conceal it. When the use of gathered
window-shades became general in Italy, the lambrequin was transferred
from the bed to the window, in order to hide the clumsy bunches of
folds formed by these shades when drawn up. In old prints, lambrequins
over windows are almost always seen in connection with Italian shades,
and this is the only logical way of using them; though they are often
of service in concealing the defects of badly-shaped windows and
unarchitectural trim.
Those who criticize the architects and decorators of the past are
sometimes disposed to think that they worked in a certain way because
they were too ignorant to devise a better method; whereas they were
usually controlled by practical and artistic considerations which
their critics are prone to disregard, not only in judging the work of
the past, but in the attempt to make good its deficiencies. Thus the
cabinet-makers of the Renaissance did not make straight-backed wooden
chairs because they were incapable of imagining anything more
comfortable, but because the former were better adapted than cushioned
arm-chairs to the _déplacements_ so frequent at that period. In like
manner, the decorator who regarded curtains as a necessity rather than
as part of the decoration of the room knew (what the modern
upholsterer fails to understand) that, the beauty of a room depending
chiefly on its openings, to conceal these under draperies is to hide
the key of the whole decorative scheme.
The muslin window-curtain is a recent innovation. Its only purpose is
to protect the interior of the room from public view: a need not felt
before the use of large sheets of glass, since it is difficult to look
through a subdivided sash from the outside. Under such circumstances
muslin curtains are, of course, useful; but where they may be
dispensed with, owing to the situation of the room or the subdivision
of panes, they are no loss. Lingerie effects do not combine well with
architecture, and the more architecturally a window is treated, the
less it need be dressed up in ruffles. To put such curtains in a
window, and then loop them back so that they form a mere frame to the
pane, is to do away with their real purpose, and to substitute a
textile for an architectural effect. Where muslin curtains are
necessary, they should be a mere transparent screen hung against the
glass. In town houses especially all outward show of richness should
be avoided; the use of elaborate lace-figured curtains, besides
obstructing the view, seems an attempt to protrude the luxury of the
interior upon the street. It is needless to point out the futility of
the second layer of muslin which, in some houses, hangs inside the
sash-curtains.