artistic to be satisfied with literal reproductions of his Oriental
models. Absorbing the spirit of the Chinese designs, he either blent
mandarins and pagodas with Italian grottoes, French landscapes, and
classical masks and trophies, in one of those delightful inventions
which are the fairy-tales of decorative art, or applied the principles
of Oriental design to purely European subjects. In comparing the
printed cottons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with
modern chintzes, it will be seen that the latter are either covered
with monotonous repetitions of a geometrical figure, or with realistic
reproductions of some natural object. Many wall-papers and chintzes of
the present day represent loose branches of flowers scattered on a
plain surface, with no more relation to each other or to their
background than so many real flowers fixed at random against the wall.
This literal rendering of natural objects with deceptive accuracy,
always condemned by the best artists, is especially inappropriate when
brought in close contact with the highly conventionalized forms of
architectural composition. In this respect, the endlessly repeated
geometrical figure is obviously less objectionable; yet the
geometrical design, as produced to-day, has one defect in common with
the other--that is, lack of imagination. Modern draughtsmen, in
eliminating from their work that fanciful element (always strictly
subordinated to some general scheme of composition) which marked the
designs of the last two centuries, have deprived themselves of the
individuality and freshness that might have saved their patterns from
monotony.
This rejection of the fanciful in composition is probably due to the
excessive use of pattern in modern decoration. Where much pattern is
used, it must be as monotonous as possible, or it will become
unbearable. The old decorators used few lines, and permitted
themselves more freedom in design; or rather they remembered, what is
now too often forgotten, that in the decoration of a room furniture
and objects of art help to make design, and in consequence they were
chiefly concerned with providing plain spaces of background to throw
into relief the contents of the room. Of late there has been so marked
a return to plain panelled or painted walls that the pattern-designer
will soon be encouraged to give freer rein to his fancy. In a room
where walls and floor are of uniform tint, there is no reason why the
design of curtains and chair-coverings should consist of long straight
rows of buttercups or crocuses, endlessly repeated.
[Illustration: _PLATE LV._
BATH-ROOM, PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE.
LATE XVIII CENTURY. DECORATED BY CACIALLI.]
It must not be thought that the old designs were unconventional.
Nature, in passing through the medium of the imagination, is
necessarily transposed and in a manner conventionalized; and it is
this transposition, this deliberate selection of certain
characteristics to the exclusion of others, that distinguishes the
work of art from a cast or a photograph. But the reduction of natural
objects to geometrical forms is only one of the results of artistic
selection. The Italian fresco-painters--the recognized masters of
wall-decoration in the flat--always used the naturalistic method, but
subject to certain restrictions in composition or color. This applies
also to the Chinese designers, and to the humbler European
pattern-makers who on more modest lines followed the same sound
artistic traditions. In studying the _toiles peintes_ manufactured in
Europe previous to the present century, it will be seen that where the
design included the human figure or landscape naturalistically treated
(as in the fables of Æsop and La Fontaine, or the history of Don
Quixote), the pattern was either printed entirely in one color, or so
fantastically colored that by no possibility could it pass for an
attempt at a literal rendering of nature. Besides, in all such
compositions (and here the Chinese influence is seen) perspective was
studiously avoided, and the little superimposed groups or scenes were
either connected by some decorative arabesque, or so designed that by
their outline they formed a recurring pattern. On the other hand, when
the design was obviously conventional a variety of colors was freely
used. The introduction of the human figure, animals, architecture and
landscape into stuff-patterns undoubtedly gave to the old designs an
animation lacking in those of the present day; and a return to the
_pays bleu_ of the Chinese artist would be a gain to modern
decoration.
Of the various ways in which a bedroom may be planned, none is so
luxurious and practical as the French method of subdividing it into a
suite composed of two or more small rooms. Where space is not
restricted there should in fact be four rooms, preceded by an
antechamber separating the suite from the main corridor of the house.
The small sitting-room or boudoir opens into this antechamber; and
next comes the bedroom, beyond which are the dressing and bath rooms.
In French suites of this kind there are usually but two means of
entrance from the main corridor: one for the use of the occupant,
leading into the antechamber, the other opening into the bath-room, to
give access to the servants. This arrangement, besides giving greater
privacy, preserves much valuable wall-space, which would be sacrificed
in America to the supposed necessity of making every room in a house
open upon one of the main passageways.
The plan of the bedroom suite can of course be carried out only in
large houses; but even where there is no lack of space, such an
arrangement is seldom adopted by American architects, and most of the
more important houses recently built contain immense bedrooms, instead
of a series of suites. To enumerate the practical advantages of the
suite over the single large room hardly comes within the scope of this
book; but as the uses to which a bedroom is put fall into certain
natural subdivisions, it will be more convenient to consider it as a
suite.
Since bedrooms are no longer used as _salons_, there is no reason for
decorating them in an elaborate manner; and, however magnificent the
other apartments, it is evident that in this part of the house
simplicity is most fitting. Now that people have been taught the
unhealthiness of sleeping in a room with stuff hangings, heavy
window-draperies and tufted furniture, the old fashion of painted
walls and bare floors naturally commends itself; and as the bedroom
suite is but the subdivision of one large room, it is obviously better
that the same style of decoration should be used throughout.
For this reason, plain panelled walls and chintz or cotton hangings
are more appropriate to the boudoir than silk and gilding. If the
walls are without pattern, a figured chintz may be chosen for curtains
and furniture; while those who prefer plain tints should use
unbleached cotton, trimmed with bands of color, or some colored linen
with applications of gimp or embroidery. It is a good plan to cover
all the chairs and sofas in the bedroom suite with slips matching the
window-curtains; but where this is done, the furniture should, if
possible, be designed for the purpose, since the lines of modern
upholstered chairs are not suited to slips. The habit of designing
furniture for slip-covers originated in the middle ages. At a time
when the necessity of transporting furniture was added to the other
difficulties of travel, it was usual to have common carpenter-built
benches and tables, that might be left behind without risk, and to
cover these with richly embroidered slips. The custom persisted long
after furniture had ceased to be a part of luggage, and the benches
and _tabourets_ now seen in many European palaces are covered merely
with embroidered slips. Even when a set of furniture was upholstered
with silk, it was usual, in the eighteenth century, to provide
embroidered cotton covers for use in summer, while curtains of the
same stuff were substituted for the heavier hangings used in winter.
Old inventories frequently mention these _tentures d'été_, which are
well adapted to our hot summer climate.
The boudoir should contain a writing-table, a lounge or _lit de
repos_, and one or two comfortable arm-chairs, while in a bedroom
forming part of a suite only the bedstead and its accessories should
be placed.
The pieces of furniture needed in a well-appointed dressing-room are
the toilet-table, wash-stand, clothes-press and cheval-glass, with the
addition, if space permits, of one or two commodes or chiffonniers.
The designing of modern furniture of this kind is seldom satisfactory;
yet many who are careful to choose simple, substantial pieces for the
other rooms of the house, submit to the pretentious "bedroom suit" of
bird's-eye maple or mahogany, with its wearisome irrelevance of line
and its excess of cheap ornament. Any study of old bedroom furniture
will make clear the inferiority of the modern manufacturer's designs.
Nowhere is the old sense of proportion and fitness seen to better
advantage than in the simple, admirably composed commodes and
clothes-presses of the eighteenth-century bedroom.
The bath-room walls and floor should, of course, be water-proof. In
the average bath-room, a tiled floor and a high wainscoting of tiles
are now usually seen; and the detached enamel or porcelain bath has in
most cases replaced the built-in metal tub. The bath-rooms in the
larger houses recently built are, in general, lined with marble; but
though the use of this substance gives opportunity for fine
architectural effects, few modern bath-rooms can in this respect be
compared with those seen in the great houses of Europe. The chief
fault of the American bath-room is that, however splendid the
materials used, the treatment is seldom architectural. A glance at the
beautiful bath-room in the Pitti Palace at Florence (see Plate LV)
will show how much effect may be produced in a small space by
carefully studied composition. A mere closet is here transformed into
a stately room, by that regard for harmony of parts which
distinguishes interior architecture from mere decoration. A bath-room
lined with precious marbles, with bath and wash-stand ranged along the
wall, regardless of their relation to the composition of the whole, is
no better architecturally than the tiled bath-room seen in ordinary
houses: design, not substance, is needed to make the one superior to
the other.
XV
THE SCHOOL-ROOM AND NURSERIES
One of the most important and interesting problems in the planning and
decoration of a house is that which has to do with the arrangement of
the children's rooms.
There is, of course, little opportunity for actual decoration in
school-room or nursery; and it is only by stretching a point that a
book dealing merely with the practical application of æsthetics may be
made to include a chapter bordering on pedagogy. It must be
remembered, however, that any application of principles presupposes
some acquaintance with the principles themselves; and from this
standpoint there is a certain relevance in studying the means by which
the child's surroundings may be made to develop his sense of beauty.
The room where the child's lessons are studied is, in more senses than
one, that in which he receives his education. His whole view of what
he is set to learn, and of the necessity and advantage of learning
anything at all, is tinged, more often than people think, by the
appearance of the room in which his studying is done. The æsthetic
sensibilities wake early in some children, and these, if able to
analyze their emotions, could testify to what suffering they have been
subjected by the habit of sending to school-room and nurseries
whatever furniture is too ugly or threadbare to be used in any other
part of the house.
In the minds of such children, curious and lasting associations are
early established between the appearance of certain rooms and the
daily occupations connected with them; and the aspect of the
school-room too often aggravates instead of mitigating the weariness
of lesson-learning.
There are, of course, many children not naturally sensitive to
artistic influences, and the parents of such children often think that
no special care need be spent on their surroundings--a curious
misconception of the purpose of all æsthetic training. To teach a
child to appreciate any form of beauty is to develop his intelligence,
and thereby to enlarge his capacity for wholesome enjoyment. It is,
therefore, never idle to cultivate a child's taste; and those who have
no pronounced natural bent toward the beautiful in any form need more
guidance and encouragement than the child born with a sense of beauty.
The latter will at most be momentarily offended by the sight of ugly
objects; while they may forever blunt the taste and narrow the views
of the child whose sluggish imagination needs the constant stimulus of
beautiful surroundings.
If art is really a factor in civilization, it seems obvious that the
feeling for beauty needs as careful cultivation as the other civic
virtues. To teach a child to distinguish between a good and a bad
painting, a well or an ill-modelled statue, need not hinder his growth
in other directions, and will at least develop those habits of
observation and comparison that are the base of all sound judgments.
It is in this sense that the study of art is of service to those who
have no special aptitude for any of its forms: its indirect action in
shaping æsthetic criteria constitutes its chief value as an element of
culture.
The habit of regarding "art" as a thing apart from life is fatal to
the development of taste. Parents may conscientiously send their
children to galleries and museums, but unless the child can find some
point of contact between its own surroundings and the contents of the
galleries, the interest excited by the pictures and statues will be
short-lived and ineffectual. Children are not reached by abstract
ideas, and a picture hanging on a museum wall is little better than an
abstraction to the child's vivid but restricted imagination. Besides,
if the home surroundings are tasteless, the unawakened sense of form
will not be roused by a hurried walk through a museum. The child's
mind must be prepared by daily lessons in beauty to understand the
masterpieces of art. A child brought up on foolish story-books could
hardly be expected to enjoy _The Knight's Tale_ or the _Morte
d'Arthur_ without some slight initiation into the nature and meaning
of good literature; and to pass from a house full of ugly furniture,
badly designed wall-papers and worthless knick-knacks to a hurried
contemplation of the Venus of Milo or of a model of the Parthenon is
not likely to produce the desired results.
The daily intercourse with poor pictures, trashy "ornaments," and
badly designed furniture may, indeed, be fittingly compared with a
mental diet of silly and ungrammatical story-books. Most parents
nowadays recognize the harmfulness of such a _régime_, and are careful
to feed their children on more stimulating fare. Skilful compilers
have placed Mallory and Chaucer, Cervantes and Froissart, within reach
of the childish understanding, thus laying the foundations for a
lasting appreciation of good literature. No greater service can be
rendered to children than in teaching them to know the best and to
want it; but while this is now generally conceded with regard to
books, the child's eager eyes are left to fare as best they may on
chromos from the illustrated papers and on carefully hoarded rubbish
from the Christmas tree.
The mention of the Christmas tree suggests another obstacle to the
early development of taste. Many children, besides being surrounded by
ugly furniture and bad pictures, are overwhelmed at Christmas, and on
every other anniversary, by presents not always selected with a view
to the formation of taste. The question of presents is one of the most
embarrassing problems in the artistic education of children. As long
as they are in the toy age no great harm is done: it is when they are
considered old enough to appreciate "something pretty for their rooms"
that the season of danger begins. Parents themselves are often the
worst offenders in this respect, and the sooner they begin to give
their children presents which, if not beautiful, are at least useful,
the sooner will the example be followed by relatives and friends. The
selection of such presents, while it might necessitate a little more
trouble, need not lead to greater expense. Good things do not always
cost more than bad. A good print may often be bought for the same
price as a poor one, and the money spent on a china "ornament," in the
shape of a yellow Leghorn hat with a kitten climbing out of it, would
probably purchase a good reproduction of one of the Tanagra
statuettes, a plaster cast of some French or Italian bust, or one of
Cantagalli's copies of the Robbia bas-reliefs--any of which would
reveal a world of unsuspected beauty to many a child imprisoned in a
circle of _articles de Paris_.
The children of the rich are usually the worst sufferers in such
cases, since the presents received by those whose parents and
relations are not "well off" have the saving merit of usefulness. It
is the superfluous gimcrack--the "ornament"--which is most
objectionable, and the more expensive such articles are the more
likely are they to do harm. Rich children suffer from the quantity as
well as the quality of the presents they receive. Appetite is
surfeited, curiosity blunted, by the mass of offerings poured in with
every anniversary. It would be better if, in such cases, friends and
family could unite in giving to each child one thing worth having--a
good edition, a first-state etching or engraving, or some like object
fitted to give pleasure at the time and lasting enjoyment through
life. Parents often make the mistake of thinking that such presents
are too "serious"--that children do not care for good bindings, fine
engravings, or reproductions of sculpture. As a matter of fact,
children are quick to appreciate beauty when pointed out and explained
to them, and an intelligent child feels peculiar pride in being the
owner of some object which grown-up people would be glad to possess.
If the selection of such presents is made with a reasonable regard for
the child's tastes and understanding--if the book chosen is a good
edition, well bound, of the _Morte d'Arthur_ or of _Chaucer_--if the
print represents some Tuscan Nativity, with a joyous dance of angels
on the thatched roof, or a group of splendid horsemen and strange
animals from the wondrous fairy-tale of the Riccardi chapel--the
present will give as much immediate pleasure as a "juvenile" book or
picture, while its intrinsic beauty and significance may become
important factors in the child's æsthetic development. The possession
of something valuable, that may not be knocked about, but must be
handled with care and restored to its place after being looked at,
will also cultivate in the child that habit of carefulness and order
which may be defined as good manners toward inanimate objects.
Children suffer not only from the number of presents they receive, but
from that over-crowding of modern rooms that so often makes it
necessary to use the school-room and nurseries as an outlet for the
overflow of the house. To the children's quarters come one by one the
countless objects "too good to throw away" but too ugly to be
tolerated by grown-up eyes--the bead-work cushions that have
"associations," the mildewed Landseer prints of foaming, dying
animals, the sheep-faced Madonna and Apostles in bituminous draperies,
commemorating a paternal visit to Rome in the days when people bought
copies of the "Old Masters."
Those who wish to train their children's taste must resolutely clear
the school-room of all such stumbling-blocks. Ugly furniture cannot
always be replaced; but it is at least possible to remove unsuitable
pictures and knick-knacks.
It is essential that the school-room should be cheerful. Dark colors,
besides necessitating the use of much artificial light, are depressing
to children and consequently out of place in the school-room: white
woodwork, and walls tinted in some bright color, form the best
background for both work and play.
Perhaps the most interesting way of decorating the school-room is that
which might be described as the rotation system. To carry out this
plan--which requires the coöperation of the children's teacher--the
walls must be tinted in some light color, such as turquoise-blue or
pale green, and cleared of all miscellaneous adornments. These should
then be replaced by a few carefully-chosen prints, photographs and
plaster casts, representing objects connected with the children's
studies. Let it, for instance, be supposed that the studies in hand
include natural history, botany, and the history of France and England
during the sixteenth century. These subjects might be respectively
illustrated by some of the clever Japanese outline drawings of plants
and animals, by Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, Clouet's of Charles
IX and of Elizabeth of Austria, Dürer's etchings of Luther and
Erasmus, and views of some of the principal buildings erected in
France and England during the sixteenth century.
The prints and casts shown at one time should be sufficiently
inexpensive and few in number to be changed as the child's lessons
proceed, thus forming a kind of continuous commentary upon the various
branches of study.
This plan of course necessitates more trouble and expense than the
ordinary one of giving to the walls of the school-room a permanent
decoration: an arrangement which may also be made interesting and
suggestive, if the child's requirements are considered. When casts and
pictures are intended to remain in place, it is a good idea to choose
them at the outset with a view to the course of studies likely to be
followed. In this way, each object may serve in turn to illustrate
some phase of history or art: even this plan will be found to have a
vivifying effect upon the dry bones of "lessons."
In a room decorated in this fashion, the prints or photographs
selected might represent the foremost examples of Greek, Gothic,
Renaissance and eighteenth-century architecture, together with several
famous paintings of different periods and schools; sculpture being
illustrated by casts of the Disk-thrower, of one of Robbia's friezes
of child-musicians, of Donatello's Saint George, and Pigalle's "Child
with the Bird."
Parents who do not care to plan the adornment of the school-room on
such definite lines should at least be careful to choose appropriate
casts and pictures. It is generally conceded that nothing painful
should be put before a child's eyes; but the deleterious effects of
namby-pamby prettiness are too often disregarded. Anything "sweet" is
considered appropriate for the school-room or nursery; whereas it is
essential to the child's artistic training that only the sweetness
which proceeds _de forte_ should be held up for admiration. It is easy
to find among the world's masterpieces many pictures interesting to
children. Vandyck's "Children of Charles I"; Bronzino's solemn
portraits of Medici babies; Drouais' picture of the Comte d'Artois
holding his little sister on the back of a goat; the wan little
princes of Velasquez; the ruddy beggar-boys of Murillo--these are but
a few of the subjects that at once suggest themselves. Then, again,
there are the wonder-books of those greatest of all story-tellers, the
Italian fresco-painters--Benozzo Gozzoli, Pinturicchio,
Carpaccio--incorrigible gossips every one, lingering over the minor
episodes and trivial details of their stories with the desultory
slowness dear to childish listeners. In sculpture, the range of choice
is no less extended. The choristers of Robbia, the lean little St.
Johns of Donatello and his school--Verrocchio's fierce young David,
and the Capitol "Boy with the Goose"--these may alternate with
fragments of the Parthenon frieze, busts of great men, and studies of
animals, from the Assyrian lions to those of Canova and Barye.
Above all, the walls should not be overcrowded. The importance of
preserving in the school-room bare wall-spaces of uniform tint has
hitherto been little considered; but teachers are beginning to
understand the value of these spaces in communicating to the child's
brain a sense of repose which diminishes mental and physical
restlessness.