SYMPHONIES IN INTERIOR DECORATION
William Morris demanded that our entire environment should be beautiful.
Only in moments of superior enjoyment do we realize the significance of
human life, and by a poem, picture or sonata we construct the symbols
that bring us closest to this appreciation. Why then not construct a
candlestick, a chair, the surface of a wall, in such a way that they
might be taken for symbols, to remind us of the existence of our soul?
The candlestick shall no longer be a mere stand and holder for a candle
but a souvenir of reminiscences. That is the philosophical idea that
underlies all interior decoration and furnishing.
As Sheridan Ford so aptly expressed it in an article in "St. Stephen's
Review" in 1889:
"There are in England two new, and in their origin, distinct methods of
interior decoration. Gradually they have coalesced to a degree, although
they will always retain their individual traits and differences.
These two methods may be termed the Whistlerian, and the English
or pre-Raphaelite; the one, spontaneous, fresh--simple, the other,
a revival--complex--reformatory. Through many years, from the
early days of the pre-Raphaelites down to the last meeting of the
Painter-socialists, an outside influence--a personality--has been making
itself felt in London in strange and subtle ways."
The Morris arts and crafts movement believes in patterned design and the
dominant force of the material. Every material speaks its own language,
and we must understand, before we can lend expression to it. When the
actual moment of designing arrives, the artist-artisan should work with
a piece of the material itself before his eyes--wood, stone, iron or
plain silk, linen or wool stuff, according to circumstances. This memory
of nature's forms, dominated by the momentary impression of the
material, with its requirements, capabilities and limitations, would
lead him to a more congenial and workmanlike result than all the
contents of a natural history museum, botanical garden or library. In
the same way as we can give to words a dramatic, epic or lyrical
significance, so has wood, leather and glass their own sphere of
expression. Harmony in every detail is the ultimate result. A room is no
museum, every object must be related to the other, the candlestick must
make a rhyme with the wall-paper, with the woodwork, the hangings, the
table and chairs.
Whistler, on the other hand, was the apostle of Japanese simplicity, of
suggestion rather than realization. He tried to express his own æsthetic
creed, and that consisted of restful expanses of unbroken wall, of
decorative devices and ornamental motifs, individual caprices
accentuated by black, and, finally, by colour. Colour in interior
decoration meant to him the same thing as tone in painting. It reigned
supreme. Our feeling of beauty varies; it may find its expression in a
certain flower, a certain hour of the day or season, in a certain poem
or song or, as it was the case with Whistler, in a certain delicate
colour tint, that would make a room look gay and cheerful. He tried to
bring the sun into the house, even in a land of fog and cloud. Pale
pink, brown, pale turquoise, primrose, saffron, sulphure and
lemon-yellow were his favourite colours. These he endeavoured to
express. It was the gesture of his soul translated into every object and
material.
A colour is like a special metric form, and all lines, and every
combination of tint--the sofa, the lamp, wall-paper--take the place of
stanzas in a finished poem. In such a house we would see mirrors
everywhere reflecting our own personality. Such were Whistler's
creations. They reflected his own face, and echoed his own song.
Whistler arrived at these conclusions early in his life. During his
Stevens-Japanese print period he interested himself a good deal with
decorative schemes. He had painted "The Princess of the Porcelain Land,"
which was purely decorative, and, in a way, served as inspiration for
the Peacock Room, as the design for the latter was really invented to
find a proper environment for the painting.
In a diary of William Michael Rossetti, the ever busy biographers have
found a note referring to six schemes or projects of practically the
same size. It reads: "Whistler is doing on a large scale, for Leyland,
the subject of women with flowers." They were never executed, although
some of the sketches are still in existence. He abandoned decorative
schemes entirely in later years, but became more and more engrossed in
the problems of interior decoration. In later years he intended to paint
a grand decoration with full orchestration that he would call "The
Symphony of Colours--Full Palette." This would have been indeed
interesting, but I fear he went too deep into blacks to have
accomplished it. In most instances he abstained from mural
decoration,--the panels over the chimney-place, and the shutter and
ceiling decoration of the Peacock Room for the Leyland home at Prince's
Gate, London, were his only supreme effort in that direction. They show
the right idea about decorative painting. He agreed with all decorative
painters from Gozzoli to Bob Chanler, that it should be an arrangement
of colours which, within its frame, affords a pleasant visual
entertainment.
There is no intention to give food for thought. The peacocks in blue on
gold and gold on blue relate as little as does an Oriental carpet. He
merely wished to please the eye by depicting them more beautifully than
they were in nature. But why did he select peacocks? Do they not convey
an idea? Figures usually are story-telling symbols, but not necessarily
so; with him they were vehicles of colour, to invent a pattern for their
luminosity. Peacock designs occur frequently in Japanese art. No doubt,
Whistler studied them. There is a certain resemblance, but he
individualized them in his own way. The sharply silhouetted forms of the
birds are a happy invention of luminous colour and interesting design.
The Japanese would have made a more lavish use of gold, that is they
would have left larger spaces untouched by any additional colour.
Blank spaces of gold (or any colour) act in such instances like the
musical silence of a pause between music, they represent the birth of
beauty from luxury. But the Leyland room was overcrowded, with its
elaborate ceiling, bulky chandelier and collection of blue and white
porcelain on walnut shelves, broken by an endless repetition of
perpendicular lines. He could not change the architecture of the place,
so he went to work and decorated the few spaces that were available. To
decorate the inside shutters with a peacock design was a unique
performance, and to cover the moulding of the chandelier and the entire
ceiling with conventionalized peacock feathers, utilizing the eyes of
the feathers as accents, was even more marvellous. In the elegance of
its scheme, and its individual perfection, splendour and restfulness it
has no equal.
[Illustration: SHUTTER DECORATION, PEACOCK ROOM.]
When Whistler moved into houses of his own, he had, like all ambitious
house-owners, the desire to create a comfortable and beautiful home.
None of his houses were ever completely decorated and finished; they had
a look, as Pennell tells us, as if he had just moved in, or was just
moving out; often there were packing cases and trunks about, but as much
as was finished was always beautiful.
The "House Beautiful" or "White House," was a three-storied house with
many windows of various sizes, a green slate roof, bluish-grey door,
Portland stone facings and fantastic wood ornamentation. A queer looking
house, was the verdict of the neighbours, and yet it was rather
unassuming, so that it escaped the attention of the ordinary passer-by.
While various schemes for each room were in his mind, a friend, Mr.
Sutherland, director of the P. O. Company, called one evening in the
spring of 1873 to ask Whistler if he would help him in the decoration of
his home. Whistler entered upon the idea with enthusiasm and prepared
the plans. The novelty of the schemes was first approved of, but, as
they developed, Mr. Sutherland began to doubt their plausibility.
Whistler relieved him from all obligations, and determined that he would
use the ideas in his own home. He went at once to work and three weeks
later gave a dinner to celebrate the event. It was a revelation of
simple delicate colour schemes--everything was artistic from the
mahogany woodwork in the "gold and yellow" room down to the single
flower in some bit of Kaga porcelain. In the room everything was yellow,
gold or brown. The walls were tinted yellow, the cabinet and
chimney-piece in one structure were of a bright yellow mahogany, with
gilt panels. The tiles before it were of a pale sulphur colour. In some
niches there was a display of orange coloured vases. The peacock designs
were seen in some panels, but they were carried out in yellow and gold.
The chairs were covered with yellow velvet, the table had brass legs and
rested on a brown rug.
One may say that Whistler established three simple rules for decoration,
which interpreted in words, might read like this:
First: That a house should be a dainty and complete thing--from the
door-knocker to the ridge tile.
Second: That each room should be restful, with ceiling, walls and floors
so treated as to give a sense of shelter, freedom and completeness,
terminating in the floor at the base.
Third: that pure, tender colours scientifically used give ease and
infinite suggestion, and should be allowed to play about a room without
coming into boisterous contact with another.
Harper Pennington, a friend of Whistler's, has given a humourous but
sympathetic description of the "White House:" "His furniture was limited
to the barest necessities, and, frequently, too few of those." Indeed,
some wit made what he called his "standing joke" about poor Jimmy's
dearth of seats. Once Dick (Corney) Grain said, when shaking hands
before a Sunday luncheon, "Ah! Jimmy, glad to see you playing before
such a full house!" glaring around the studio with his large protruding
eyes in search of something to sit on. "What do you mean?" said
Whistler. "Standing room only," replied the actor. The studio could
boast of only four or five small cane-seated chairs (always
requisitioned for the dining room on Sundays), and the most
uncomfortable bamboo sofa ever made. Nobody, except some luckless model,
sat upon it twice. Never a book or any instrument of music in his room,
nothing that would not constantly be in use, nothing superfluous; all
his cares were centred on the wall and woodwork, painted in graduated
monochromes, of which he held the secret.
The strangest thing about these rooms of his was, that they always
looked complete. There was no space, apparently, for more than he put in
them. So great was the art in his arrangements of colour and a few
pieces of ordinary furniture--a spindle-legged table and three or four
small painted chairs--that it seemed impossible to add so much as a book
without disturbing the harmonious whole. Curtains, a little mirror, one,
two, three at the most, perfectly placed pictures, a vase, perhaps a
pair of them, upon the mantel, and matting on the floor, were literally
all that any room I ever knew him to occupy appeared _able_ to contain.
There was a sense of finish and finality about it which a piano and
stuffed furniture would have disturbed. In the vases, as in two square
hanging pots upon the wall of the dining-room, there were always a few
yellow flowers, and in a huge old china bowl, that formed the
centrepiece of the dining-room table, swam some tiny gold fish--the
whole thing was carefully composed so as to make the "symphony" complete
at those historic Sunday breakfasts.
His various abodes became a topic of conversation, and a place of
pilgrimage, and made Whistler, for a while at least, a recognized leader
in decoration. He developed a style, the influence of which has been
felt all over Europe. The beauty of one colour in the decoration of a
room, the division of space into simple lines and masses, the scarcity
of furniture, leaving large empty spaces, the use of flowers or a few
choice pieces of bric-a-brac, we owe largely to Whistler. The
backgrounds of his "Miss Alexander," "Carlyle" and "The Artist's Mother"
offer vague glimpses into the realm of individualized decoration, and,
in a way, better information about its character than a hundred pages
of explanation.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT IN GRAY AND GREEN: MISS ALEXANDER.]
Among the houses that were decorated under Whistler's supervision are
the Aubrey house, Kensington; Carlyle cottage, Chelsea; the home of Mr.
D'Oyly Carte, on the banks of the Thames, the music room of Sarasate in
Paris, for whom it is said, he also designed the furniture, and the
"Pink Palace," where he lived with his favourite model "Maud," in 1885.
Occasionally he may have designed the furniture as a particular favour
to a friend, but it was not his habit. All he did was to give advice or
to make the selection. Now and then he may have made a hasty sketch to
make his idea clear to others, but it is not known that he ever made a
regular design that could have been used by a skilful cabinet-maker to
work from. He merely suggested, and, if conditions allowed, to establish
beauty of proportions. Beauty of design should exist, no matter whether
it be in the vault of the Sistine Chapel, or a writing desk, but colour
is imperative. His "style" consisted of little more than selecting a
special colour scheme. He took pride in mixing the colours, but never
put them on himself. An ordinary house-painter served the purpose just
as well. He looked at a room, decided what parts should be dark or
black, and then proceeded, in his most scientific manner, to find a
colour, delicate and luminous, that would brighten the walls. No doubt,
he laboured under favourable conditions. But we should not forget that
he himself created these conditions, in which his artistic personality
perhaps found its happiest and most characteristic expression.
Exquisite colour and simplicity and the desire to gain the possible
effects of light were the leading characteristics of the Whistler style.
Whistler committed one great error. He invariably preferred beauty to
comfort. He frequently lost sight of the practical, with the result that
use and beauty were not always combined in due proportion. He had little
regard for physical requirements--he himself was always active, he had
no time to lounge, consequently decorative possibilities alone
interested him. It is the same trouble with _L'Art Nouveau_. Although
infinitely superior to the soulless copyism of different styles as
practised by sterling bronze and artistic furniture companies, it lacks
that true artistic feeling for ornamentation, which makes the designer
at once realize the proper limits of his materials and show proper
judgment in the uses to which he puts them. Whistler was so sensitive
to any discord of line or colour, that he, no doubt, would have endured
inconvenience rather than have destroyed the harmony of an effect. Most
of us do not care to exist that way.
A house is built to live in, with as much grace as possible, but
primarily with a feeling of comfort. Most people would prefer a modern
apartment to an old palace at Fiesole. The material demands of the owner
should determine the construction of the house. The American architects
begin to realize this more and more. What principle rules the
construction of a window? The dimensions of the room. The windows are
not made for the street, to be looked at from the outside; they are
there for the room, to distribute light and emphasize any special use
they may be put to. In a parlour, for instance, people are more apt to
look out a window than anywhere else; for that reason the parlour
windows should be wider than in other rooms to enable several people to
look out comfortably at the same time.
A chair is made to sit upon comfortably, not merely to look beautiful.
The most beautiful design in a chair will not condone the torture that
may be caused by a shape that does not adapt itself to the human form.
The chairs in the Sarasate music room were exquisite but too stiff to
allow any repose. Imagine listening to a concert sitting erect, without
being able to stretch out one's limbs. The main reason for not having
any comfortable chairs in his own studio was one of self-protection. It
was his work-room, and he wished to prevent visitors from making it a
hall of gossip. He preferred to have it empty; a promenade to
contemplate the next master stroke on one of his paintings.
When Whistler was forced to give up the "White House," and all its
beautiful contents were dispersed, he was enraged that the succeeding
owner, "Arry" Quilter, took liberties with the facade. Quilter had added
a bay window, and, to Whistler's idea, destroyed the entire effect.
After that he never wanted to look at it again. On one occasion he
expressed his anger in a most amusing manner. "To think of Arry living
in the temple I created," he said. "He has no use for it. If he had any
feeling for the symmetry of things he would come to me and say: 'Here,
Whistler, is your house, take it, you know its meaning, I don't. Take it
and live in it.--But no, he has not sense enough to see that.'"
Harry Quilter, no doubt, got as much enjoyment out of the house as
Whistler did, although in a different way. Extreme sensitiveness in
regard to line, colour and form produces a beautiful result, not unlike
a handsome painting, but I fear it would prove monotonous in the long
run. A beautiful room is like a simple melody, but if the melody has any
striking individuality, we soon tire of it. If the decoration could be
kept entirely neutral the problem could be solved satisfactorily. But
pink and lemon-yellow are not neutral. Not everybody would feel happy in
a blue room decorated with purple fans. Even a woman in a certain gown
would destroy the harmony, and a definite colour seen all the time, even
if unconsciously, would soon disturb our mental serenity. The Whistler
rooms were beautiful when no human being moved in them. They were there
for the photographer, but not for congenial habitation.
I believe most people will agree that the most beautiful bed is the one
in which one can sleep most peacefully; the most beautiful chair the one
which allows perfect relaxation of the body; the most beautiful glass
that which lends itself most gracefully to convey to our lips the
special beverage it is intended for. This may sound unæsthetic, but it
is common sense. Comfort comes first, whenever ordinary living purposes
are concerned. There is plenty of opportunity for the exploration and
exfoliation of beauty, but it should be subordinated to the primary
causes.
Whistler's influence, in my opinion, was most beneficial in the
arrangement of exhibitions. An exhibition of paintings, or any work of
art, is solely an æsthetic venture, and should be harmonious at any
cost. It is just in this that most exhibitions fail. They show the most
incongruous backgrounds, frames of the most incredible malformations,
floors that are either bare or loudly carpeted and pictures that are
hung without the slightest consideration for their colour values. With
the simple use of distemper, matting and muslin Whistler performed
wonders. During his short reign as president of the Society of British
Artists he transformed the Suffolk Street galleries from a barn into a
dignified exhibition hall. Pictures, frames, walls, floors, lighting and
decorations, each element had its due place, the one supplementing the
other, and harmonizing, instead of conflicting with it, as is so often
the case.
Every year saw some fresh assertions of his leadership. He took a great
deal of interest in the arrangement of his own exhibitions, making some
of them occasions for the exploitation of his views in new and original
ways. His initial exhibition in Pall Mall, 1874, where, for the first
time, walls were brought into harmony with the pictures upon them, and
successes in Bond Street, at the Fine Arts Society, and at Dowdswell's,
are accepted facts in the art history of London. Each one of these
exhibitions especially embodied the demonstration of a colour scheme or
problem of decoration. So there came to pass, in their turn, the
arrangement in "Flesh Colour and Grey," the harmony in "Gold and Brown"
and the arrangement in "Yellow and White," and others, equally
characteristic and original.
With scrupulous love of detail, he neglected nothing and devoted unusual
attention to the make-up of the catalogue. The brown-covered paper
catalogue of the exhibition of etchings held at the Fine Art Society
Gallery, in 1883, was issued with the imprint of the artist's home in
Tite Street, Chelsea, and represented his peculiar views of typography
as well as the art of slaying incompetent and hostile reviewers with
their own weapons. After the title of each etching was printed a
quotation from some criticism, under the general motto (on the title
page) "Out of Their Own Mouths Ye Shall Judge Them."
"Prodigious amateur--there are years when Mr. Whistler gives great
promise--In this instance criticism is powerless--Mr. Whistler is
eminently vulgar--General absence of tone--Mr. Whistler has produced too
much for his reputation"--are some of the quotations. The Gallery, on
this occasion, was hung with white and yellow, had yellow matting on the
floor, yellow chairs and yellow flower pots. The attendants at the door
were in yellow and white livery, while the artist wore yellow socks, and
his assistants yellow cravats.
For the catalogue of the exhibition of paintings held in 1884, Whistler
prepared a page of "propositions" called "L'Envoie," which we quote
elsewhere, and he repeated in the catalogue of "his heroic kick in Bond
Street" in 1892, the use of quotations from the critics, for each title
entry. The mottoes on this occasion were: "The Voice of a People" and a
sentence from the speech of the General Attorney at the Whistler v.
Ruskin trial, "I do not know when so much amusement has been offered to
the British public as by Mr. Whistler's pictures." The artist triumphed,
the success of the exhibition proved the futility of the early
judgments. A perusal of this queer document, even to-day, elicits a
smile; it is delicious humour and at the same time a splendid assertion
of artistic power and self-adulation.
The first New York exhibition of work by Whistler was held in the old
Wunderlich Gallery, on Broadway, in March, 1889, when sixty-two "Notes,"
"Harmonies" and "Nocturnes" were shown, with some accessories of yellow
hangings, flowers, furniture and footmen imitation of the London
exhibition of 1883. But this sort of thing is rarely successful in this
country. It is apt to be misinterpreted, and somehow looks out of place.
One of the finest achievements of the painter is the frame which rightly
bears his name. The official exhibitions still insist on the usual
monotony of gilt frames, and the painters seem to have neither any
particular inclination nor the opportunity to create frames of lovely
forms and well-balanced repeating patterns of their own. The
frame-makers and art-dealers are masters of the situation, and their
interests are strictly mercenary ones.
"Attractive enough at first sight, hopelessly inartistic on further
inspection," is the verdict which one has to give of the average frame
of to-day. Only a few of our painters oppose the mechanically
manufactured frames. They have their frames specially designed for each
picture, Stanford White having been the designer of quite a number of
them. Their frames are wide and flat, without corners and centrepieces,
the repeating pattern is generally a simple, classic ornament, with a
tendency toward parallel lines. The architectural designs, with Greek
columns in the upright sides, are rather heavy and less recommendable.
Whistler's frames, which served as inspiration to all these later-day
designers, were conceived in simple planes, broken with parallel grooves
that were restful to the eye as sole ornamentation. They were original
inventions, free from any taint of imitation. The gaudy burnished gold
effect was substituted by pale gold and bronze that could be tinted and
glazed according to the principal colour note of the pictures the frame
was designed for. They are so simple that it is difficult to improve
their design. But he did not make them for general use, he merely
suggested to other painters the advantageousness of designing their own
frames, as is now largely customary.
[Illustration: EAGLE WHARF (ETCHING).]
Whistler has performed a brave deed. If he had done nothing else but to
improve our taste in the arrangement of exhibitions he would be
remembered for many years. He has done far more. He has set up the big
ideal of simplicity. His eccentricities and harmonies of decoration may
not live. There are many men working on the same problem all over the
Western hemisphere, and his peculiar style will undergo many
modifications and improvements, but we should never forget that he was
one of the first who opened our eyes to a practicable and inexpensive
way of beautifying our home and everyday life.