Charles Franklin Warner

“ Overwrought designs, too great variety in decorative material, too many decorative objects, however great their individual beauty, too many odd pieces of furniture, too many interesting things in whatever direction one may turn, create an oppressive and disquieting atmosphere and a feeling of unrest which it should always be the aim of home decoration to dispel. And yet it may not always be best to set aside our treasures because they do not seem perfectly suited to the general scheme of decoration or are not apparently needed to complete it. ”

“ Every room in a house bears some natural relation to every other room, and even the objects in the same room or in adjoining rooms must assist each other, [16] whether their purpose be utility or decoration or a combination of both. Only by due attention to the mutual relations of the various elements that must enter into the composition, can the designer produce those pleasing space effects, those blendings of colour tones, those manifest relations between the various objects, useful or decorative, that give order, unity, and sympathetic feeling to a complete design. ”

“ Well-dressed people of whatever age or sex, in the design and general make-up of their costumes, must observe the same laws that govern design wherever it is applied, as an expression of the artistic sense in the affairs of every-day life. Beauty of line and proportion, harmony of colour, adaptation to use and to a great variety of special conditions, simplicity, symmetry, restraint, are all involved in [122] personal attire, as they are in the decoration of a room; and in most cases success or failure in one field has its counterpart in the other. ”

“ It is certainly true that nature cannot be left wholly to herself in the neighbourhood of the village or city home. If there be a garden, as much forethought must be exercised in planning it and as much pains taken in developing and caring for it as is called for in working out any form of interior decoration. There are problems of design and construction suggested by the need of suitable chairs and settles for the piazza, comfortable hammocks and couches for the balcony, awnings for the windows on the sunny side, and the right furniture, perhaps, for an out-door dining-room. ”

“ In the exterior finishing of summer cottages nature generally needs very little assistance. No colours harmonize so well with the gray rocks, sere fields and marshes, and the evergreen trees by the seashore, as the weathered grays of the shingled cottage. The window frames, door frames and facings, painted to preserve them, may be of the same colour or in dull green or brown, plainly marking the outlines of the house but without unpleasant contrasts. ”

“ Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful—William Morris
The decorating and furnishing of a house have their true beginning in good architectural design. It is a mistake to proceed upon the theory that decoration necessarily implies something added for its own sake—something beautiful in itself but selected and applied without regard to the lines, spaces, and colours of the room in which it is to be placed and without considering the relation of this room to neighbouring rooms and to more remote surroundings. ”

“ If we follow the same plan in the arrangement of our flowers indoors we shall realize their decorative qualities to the utmost. So we may consider it a safe rule to follow in arranging flowers,—to use only one kind of flower, with its stems and leaves, arranging them loosely, rather than to have many in a compact grouping. One single, long-stemmed rose, with its beautiful foliage, in a tall, slender glass is more decorative and gives us more pleasure than a dozen roses stripped of their foliage and crowded into a small vase. ”

“ Art and the Fashions.—In discussing the parallel between art in clothing and the more stable art of home decoration it must be admitted, of course, that style in dress introduces some embarrassing questions; for the styles, especially for women, suffer wonderful changes with every season. And yet people of artistic feeling and good taste, succeed in maintaining a fair degree of harmony between the changing demands of fashion and the established principles of art as applied in dress. ”

“ The underpinning and outside chimneys in the field rock of the locality are eminently fitting. The house among the hills will stand more colour because the colours of nature are richer, especially in the autumn season. But wherever the house may be, it should repeat in its larger surfaces the prevailing colour tones of its natural setting. It should seem to fit into its surroundings as if it belonged there and would always remain there, a part of the simple, natural beauty all around it. ”

“ Every article of furniture should be there to serve a genuine need, and it should be strong enough to do its full duty. Spider-legged, top-heavy tables; light, weak chairs; chairs on casters or rockers; sofas with carved backs or couches with none at all,—these have no place in the living room. The long, straight lines of the craftsman or mission style of furniture are in the right direction ”

“ Limited Decoration Desirable.—The tooling of leather is based upon the fact that, when wet, the fibre yields readily to compression and receives impressions that are retained after the leather is dry. But the beauty of design depends upon the colour and texture of the surface quite as much as upon the figured impressions upon it. It is therefore a good point in design not to cover the surface so completely that the peculiar beauty of the material itself be lost. ”

“ And, beside the joy of exercising the creative faculty, there has also been the spur of a common need to inspire men of different races, independently of each other, to develop the primitive household arts, like pottery and rug making, by the use of methods no less remarkable for their similarity than for their cleverness. The impressions that the primitive man received from his natural surroundings were easily expressed in the plastic mud, and it was probably not long before he discovered that fire made them permanent and practically indestructible. ”

“ Portières, curtains, cushion covers, table runners and mats, lamp shades, and many other furnishings, in which fabrics are involved, present problems that quickly engage the interest of the amateur decorator who wishes to avoid the commonplace and, when well worked out, add greatly to the attractiveness of artistic surroundings. And every house becomes a studio for problems peculiar to itself, when the possibilities of development in this direction are realized. Here, as everywhere else, decorative art is secondary to architectural design and must never fail to acknowledge its dependence. ”

“ For furniture a dull finish is much to be preferred. It is more durable, it harmonizes better with its surroundings, and it is more in keeping with the idea of simplicity and usefulness. In working for a dull finish it is not so essential to secure depth and evenness of surface as it is when a high lustre is required, and therefore fewer coats are necessary. In fact, a dull finish may be given to furniture without any varnish at all. Two or three coats of shellac, each well rubbed down, give a very satisfactory result. Wax finish, to be described later, gives beautiful effects. ”

“ Among the home industries which the arts and crafts societies have lately revived, perhaps none invite more interest or deserve greater honour than weaving with the hand loom. Weaving is an ancient art. ”

“ Nature is a great teacher in all branches of art; but in pottery her suggestions are to be used as decorative elements rather than for fundamental shapes. A fish with a flower in its mouth does not seem appropriate; but a bowl for water-lilies, while it may not take the form of a fish, might reasonably have a fish as an element of its decoration. ”

“ But the same law of simplicity which invariably marks the works of nature gives strength and beauty also to the works of man. Thus, in discussing the various problems that developed as the designing of the house progressed, it was found—as of course it should have been—that the solution which met the test of simplicity, while satisfying the law of adaptation to purpose, was the true one. ”

“ The field for colour design is almost without limit. No material is so old and useless as to be despised by the clever rug maker. Old bed ticking with its blue and white stripes cut on the bias makes a very desirable combination when woven on a blue warp with a plain blue border. A charming mottled effect in one instance was produced by a yarn which was ravelled from an old raw silk portière of a mahogany shade and wound into balls with finely cut strips of tan cloth, the balls being rewound several times. ”

“ Seldom will she find at hand just the shade or colour required by the design of the piece to be woven. Much of the material that is worked up for the woof of rugs, for example, will be found to be so faded or spotted that it would poorly repay one for the labour of weaving it up in that condition. And even the new material, which it is often necessary to procure for plain weaving, for pattern weaving, and for use in borders, will often need a bath in the dye pot in order to furnish the tone of colour needed. ”

“ When the bedroom must be used more or less as a living room or sewing room, as it too often unfortunately is, furniture to serve such uses must be provided. In selecting or designing all this furniture, lightness, and simplicity of design, combined with strength, should be allowed a controlling influence. The recognition of this idea has given great popularity to the brass or iron beds; but it is possible to design and construct beds of oak, maple, or other woods that harmonize with the rest of the furniture, carry out the idea of daintiness, and have sufficient strength for service. ”

“ When modern houses combine the living room and [49] library or reception room with the hall, there is need of something more than hall furniture of the formal kind. The requirements of comfort must be met. But, generally speaking, hall furniture is of little real use. Odd chairs, attractive by reason of their oddity, the richness of the materials used in their construction, or some other assertive quality, but not fit to sit in, are suitable or at least excusable in the hall. The hat and coat rack of our fathers has been declared insane and no longer appears in well-regulated houses. ”

“ A well-dressed woman, in selecting her hat, must have given consideration to the relation of the size and shape of the head to the lines of the entire figure. Strictly speaking, a hat is a covering for the head, and it should seem to belong to the head, to protect it, and, through harmony of colour and proportion of line and mass, to improve the appearance of the whole costume. The artist, when drawing a figure, uses the head as the unit of measure. ”

“ People who are satisfied with such dwellings seem to show less appreciation of art, the highest product of civilization, than those uncivilized tribes who decorated their caves or huts with beautiful rugs of their own weaving and who ornamented their pottery and their utensils and implements with wonderfully conceived and elaborately wrought [5] designs. Modern cave dwellers in apartment houses with all the conveniences of their ready-made surroundings, are in danger of missing that self-expression in their home belongings that encouraged and delighted even the savage. ”