Wallpaper

“ This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. ”

“ I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. ”

“ The walls in the kitchen should be painted rather than papered, and other parts of the flat designed primarily for utility. Since light is the great desideratum, the paint, as a rule, should be light in color, though soft and tinted in tone for restfulness to the eye. Where wallpaper is used, it should have the same characteristics. Fanciful designs should be avoided. Indeed, plain paper forms the best base for artistic color schemes in the decoration of rooms, the variety in which is best obtained by the choice of furniture and pictures and other wall ornaments. ”

“ Wallpaper, however, is quite a legitimate form of decoration and not necessarily imitative, though to some extent it is reminiscent of the early custom of employing{291} tapestries as wall coverings. A more durable and artistic treatment of interiors is that of the wainscotting of the Georgian period, but the initial cost is proportionately great, though probably when maintenance is taken into consideration it would be cheaper in the long run. ”

“ Even if we feel that Jackson was building up his project to attract attention, or that he was intoxicated by the idea of creating art on such a grand scale, there is still something wrong in his conceiving it in terms of wallpaper. What is certain is that Jackson was desperately anxious to create color prints. In the absence of art patrons, wallpaper was his only excuse for continuing as an artist. ”

“ The relief impressed with the blocks is so strong that, going beyond all other prior attempts of the kind, it represents an essential factor of the composition through its actual light-and-shadow effects.
Although by this time Jackson’s chiaroscuros were regarded with respect and his color prints were acknowledged to be of prime importance, some of the conservative wallpaper historians were still repelled by their vigor, which did not suit genteel notions of interior decoration. ”

“ Jackson was too early; public taste was not yet ready for picturesque landscape or antique forms in wallpaper. But the style became dominant in the latter 18th century, particularly in England and France, and was also exported to America. While it is difficult to estimate the degree of Jackson’s influence in this development, 47 we know that no scenic papers can be dated before the Ricci prints, or before Jackson’s wallpaper venture. ”

“ Outdoor scenes, familiar scenes of the city, or a composite of photographic subjects of interest to the occupants of the room are applied to the wall either in the manner of wallpaper or in a frame as a gigantic picture. Murals, properly used, are extremely decorative but should be used under the guidance of an expert who understands the correct application of the mural to the wall.
Tapestries are not in as common usage as a decade ago, having been abandoned in favor of pictures, mirrors, wall brackets, and [Pg 237] other newer accessories. ”

“ A piece of wallpaper is eight yards long, and when trimmed 21 inches wide, there is, however, more or less waste, and the larger the pattern the greater will the waste be. In practice the simplest plan to follow is to take a roll of paper or a piece of stick out to the right length, and to measure around the room, and find out how many lengths will be required, then measure the height, and see how many lengths can be obtained from the eight yards in length, remembering that something must be cut to waste, so as to match the paper. ”

“ Life is full of minor mysteries—conundrums of the everyday which usually centre round the problem: "Why on earth people do certain things and what on earth makes them do them?" And one of these mysteries is that of their choice in wallpapers. Of course some wallpapers are so pretty that it is not at all difficult to realise why people chose them. On the other hand, some are so extraordinarily hideous that one would really like to see, for curiosity's sake, the artist who designed them and the purchaser whose artistic needs they satisfied. ”

“ It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw—not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. ”

“ Wallpapers as a rule are printed in opaque colour, but in textiles, when the colour is transparent, more elaborate effects are possible by overprinting or super-imposing one colour on another. In woven fabrics similar effects can be obtained by judicious manipulation{363} of the shuttles, but in all cases it should be borne in mind that a working drawing is necessary in which the details are clearly indicative of the final result. ”

“ It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playground and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.
The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.
One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. ”

“ Whatever it be, it is the part of the decorator to feel the want and to meet it, to grasp the situation and to accept it. In not doing so, he shows perhaps pictorial, certainly not decorative, instinct. So with regard to the plane of a glass picture. It is not necessary to restrict one’s design to silhouette, to make one’s picture as flat as the first glass painters or the Greek vase painters made theirs. How much of distance and relief a man may indulge in is partly his own affair. It depends upon what he can manage to do without destroying the surface of his window. ”

“ Too much light will be sure to interfere with the proper control of light and shade on your model, and too little will make your painting too dark. The position of the window with reference to the shape of the room has to do with this. The most probable form of a room is long and narrow. For painting it is better that the window be in the middle of the end wall, high up, rather than in the middle of the side wall. You will find that you can more easily get distance from your model, and at the same time get the light both on him and on your canvas. But a painting-room should not be too narrow. ”

“ The design is there absolutely regardless of any consideration of glass or architecture. Each window is treated as a vast oil picture, without so much as a frame. Here is no vista of distant architecture, nor any such relief of lighter colour as you find at Gouda. Force of colour is sought by masses of deep shadow, into which the figures merge. This shadow being obtained by paint, and the glazing being in the now usual squares, there are literally yards of painted quarries, which, except when the sun is at its fiercest, are all but black. ”

“ Papers of large designs are unsuited for a small room, making it look smaller; and, generally, papers with a variety of colors and showy patterns are inconsistent with elegance. Striped papers are better adapted for rooms with low ceilings. When you have pictures to hang on the walls, floral devices in the paper are particularly unsuitable. Paper of a uniform color, such as light or dark green, is admirably adapted for pictures. The paint of doors and windows should harmonize with the paper-hangings. ”

“ Under ordinary circumstances it is extremely difficult to photograph a window display, owing to reflections caused by dark objects in the display. These, acting in a similar manner to mercury on the back of a mirror, make the plate glass a strong reflector of objects outside the window. Frequently a photograph contains not only the window display, but trees, buildings, people, and even the camera itself, often to the total exclusion of important portions of the trim. If the glass is extra thick the reflections may be caused by a light colored display as well. ”

“ THE WINDOW. Our first consideration is the background. White is too harsh for general work, but is good when the window is so dark that it makes much glare and reflection. In this case it will heighten the light, render the display more distinct, and assist in avoiding reflections. Black (flat or gloss) painting of the interior, or a black cloth background, is objectionable because it makes the window a veritable “camera obscura” and reflects everything. It also renders the colors of the goods dull or broken. ”

“ In the daytime there is nothing better than the “white-cloud illuminator,” which is made easily enough by means of plaster of Paris. A sheet of thin white paper fastened against a window-pane is also useful; and the simple plan of dabbing the glass with putty will have a beneficial effect in softening the light, when the window has a southern aspect. In default of these conveniences, it will be often sufficient to fix a piece of white letter paper over the mirror, or even to dull its surface with wax. ”

“ This is certain: the interest of figure work has put an end to ornamental glass. It has become almost an article of faith with us that, to the making of a window worth looking at, figure design is indispensable. That should not be so. And, seeing that picture does not afford full scope for the qualities which glass-lovers most dearly love in glass, it seems rather cruel that picture should so largely preponderate in its design as to suppress the possibilities in the way of ornament. ”

“ All this makes it difficult to trace the subject; and yet the windows are in a certain pictorial way the more effective. In fact the unity of the window has been preserved: the white landscape on one side, and the white architecture on the other, make equally a setting for the colour, and form, with the “messengers” and their little canopies, one framing, not several frames. Right or wrong, the artist has done what he meant to do, and done it oftentimes very cleverly, though not with uniform success. The inequality spoken of is not only in workmanship but in design. ”

“ There is little or nothing to be done in the decoration of windows by photography. Of course, transparencies will immediately suggest themselves, but they, like 263modern glass painting, are false art. The first requisite of glass painting is that all the light possible shall pass through the pane, and that the colours shall be flat. Modern window-painters overstep the limits of the art, and try to render tone as well, the result being bad artistically and bad decoratively, as utility is affected. ”

“ It was the business of a window to shut in those that worshipped from the outer world, and wrap them in mysterious and beautiful gloom. With other days, however, came other ideals. As time went on, and men emerged from the dark ages, the problem of the glazier was how more and more to lighten his glass; until at last white glass predominated, and the question was how to introduce colour into it. Meanwhile the thirteenth century glaziers resorted, where they wanted light, to the use of windows in grisaille, in absolute contrast to the rich picture-glass in the same church. ”

“ Are we, therefore, to have no rich windows any more? Thirteenth century pictures were diminutive in scale. Are we to have no larger pictures ever? Sixteenth century subjects spread themselves over the whole window. Are we never to frame our glass pictures? And as to that frame, are we to choose once and for all the ornamental details of this period or that, or the formula of design adopted at a given time?
Whether in the matter of technique or treatment, of colour or design, no one style of old glass is enough for us. What does an historic style mean? ”

“ With a bottle of gold paint and a soft brush you can very soon change this rough, unpretending affair into a very artistic frame, one of which, if every step of the process of construction has been carefully taken, you may justly be proud. The glass is next put in place, then the picture carefully laid upon that, face downward, and a piece of cardboard—an old paper-box cover will do—cut the exact size of the glass, laid upon both; these are caught in place by brad-nails driven into the edges of the laths, and extending over the edges of the cardboard. ”

“ The number, size, and placing of the windows will greatly affect the intensity of colour to be used. It must always be remembered that any interior is dark as compared with out-of-doors, and that in the lightest room there will be dark corners or spaces where the colour chosen as chief tint will seem much darker than it really is. A paper or textile chosen in a good light will look several shades darker when placed in large unbroken masses or spaces upon the wall, and a fully furnished room will generally be much darker when completed than might be expected in planning it. ”

“ He must know them and humour them. Bars have to be accepted as needful supports, leads to be acknowledged as convenient joints; glass must be allowed its translucency, and painting kept to what it can best do. A window should own itself a window.
And what is the aim and use of a stained glass window? To “exclude the light,” said the poet, sarcastically. Yes, to subdue its garishness, soften its glare, tinge it with colour, animate it with form perhaps.
The man who means to do good work in windows will devote as serious study to old glass as a painter to the old masters. ”