Old Time Wall Papers Part 9

The use of bra.s.s pins in the wood blocks is also a revival of the old method, as you will see from this interesting paragraph from a recent volume--Lewis F. Day's _Ornament and Its Application_:

"Full and crowded pattern has its uses. The comparatively fussy detail, which demeans a fine material, helps to redeem a mean one.

"Printed wall-paper, for example, or common calico, wants detail to give it a richness which, in itself, it has not. In printed cotton, flat colours look dead and lifeless. The old cotton printers had what they called a 'pruning roller,' a wooden roller (for hand-printing) into which bra.s.s pins or wires were driven. The dots printed from this roller relieved the flatness of the printed colours, and gave 'texture' to it.

William Morris adopted this idea of dotting in his cretonne and wall-paper design with admirable effect. It became, in his hands, an admirable convention, in place of natural shading. The interest of a pattern is enhanced by the occurrence at intervals of appropriate figures; but with every recurrence of the same figure, human or animal, its charm is lessened until, at last, the obvious iteration becomes, in most cases, exasperating.

"And yet, in the face of old Byzantine, Sicilian, and other early woven patterns with their recurring animals, and of Mr. Crane's consummately ornamental patterns, it cannot be said that repeated animal (and even human) forms do not make satisfactory pattern.

"For an ill.u.s.tration of this, look at the wall-paper design by Crane: 'This is the House that Jack built.' It seems, at first glance, to be a complicated ornamental design; after long searching, you at last see plainly every one of the characters in that jingle that children so love."

William Morris, and his interest in wall-paper hanging, must be spoken of, "For it was Morris who made this a truly valuable branch of domestic ornamentation. If, in some other instances, he was rather the restorer and infuser of fresh life into arts fallen into degeneracy, he was nothing short of a creator in the case of wall-paper design, which, as a serious decorative art, owes its existence to him before anyone else."

In his lecture on _The Lesser Arts of Life_, he insisted on the importance of paying due regard to the artistic treatment of our wall s.p.a.ces. "Whatever you have in your rooms, think first of the walls, for they are that which makes your house and home; and, if you don't make some sacrifice in their favor, you will find your chambers have a sort of makeshift, lodging-house look about them, however rich and handsome your movables may be."

A collector is always under a spell; hypnotized, bewitched, possibly absurdly engrossed and unduly partial to his own special hobby, and to uninterested spectators, no doubt seems a trifle unbalanced, whether his specialty be the fossilized skeleton of an antediluvian mammoth or a tiny moth in a South American jungle.

I am not laboring under the exhilarating but erroneous impression that there is any widespread and absorbing interest in this theme. As the distinguished jurist, Mr. Adrian H. Joline, says, "Few there are who cling with affection to the memory of the old fashioned. Most of us prefer to spin with the world down the ringing grooves of change, to borrow the shadow of a phrase which has of itself become old-fashioned."

Yet, as Mr. Webster said of Dartmouth, when he was hard pressed: "It is a little college, but there are those who love it."

Besides, everything--Literature, Art and even fashions in dress and decorations,--while seeming to progress really go in waves. We are now wearing the bonnets, gowns and mantles of the 1830 style and much earlier. Fabulous and fancy prices are gladly given for antique furniture; high boys, low boys, hundred-legged tables, ma.s.sive four-post bedsteads, banjo clocks, and crystal chandeliers.

Those able to do it are setting tapestries into their stately walls, hangings of rich brocades and silk are again in vogue and the old designs for wall-paper are being hunted up all through Europe and this country. Some also adopt a colored wash for their bed-room walls, and cover their halls with burlap or canvas, while the skins of wild animals adorn city dens as well as the mountain lodge or the seaside bungalow.

So we have completed the circle.

The unco rich of to-day give fabulous sums for crystal candelabra, or museum specimens of drawing room furniture; and collectors, whether experts or amateurs, and beginners just infected with the microbe are searching for hidden treasures of china, silver and gla.s.s.

Why should the Old Time Wall-Papers alone be left unchronicled and forgotten? In them the educated in such matters read the progress of the Art; some of them are more beautiful than many modern paintings; the same patterns are being admired and brought out; the papers themselves will soon all be removed.

Hawthorne believed that the furniture of a room was magnetized by those who occupied it; a modern psychologist declares that even a rag doll dearly loved by a child becomes something more than a purely inanimate object. We should certainly honor the wall-papers brought over the seas from various countries at great expense to beautify the Homes of our Ancestors.

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

_The wall-papers reproduced in the following plates were in many cases faded, water-stained and torn, when photographed. Many of the photographs are amateur work; some are badly focused and composed, some taken in small rooms and under unfavorable conditions of light. The reader will bear this in mind in judging the papers themselves and the present reproductions._

_PLATE VII_

_PLATE VIII_

PLATE VII.

The Bayeux Tapestry.

The oldest tapestry now in existence, dating from the time of William the Conqueror, and apparently of English workmanship. The set of pieces fits the nave of the Cathedral of Bayeux, measuring 231 feet long and 20 inches wide. Now preserved in the Bayeux Library.

The subjects are drawn from English history; Plate VII represents the burial of Edward the Confessor in the Church of St. Peter, Westminster Abbey.

PLATE VIII.

The Bayeux Tapestry.

King Harold listening to news of the preparations of William of Orange for the invasion of Britain.

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_PLATE IX_

_PLATE X_

PLATE IX.

Borden Hall Paper.

The oldest wall-paper known in England; found in restoring a fifteenth-century timber-built house known as "Borden Hall," in Borden village, Kent, near Sittingbourne.

Design "A" was found in the oldest part of the house, and probably dates from the second half of the sixteenth century. The paper is thick and tough, and was nailed to the plaster between uprights.

The walls were afterward battened over the paper, and the recovered fragments are in perfect condition. Ground color rich vermillion, with flowers in bright turquoise blue, the design in black.

PLATE X.

Borden Hall Paper.

Old English paper, design "B"; found in rear part of house and dates from about 1650. It was pasted to the plaster in the modern manner. Printed in black on a white ground, flowers roughly colored vermillion. Inferior to "A" in design, coloring, and quality of paper.

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_PLATE XI_