Principles of Home Decoration Part 3

Interiors with a southern exposure should be treated with cool, light colours, blues in various shades, water-greens, and silvery tones which will contrast with the positive yellow of sunlight.

It is by no means a merely arbitrary rule. Colours are actually warm or cold in temperature, as well as in effect upon the eye or the imagination, in fact the words cover a long-tested fact. I remember being told by a painter of his placing a red sunset landscape upon the flat roof of a studio building to dry, and on going to it a few hours afterward he found the surface of it so warm to the touch--so sensibly warmer than the gray and blue and green pictures around it--that he brought a thermometer to test it, and found it had acquired and retained heat. It was actually warmer by degrees than the gray and blue pictures in the same sun exposure.

We instinctively wear warm colours in winter and dispense with them in summer, and this simple fact may explain the art which allots what we call warm colour to rooms without sun. When we say warm colours, we mean yellows, reds with all their gradations, gold or sun browns, and dark browns and black. When we say cool colours--whites, blues, grays, and cold greens--for greens may be warm or cold, according to their composition or intensity. A water-green is a cold colour, so is a pure emerald green, so also a blue-green; while an olive, or a gold-green comes into the category of warm colours. This is because it is a composite colour made of a union of warm and cold colours; the brown and yellow in its composition being in excess of the blue; as pink also, which is a mixture of red and white; and lavender, which is a mixture of red, white, and blue, stand as intermediate between two extremes.

Having duly considered the effect of light upon colour, we may fearlessly choose tints for every room according to personal preferences or tastes. If we like one warm colour better than another, there is no reason why that one should not predominate in every room in the house which has a shadow exposure. If we like a cold colour it should be used in many of the sunny rooms.

I believe we do not give enough importance to this matter of personal liking in tints. We select our friends from sympathy. As a rule, we do not philosophise much about it, although we may recognise certain principles in our liking; it is those to whom our hearts naturally open that we invite in and have joy in their companionship, and we might surely follow our likings in the matter of colour, as well as in friendship, and thereby add much to our happiness. Curiously enough we often speak of the colour of a mind--and I once knew a child who persisted in calling people by the names of colours; not the colour of their clothes, but some mind-tint which he felt. "The blue lady" was his especial favourite, and I have no doubt the presence or absence of that particular colour made a difference in his content all the days of his life.

The colour one likes is better for tranquillity and enjoyment--more conducive to health; and exercises an actual living influence upon moods. For this reason, if no other, the colour of a room should never be arbitrarily prescribed or settled for the one who is to be its occupant. It should be as much a matter of _nature_ as the lining of a sh.e.l.l is to the mussel, or as the colour of the wings of a b.u.t.terfly.

In fact the mind which we cannot see may have a colour of its own, and it is natural that it should choose to dwell within its own influence.

We do not know _why_ we like certain colours, but we do, and let that suffice, and let us live with them, as gratefully as we should for more explainable ministry.

If colours which we like have a soothing effect upon us, those which we do not like are, on the other hand, an unwelcome influence. If a woman says in her heart, I hate green, or red, or I dislike any one colour, and then is obliged to live in its neighbourhood, she will find herself dwelling with an enemy. We all know that there are colours of which a little is enjoyable when a ma.s.s would be unendurable. Predominant scarlet would be like close companionship with a bra.s.s band, but a note of scarlet is one of the most valuable of sensations. The gray compounded of black and white would be a wet blanket to all bubble of wit or spring of fancy, but the shadows of rose colour are gray, pink-tinted it is true; indeed the shadow of pink used to be known by the name of _ashes of roses_. I remember seeing once in Paris--that home of bad general decoration--a room in royal purples; purple velvet on walls, furniture, and hangings. One golden Rembrandt in the middle of a long wall, and a great expanse of ochre-coloured parquetted floor were all that saved it from the suggestion of a royal tomb. As it was, I left the apartment with a feeling of treading softly as when we pa.s.s through a door hung with c.r.a.pe. Vagaries of this kind are remediable when they occur in cravats, or bonnets, or gloves--but a room in the wrong colour!

Saints and the angels preserve us!

[Ill.u.s.tration: SITTING-ROOM IN "WILD WOOD." ONTEORA (BELONGING TO MISS LUISITA LELAND)]

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 s.p.a.ces 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 ma.s.ses or s.p.a.ces upon the wall, and a fully furnished room will generally be much darker when completed than might be expected in planning it. For this reason, in choosing a favourite tint, it is better on many accounts to choose it in as light a shade as one finds agreeable. It can be repeated in stronger tones in furniture or in small and unimportant furnishings of the room, but the wall tone should never be deeper than medium in strength, at the risk of having all the light absorbed by the colour, and of losing a sense of atmosphere in the room.

There is another reason for this, which is that many colours are agreeable, even to their lovers, only in light tones. The moment they get below medium they become insistent, and make themselves of too much importance. In truth colour has qualities which are almost personal, and is well worth studying in all its peculiarities, because of its power to affect our happiness.

The principles of proper use of colour in house interiors are not difficult to master. It is unthinking, unreflective action which makes so many unrestful interiors of homes. The creator of a home should consider, in the first place, that it is a matter as important as climate, and as difficult to get away from, and that the first shades of colour used in a room upon walls or ceiling, must govern everything else that enters in the way of furnishing; that the colour of walls prescribes that which must be used in floors, curtains, and furniture.

Not that these must necessarily be of the same tint as walls, but that wall-tints must govern the choice.

All this makes it necessary to take first steps carefully, to select for each room the colour which will best suit the taste, feeling, or bias of the occupant, always considering the exposure of the room and the use of it.

After the relation of colour to light is established--with personal preferences duly taken into account--the next law is that of gradation.

The strongest, and generally the purest, tones of colour belong naturally at the base, and the floor of a room means the base upon which the scheme of decoration is to be built.

The carpet, or floor covering, should carry the strongest tones. If a single tint is to be used, the walls must take the next gradation, and the ceiling the last. These gradations must be far enough removed from each other in depth of tone to be quite apparent, but not to lose their relation. The connecting grades may appear in furniture covering and draperies, thus giving different values in the same tone, the relation between them being perfectly apparent. These three ma.s.ses of related colour are the groundwork upon which one can play infinite variations, and is really the same law upon which a picture is composed. There are foreground, middle-distance, and sky--and in a properly coloured room, the floors, walls, and ceiling bear the same relation to each other as the grades of colour in a picture, or in a landscape.

Fortunately we keep to this law almost by instinct, and yet I have seen a white-carpeted floor in a room with a painted ceiling of considerable depth of colour. Imagine the effect where this rule of gradation or ascending scale is reversed. A tinted floor of cream colour, or even white, and a ceiling as deep in colour as a landscape. One feels as if they themselves were reversed, and standing upon their heads. Certainly if we ignore this law we lose our sense of base or foundation, and although we may not know exactly why, we shall miss the restfulness of a properly constructed scheme of decoration.

The rule of gradation includes also that of ma.s.sing of colour. In all simple treatment of interiors, whatever colour is chosen should be allowed s.p.a.ce enough to establish its influence, broadly and freely, and here again we get a lesson from nature in the ma.s.sing of colour. It should not be broken into patches and neutralised by divisions, but used in large enough s.p.a.ces to dominate, or bring into itself or its own influence all that is placed in the room. If this rule is disregarded every piece of furniture unrelated to the whole becomes a spot, it has no real connection with the room, and the room itself, instead of a harmonious and delightful influence, akin to that of a sun-flushed dawn or a sunset sky, is like a picture where there is no composition, or a book where incident is jumbled together without relation to the story.

In short, placing of colour in large uniform ma.s.ses used in gradation is the groundwork of all artistic effect in interiors. As I have said, it is the same rule that governs pictures, the general tone may be green or blue, or a division of each, but to be a perfect and harmonious view, every detail must relate to one or both of these tints.

In formulating thus far the rules for use of colour in rooms, we have touched upon three principles which are equally binding in interiors, whether of a cottage or a palace; the first is that of colour in relation to light, the second of colour in gradation, and the third of colour in ma.s.ses.

A house in which walls and ceilings are simply well coloured or covered, has advanced very far toward the home which is the rightful endowment of every human being. The variations of treatment, which pertain to more costly houses, the application of design in borders and frieze s.p.a.ces, walls, wainscots, and ceilings, are details which will probably call for artistic advice and professional knowledge, since in these things it is easy to err in misapplied decoration. The advance from perfect simplicity to selected and beautiful ornament marks not only the degree of cost but of knowledge which it is in the power of the house-owner to command. The elaboration which is the privilege of more liberal means and the use of artistic experience in decoration on a larger scale.

The smaller house shares in the advantage of beautiful colour, correct principles, and appropriate treatment equally with the more costly. The variations do not falsify principles.

CHAPTER VIII

WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS

The true principle of wall treatment is to make the boundary stand for colour and beauty, and not alone for division of s.p.a.ce.

As a rule, the colour treatment of a house interior must begin with the walls, and it is fortunate if these are blank and plain as in most new houses with uncoloured ceilings, flat or broken with mouldings to suit the style of the house.

The range of possible treatment is very wide, from simple tones of wall colour against which quiet cottage or domestic city life goes on, to the elaboration of walls of houses of a different grade, where stately pageants are a part of the drama of daily life. But having shown that certain rules are applicable to both, and indeed necessary to success in both, we may choose within these rules any tint or colour which is personally pleasing.

Rooms with an east or west light may carry successfully tones of any shade, without violating fundamental laws.

The first impression of a room depends upon the walls. In fact, rooms are good or bad, agreeable or ugly in exact accordance with the wall-quality and treatment. No richness of floor-covering, draperies, or furniture can minimise their influence.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the world is full of papers and other devices for making walls agreeable; and we cannot wonder at this, when we reflect that something of the kind is necessary to the aspect of the room, and that each room effects for the individual exactly what the outer walls of the house effect for the family, they give s.p.a.ce for personal privacy and for that reserve of the individual which is the earliest effect of luxury and comfort.

It is certain that if walls are not made agreeable there is in them something of restraint to the eye and the sense which is altogether disagreeable. Apparent confinement within given limits, is, on the whole, repugnant to either the natural or civilised man, and for this reason we are constantly tempted to disguise the limit and to cover the wall in such a way as shall interest and make us forget our bounds. In this case, the idea of decoration is, to make the walls a barrier of colour only, instead of hard, unyielding masonry; to take away the sense of being shut in a box, and give instead freedom to thought and pleasure to the sense.

It is the effect of shut-in-ness which the square and rigid walls of a room give that makes drapery so effective and welcome, and which also gives value to the practice of covering walls with silks or other textiles. The softened surface takes away the sense of restraint. We hang our walls with pictures, or cover them with textiles, or with paper which carries design, or even colour them with pigments--something--anything, which will disguise a restraining bound, or make it masquerade as a luxury.

This effort or instinct has set in motion the machinery of the world. It has created tapestries and brocades for castle and palace, and invented cheap subst.i.tutes for these costly products, so that the smallest and poorest house as well as the richest can cover its walls with something pleasant to the eye and suggestive to the mind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LARGE SITTING-ROOM IN "STAR ROCK" COUNTRY HOUSE]

It is one of the privileges and opportunities of art to invent these disguises; and to do it so thoroughly and successfully as to content us with facts which would otherwise be disagreeable. And we do, by these various devices, make our walls so hospitable to our thoughts that we take positive and continual pleasure in them.

We do this chiefly, perhaps, by ministering to our instinctive love of colour; which to many temperaments is like food to the hungry, and satisfies as insistent a demand of the mind as food to the body.

At this late period of the world we are the inheritors of many methods of wall disguise, from the primitive weavings or blanket coverings with which nomadic peoples lined the walls of their tents, or the arras which in later days covered the roughness and rudeness of the stone walls of kings and barons, to the pictured tapestries of later centuries. This latter achievement of art manufacture has outlived and far outweighed the others in value, because it more perfectly performs the object of its creation.

Tapestries, for the most part, offer us a semblance of nature, and cheat us with a sense of unlimited horizon. The older tapestries give us, with this, suggestions of human life and action in out-of-door scenes sufficiently unrealistic to offer a vague dream of existence in fields and forests. This effectually diverts our minds from the confinements of s.p.a.ce, and allows us the freedom of nature.

Probably the true secret of the never-failing appreciation of tapestries--from the very beginning of their history until this day--is this fact of their suggestiveness; since we find that damasks of silk or velvet or other costly weavings, although far surpa.s.sing tapestries in texture and concentration of colour, yet lacking their suggestiveness to the mind, can never rival them in the estimation of the world.

Unhappily, we cannot count veritable tapestries as a modern recourse in wall-treatment, since we are precluded from the use of genuine ones by their scarcity and cost.

There is undoubtedly a peculiar richness and charm in a tapestry-hung wall which no other wall covering can give; yet they are not entirely appropriate to our time. They belong to the period of windy palaces and enormous enclosures, and are fitted for pageants and ceremonies, and not to our carefully plastered, wind-tight and narrow rooms. Their mission to-day is to reproduce for us in museums and collections the life of yesterday, so full of pomp and almost barbaric lack of domestic comfort.

In studios they are certainly appropriate and suggestive, but in private houses except of the princely sort, it is far better to make harmonies with the things of to-day.

Nevertheless if the soul craves tapestries let them be chosen for intrinsic beauty and perfect preservation, instead of accepting the rags of the past and trying to create with them a magnificence which must be incomplete and shabby. Considering, as I do, that tapestries belong to the life and conditions of the past, where the homeless many toiled for the pampered few, and not to the homes of to-day where the man of moderate means expects beauty in his home as confidently as if he were a world ruler, I find it hardly necessary to include them in the list of means of modern decoration, and indeed it is not necessary, since a well-preserved tapestry of a good period, and of a famous manufacturer or origin, is so costly a purchase that only our bounteous and self-indulgent millionaires would venture to acquire one solely for purposes of wall decoration. It would be purchased as a specimen of art and not as furnishing.

Yet I know one instance of a library where a genuine old foliage tapestry has been cut and fitted to the walls and between bookcases and doors, where the wood of the room is in mahogany, and a great chimney-piece of Caen stone of Richardson's designing fills nearly one side of the room. Of course the tapestry is unapproachable in effect in this particular place and with its surroundings. It has the richness and softness of velvet, and the red of the mahogany doors and furniture finds exactly its foil in the blue greens and soft browns of the web, while the polished floor and velvety antique rugs bring all the richness of the walls down to one's feet and to the hearth with its glow of fire. But this particular room hardly makes an example for general following. It is really a house of state, a house without children, one in which public life predominates.

There is a very flagrant far-away imitation of tapestry which is so far from being good that it is a wonder it has had even a moderate success, imitation which does not even attempt the decorative effect of the genuine, but subst.i.tutes upon an admirably woven cotton or woollen canvas, figure panels, copied from modern French masters, and suggestive of nothing but bad art. Yet these panels are sometimes used (and in fact are produced for the purpose of being used) precisely as a genuine tapestry would be, although the very fact of pretence in them, brings a feeling of untruth, quite at variance with the principles of all good art. The objection to pictures transferred to tapestries holds good, even when the tapestries are genuine.

The great cartoons of Raphael, still to be seen in the Kensington Museum, which were drawn and coloured for Flemish weavers to copy, show a perfect adaptation to the medium of weaving, while the paintings in the Vatican by the same great master are entirely inappropriate to textile reproduction.

A picture cannot be transposed to different substance and purpose without losing the qualities which make it valuable. The double effort to be both a tapestry and a picture is futile, and brings into disrepute a simple art of imitation which might become respectable if its capabilities were rightly used.

No one familiar with collections of tapestries can fail to recognise the largeness and simplicity of treatment peculiar to tapestry subjects as contrasted with the elaboration of pictures.