The Tin Rabbit Gallery

Down on the farm		Noah's Ark was a real favorite.
		Slave dolls

Author of  “Creating Early American Dolls” began hand sewing her dolls in 1982 after she caught a glimpse of an article about museum dolls.  This was all it took for her to sew together her first few dolls.  Her eye for historical accuracy and simplicity has boomed into a cottage industry for her one of a kind pieces. It was our pleasure to have Kay visit us for our Grand Opening!

Come visit us on August 15th for our Grand Opening in Labadie!

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( Originally Published 1919 )

INTRODUCTION. — Sixteenth century England will ever be endued with a glamour all its own in the eyes of those over whom history exerts a fascinating hold or in whose mental background a strong sense of love and reverence for our Mother Country and a just pride in our great heritage of English blood and traditions count as potent factors. The vigour, freshness and naivete of the period, added to the full-blooded stability of English characteristics and traditions, combine to cast a subtle spell over the imagination. Even the misdoings of that old reprobate and rapacious spendthrift, Henry VIII, seem to fade into a half-pardoned state of unreality and grow less reprehensible in the enshrouding haze of glowing splendour that radiates from the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and when we think of the marvellous delights of None such or of the 2600 tapestries that adorned the walls of his palaces we are all too apt to forget whence came the funds, to compass the building of the former and that many of the latter he either stole from the monasteries he so ruthlessly pillaged or filched from the possessions of Cardinal Wolsey.

Notwithstanding all this bravery of gorgeous display, there was comparatively little upon which, for our present purpose, we may profitably centre our attention until we come to the days of Queen Elizabeth. During her reign the building of country houses advanced by strides and gave scope for the art of furnishing to develop to a truly national extent. In all this work, which progressed continuously during the rule of Elizabeth and her Stuart successors, the spirit of the Renaissance was the controlling influence, but that influence arrived in England through various channels and manifested itself under varying forms, as we shall presently see, so that it is necessary to divide the epoch embracing the last half of the sixteenth century and the whole of the seventeenth into three phases the first covering decoration in the time of Queen Elizabeth and during the reigns of King James and King Charles I, a period of consistent, logical and uninterrupted development; the second covering the dour years of the Commonwealth; the third covering the Restoration period, with all its influx of fresh and divers tendencies, and terminating in the medley of Baroque and Oriental fashions that flourished vigorously all through the reign of William and Mary.

In the Elizabethan period the chiefest part of the architectural and mobiliary Renaissance inspiration came into England through Flemish channels. While a powerful Renaissance influence had taken deep root in Flanders and wrought abundant results, nevertheless the Flemings, like the French, had retained a large measure of late Gothic tradition and their interpretation of Renaissance principles was strongly tinged and modified by this residuary leaven of an earlier mode so that the composite result was unmistakably local and individual in character. This body of Flemish forms, upon its transition to England, was grafted upon a stock of British growth and precedent and the pure Italian Renaissance element in it was still further diluted by British conceptions and methods of execution on the part of craftsmen who, then as now, were conservative and retentive of the manner of technique and forms of decorative expression instilled by early training. In spite, however, of the dominating Flemish bias imparted to the Renaissance mode in England, distinct traces of a subsidiary but unadulterated source of Italian inspiration recur again and again in the work of the period, showing that the direct connexion with Italian cultural influence was far stronger and more intimate than is generally supposed. We may the more readily credit the existence and potency of this bond when we look into the literary history of the age and find that between the accession and death of the Virgin Queen there were published in England no fewer than 394 translations from the Italian into English and 72 texts in Italian and Latin. When Italian literature found such a receptive audience as these figures prove, when we remember how closely the arts were inter-related in England, when we study the evidence of trade and imports, and when we consider the presence of not a few able Italian craftsmen, whose continued residence and activity in England are matters of historical record, we may be very sure that Englishmen were not insensible to the enlivening impetus of direct contact with Latin sources in matters of decoration.

We also see in this condition a further link in the powerful chain of evidence showing a wide internationalism in art, an internationalism that we are altogether too prone to ignore in the past and assume as a development of modern times.

Under the Commonwealth we find a period of comparative stagnation and arrested growth in matters of English decoration. Certain Baroque tendencies, it is true, came more into evidence than at an earlier date, but, for the most part, it was an era of drab monotony; the minority who still cherished taste and refinement were in too great trouble or weighed down by disabilities too heavy to permit them-to give much encouragement to any form of art, and the greater part of the nation, under the impulse of that strange mania that impelled the rue-faced Roundhead ranters and gloomy Puritan religionists to contemplate in fascinated dread the flaming terrors of hell and to prophesy with savage satisfaction the unalterable damnation of all their kin and neighbours, was much too engrossed in the orgy of morbid introspection to pay much heed to the amenities of architecture or decoration. A few wealthy ” worldlings ” did indulge in ” wicked and unedifying extravagances,” but their example did not produce an appreciable effect.

At the Restoration, the pendulum swung to the other extremity of its arc and the arts of architecture and interior decoration gained all the impetus that usually attends long pent up energy suddenly let loose in a congenial and hitherto forbidden field of activity. The impetus was further intensified in London by the necessity of replacing the ruin wrought by the Great Fire. The large numbers of refugees returning from exile on the Continent in the train of the King brought with them not only a fresh set of polite tastes, requirements and broadened conceptions but also a very considerable quantity of household furnishings and luxurious garniture. Court circles and the people of the country at large alike welcomed all the new and newly invigorated influences — French, Italian, Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Oriental—that successively made their way into England as a result partly of political alliances, partly of expanded trade relations, partly through the immigration of foreign artificers, and partly, though by no means in the, least measure, through a new cosmopolitanism that was gradually spreading throughout the country and sup-planting the old insularity that had received a mortal wound when King Charles the Martyr was beheaded and got its coup de grace when King Charles the Scapegrace, as the Merry Monarch might well have been called, came back from overseas to “enjoy his own again.”

The architecture of this complex Restoration period was catholic enough to employ inspiration derived from French, Flemish and Italian interpretations of the Renaissance spirit and also to incorporate Baroque elements when there was occasion. In the field of interior decoration we find an opulent medley of Renaissance, Flemish, Baroque, East Indian and Chinese influences that combined to diversify the mobiliary manifestations of the period to an hitherto unwonted degree.

Architectural Background and Methods of Fixed Decoration.—Allusion has already been made to the domestic architecture of the age of Elizabeth, which was largely a composite of Flemish Renaissance forms grafted upon an English stock of late Gothic provenance. One might characterise the style as a Gothic body with Flemish Renaissance features and clothes.

The rooms and galleries were large, or at the very least commodious, and the ceilings were frequently though not invariably low in comparison to the other dimensions, unless there was an open timbered roof. The window openings were large and might consist of a range of three or more leaded casements separated by upright posts or mullions of wood or stone, or might rise to a great height, filled with tiers of leaded casements (Plate 5) separated both horizontally and vertically by mullions. Again, the whole end of a room might be filled by one great bow window with the mullion divisions, as in the previously noted oases. In any event, the mullions were an invariable as well as a distinctly characteristic and decorative feature. The casements were glazed with small quarries or with little lozenge-shaped panes leaded together. While the leading alone served as an agreeable decoration, heraldic blasonings and other devices in colour, in the centre of a casement, were often employed to lend additional glow and interest.

The walls were panelled with small oaken panels (Plates 3, 4 and 5), separated by broad stiles and rails, for either their whole height or else for the greater part of it, and when any part of the upper wall was left uncoated with wainscot it was plastered. At the top of the panelling was often a carved and moulded frieze. Projections from the panelling, such as door frames and pilasters, were carved in low relief.

The fireplace and its superstructure always formed an highly significant and much decorated feature of the room. The opening of the fireplace was of generous size and the surround was of carved stone (Plate 4), while the massive superstructure or chimney piece might be either of richly carved stone or of wood (Plate 3) carved with an equal degree of elaboration.

Whether of wood or of stone, the further enrichment of colour and gilding was often added. Equally significant with the fireplace as a conspicuous item in the Elizabethan and Stuart interiors was the staircase, the newel post and the side railing beautifully carved and fretted, which rose by broken flights and landings to the upper floor, sometimes ascending directly from one of the larger rooms, sometimes from a hall or gallery.

Doorways, too, were objects of rich ornamentation (Plate 2), both at the sides, in the shape of either carved pilasters or semi-engaged pillars, and at the top with elaborate carving and moulding, often in the form of armorial bearings with casque, mantlings and sup-porters. In not a few instances, the actual entrance was surrounded by an elaborately carved and panelled screen extending from the floor part way to the ceiling. The door itself not infrequently bore the adornment of wrought-iron hinges and bands with scrolls. The floors were of stone, of tiles and of wood, the latter being most used. Occasionally simple decorative devices were essayed with stone or tile paving, but as a rule the paving was without any pretense at ornamentation.

The ceilings were of beamed wood or of plaster or else there were open timbered roofs. The beamed ceilings commonly displayed the amenity of chamfering and moulding on the beams and frequently the addition of carving. Colour, too, was apt to play a part in the decorative scheme. Open timbered roofs might or might not be plastered between the timbers and characteristic ornamentation of carving and colour some-times adorned the woodwork, while decoration was also extended to the plaster surfaces.

The plastered ceilings were either flat or barrel vaulted or coved. In some cases stucco-duro or parge (Plates 3 and 4) ornamentation was used for the ceiling and consistent decoration in the same media extended to a portion or to the whole of the wall surface above the oak panelling. The over-mantel decoration, too, often consisted of a stucco-duro or a parge composition instead of carvings in stone or wood. The art of working in stucco-duro was introduced into England in the time of Henry VIII and was executed by Italian work-men who continued to ply their craft during a great part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and they taught some of the more capable English artificers to work after the same fashion. For various reasons, however, the art decayed and was eventually supplanted by the simpler substitute of parge work which, while it required less skill of execution, was also limited in the scope of delicacy and the range of motifs which might be executed therein. The stucco-duro ceilings were beautifully decorated with moulded ribs and panels, floriations and other devices, while the plaster portions of walls above the panelling often bore most intricately and deftly wrought friezes of hunting scenes, mythological or historical subjects. The same style of device was likewise used for an over-mantel embellishment and well-moulded strapwork was employed freely. It was not at all unusual further to augment the decorative effect of this carefully wrought stucco-duro work by polychrome treatment in tempera colours.

After the hand of the average English plasterer had somewhat lost its cunning and it became necessary to descend to the cruder parge work, the modelled decoration continued to be applied in the same places as previously noted, but the motifs were necessarily simpler and the execution far less delicate. For a full explication of stucco-duro and parge work, for the methods and motifs employed, and for numerous excellent illustrations, the reader is referred to George P. Bankart’s admirable book, “The Art of the Plasterer.”

When all the resources of fixed decoration just enumerated were fully utilised, the interior of many an Elizabethan or Stuart room was so replete with decorative variety and interest that it gave the impression of being furnished, even before a stick of movable furniture was put in place. This fact deserves close attention for the emphasis it lends to the reasonable contention that interior decoration is not alone a mat-ter of selecting and arranging an aggregation of movable pieces, but comprehends the creation of an whole and complete composition, a conception of the art that too many are unfortunately disposed to ignore.

The interiors during early Stuart or Jacobean times were substantially the same in their principal features as the Elizabethan rooms already described. Certain motifs of carved decoration, such as Romayne work or heads carved on roundels or medallions, fell out of fashion while other motifs came into vogue. The differences, however, were not sufficient to require minute elucidation here and may be satisfactorily explained in a subsequent paragraph. During the Commonwealth there was little architectural or decorative activity and it is not until we come to the Restoration that we find another fully distinct interior type of a widely increasing prevalence.

Beginning with the immediate Restoration period and thence onward to the end of the century, two separate and well-defined types of interiors must be taken into consideration. The one was the type with which we are already familiar, substantially the same as the Elizabethan or Stuart interior, which came down as an heritage from the past with only a few minor evolutionary modifications ; the other was a type for which we are indebted to the agency of Inigo Jones, followed, after the Restoration, by the work of Sir Christopher Wren and his contemporaries, who designed in a vein of much purer Renaissance inspiration than was apparent in the Elizabethan houses, the creations of Wren, however, being perceptibly tinged by a strong French influence, while the earlier designs by Jones were based directly upon Italian precedents. An infusion of Baroque interpretation entered into the composition of this style as well as the basis of Renaissance precedent.

The most signal points of difference between the old Elizabethan and early Stuart type of interior and that of the newer mode were that in the houses of more recent fashion the ceilings were higher: there was a more general regard for symmetry in the dimensions of rooms which, as a rule, were now broader in proportion to their length than formerly and designed to be approximately square rather than oblong : the window openings were taller and not so wide, double hung sashes instead of leaded casements appeared, and panes of glass considerably larger than the old quarries and lozenges, that had been held in place by strips of lead, were now set in substantial wooden muntins : the panelling of the walls—and this was one of the most momentous changes—was made with far larger divisions (Plate 6) and the mouldings surrounding the panels were of wholly different contour and far bolder: finally, in the treatment of both the plaster ceilings and the wooden floors, the spaces involved were regarded as opportunities for coherent and finished composition in decorative design rather than as bare surfaces to be covered with a relieving pattern.

While oak was still used extensively for panelling, pine, deal or Scottish fir, and even cedar were coming rapidly into fashion for the same purpose. This was the age of Grinling Gibbon, when the art of decorative wood carving reached the acme of perfection. For the new style of carving with all its realism, delicacy and undercutting, oak was too hard and open-grained a medium to be worked with the same ease or with the same dexterity of finish as the other woods just mentioned. Delicate carving in low relief was often employed freely on the mouldings of cornices and the surrounds of panels (Plate 6), while for overdoor ornamentation and still more for the enrichment of the chimney piece swags and drops of flowers, fruit and foliage, with human figures, amorini, baskets, urns, birds and other devices in a free and flowing style, with high relief and much undercutting, all together constituted one of the most characteristic aspects of the new mode. These finely wrought carvings were often executed in lime or basswood, which admitted of even more ingenious manipulation than pine, deal or cedar. While the beauty of the woods just mentioned, in their natural state, was fully appreciated, it was also a common practice to paint all the woodwork, carving and all, white or some colour such as grey, greenish grey or blue green and occasionally to apply gilding to mouldings and portions of carving. This practice was especially common towards the end of the century.

Doorways, and very often window casings, were made the objects of decorative wood carving: fluted pilasters with carved capitals, heavy cornices with carved mouldings, overdoor embellishments of an architectural character or panels with carved drops and swags were much used. The overmantel or chimney piece was even to a greater degree the object of careful decorative elaboration. The fireplace surround, with bold bolection mouldings, was sometimes of wood, sometimes of stone or marble. There was no mantel shelf and the chimney piece, reaching all the way to the ceiling, consisted either of a distinctly architectural treatment in classic and Renaissance motifs, sometimes with Baroque features also, or else of a large panel surrounded with heavy mouldings and flanked and surmounted with carved flower, fruit and foliage swags and drops in the characteristic Grinling Gibbon manner. In many instances either a portrait or else a decorative still life painting would be framed in the panel. This empanelling of portraits was not confined to the chimney piece, but was likewise practised to some extent for the walls. Toward the end of the century painted panels for overdoor adornment, too, came into favour and now and again decorative niches with coved or shell tops, for urns, vases or sculpture, were introduced into the panelled walls when there was a good opportunity for such symmetrical composition. Another feature of fixed wall decoration also frequently resorted to towards the end of the century was the setting of mirrors into wall and door panels, a device now made readily possible in England, as well as the employment of larger panes for glazing windows, by the establishment of glass works at Lambeth under the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham.

Just as the panelling of the walls had been proportioned and varied in size, according to the space to be filled (Plates 6, 7 and 8), so also was the ceiling space treated with one consistent and sufficient design (Plates 6 and 137) calculated to satisfy the whole area. Cornice, corner and centre ornaments were conceived in one mode and proportioned to the scale of the room. The devices used were ropes and garlands of laurel, flowers and fruit in bold relief cast in plaster as distinguished from the old stucco-duro work and the parge work that succeeded it, in which latter the relief or ribbing and flower pats were comparatively low, the designs being worked in the raw parge or plaster in situ. Colour and gilding were in many instances added to this cast plaster decoration. Decorative paintings also often occurred in the flat surfaces.

While most of the floors were of well-joined boards without ornamental device, the practice was not uncommon, in the more elegant houses, of inlaying or parquetting the floors in patterns wrought in different coloured woods. In her diary, Celia Fiennes alludes to the floor in a cedar room, of the Restoration period, “inlayed with cyphers and the coronet.” Geometrical patterns in divers coloured woods were likewise used, ” often radiating from a star in the centre of the room.” To some such design Evelyn evidently refers in his Diary in an entry anent the Duke of Norfolk’s “new palace at Weybridge” when he notes that “the roomes were wainscotted and some of them parquetted with cedar, yew, cypresse, etc.” He also notes of another house that “one of the closets is parquetted with plain deal set in diamond exceeding staunch and pretty.”

Furniture and Decoration.—During the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth the articles of furniture in common use were somewhat restricted in number. Chests of all sizes and of all degrees of ornamentation were to be found everywhere and may be regarded as the standard mobiliary unit of the period. It was not until the early days of the Stuarts that tables became really common; prior to that time long boards on trestles often served in lieu of the long, narrow refectory tables with heavy legs, underframing and stretchers close to the ground. The wall furniture comprised hanging cupboards, credences or buffets (Plate 136) and hutches in the earlier days and, in the greater houses, there were often cabinets of more or less elaboration in the matter of carving. Bedsteads with heavy carved posts supporting cumbrous panelled and carved tops were the most imposing items of mobiliary equipment. The seating furniture consisted mainly of backless benches or fonts and joint stools. Chairs, most commonly with arms, panelled backs and carved cresting, were few in number and usually reserved for the heads of families or for guests of honour. It was not until the fore part of the seventeenth century, during the reigns of James I and Charles I, that there was much variety in the kinds of pieces in general use or that houses were furnished in at all an adequate manner according to our notions. Both in the time of Queen Elizabeth and also through the reigns of the first two Stuarts and the Common-wealth period the furniture, almost without exception, was heavy in structure, robust in its proportions and rectilinear in contour, in all of these respects coinciding very fully with the architectural background (Plate 136). So universally was this the case that the mobiliary creations of the period have been not inappropriately referred to as being, for the most part, a kind of movable architecture. While the paragraphs immediately following are to be understood as applying mainly to the furniture of the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, they may be taken as applying also to the furniture of the sixteenth century so far as the pieces therein discussed existed during the earlier period. It is, however, necessary to remember that certain items of decorative detail and ornamentation that had been characteristic in the time of Queen Elizabeth either almost or entirely disappeared very early in the reign of King James. Such an item of difference, for example, was the “Romayne work.” This consisted of human heads carved in relief on roundels or medallions and was popular in the sixteenth century but virtually disappeared at the beginning of the seventeenth. Human figures in ornamentation also dropped almost completely out of fashion.

The pieces of furniture in common use during the reigns of James I and Charles I and the period of the Commonwealth were cupboards of various sorts, cabinets, buffets and dressers, chests, hutches, bedsteads, day-beds, tables of many varieties the most characteristic of which, perhaps, were the long narrow refectory tables, settles and settees, chairs both with and with-out arms, forms or backless benches, joint stools and footstools. The wood of which these piece’s were made was almost invariably oak, although other less durable woods were occasionally used for furniture in humbler houses. The decoration consisted of carving, panel-ling, inlay or marqueterie, painting and, towards the middle of the century, the application of turned ornaments such as oval bosses, lozenges, split balusters and maces, and the formation of intricate geometrical panels by means of applied mouldings.

Carving of several sorts was used (v. pp. 55 and 56, “Practical Book of Period Furniture”: Eberlein & McClure), but the most usual kind was in low but strong relief, often on a sunk ground. The motifs included strapwork, diaperwork, guilloche patterns, lunettes, tulips, hearts, roses and rosettes, acanthus leaves, foliated and fioriated scrolls, grapevines with fruit and leaves, gadrooning, channelling, reeding, fluting, nulling, lozenges, laurelling, palmated chains, pomegranates, notching, “jewelling,” geometrical de-signs and similar devices, all of which were practically echoes of the motifs employed in connexion with the panelling or in the embellishment of one or another part of the fixed woodwork.

The inlay or marqueterie of divers coloured woods and bone was of simple but effective execution and generally showed an adaptation of some of the motifs already mentioned. The aid of colour was more frequently resorted to than many imagine. The carved headboards and panelled canopies of the bedsteads were often enriched with heraldic blasonings and the same form of ornamentation was also applied in other places. There was comparatively little upholstered furniture and such as there was in the early part of the century may usually be traced to a Continental origin; after the principles of the Commonwealth had swept aside tradition regarding the use. of chairs and they had become plentiful, we find both seats and backs frequently covered with either leather or “Turkey work.” For a full discussion of all the furniture during the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, the reader is referred to Chapter II, “Practical Book of Period Furniture” : Eberlein & McClure.

With the access of new and varied influences attending the Restoration and profoundly affecting cultural conditions during the rest of the century, there was not only a vast growth in the taste for luxurious and ample household furnishings but also a perceptible increase in the kinds of articles that came into common use. While the furniture of former days continued in use along with the newer types in a majority of the houses, and while the former styles continued to be copied in country districts, the new modes exercised a far-reaching and modifying effect, completely trans-formed and enriched the average interior where they had been adopted along with the substantial residuum of earlier equipment, and in houses where only le dernier cri of fashion was heeded to the exclusion of all previous vogue—as in the establishments of some of the king’s mistresses—produced a revolution in the art of interior decoration.

In addition to the tale of articles previously set forth as usual items of equipment, we must now mention chests of drawers on stands, highboys and low boys, cabinets with doors on high stands, Chinese lacquered cabinets, with or without doors, on carved stands, chests of drawers without stands, desks or bureaux, bureau bookcases, presses, bookcases, mirrors, tall case clocks and a great assortment of small tables for one special purpose or another. In the matter of contour, we may note that while the old rectilinear principle continued to be strongly felt, the curvilinear influence made its appearance and rapidly gained favour. This curvilinear influence manifested itself plainly in Baroque tendencies and we have such plentiful examples as scrolled legs, hooded tops to cabinet work, curved contours of chair backs in the Portuguese fashion and the beginnings of cabriole leg dominance.

The decorative processes employed included carving, painting and gilding or parcel gilding, veneering, inlay and marqueterie and lacquering. The vogue for lacquered furniture became a positive passion and not only did the importation of numerous Oriental pieces indicate a potent infusion of “the Chinese taste” in interior decoration, but the rage for this species of poly-chrome embellishment led amateurs to engage extensively in the process and the results of their endeavours often achieved an high degree of excellence. The style of carving that now came into fashion was realistic and wholly different from the methods that had previously prevailed. Much elaborately carved or turned furniture was made of pine, lime, beech, birch and other soft woods and then painted and parcel gilt or wholly gilded. The art of veneering was developed to an extent hitherto unknown and produced admirable results in whose composition were considered not only the pleasing effects to be gained from the contrasting colours of different woods but also the divers agreeable effects of grain and the pattern employed. Akin to veneering, but involving greater scope for the exercise of decorative design and the properties of multi-coloured woods, was the process of marqueterie which, in England, reached the high-water mark of its most skillful expression towards the end of the century. The value of upholstery as a decorative accessory was now fully understood and a great many chairs, settees and stools were covered with needlework of gros point and petit point, with velvets and brocades, with silks and even with printed linens and chintzes.

Other Decorative Accessories and Movable Decorations.—In no country has skillful needlework ever commanded more sincere admiration or counted a greater number of proficient devotees than in England. It is not surprising, therefore, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to learn of the high esteem in which the decorative products of the loom and of the embroidery frame were held and of the extent to. which they were utilised in the adornment of houses. Allusion has already been made to the 2600 tapestries which Henry VIII had in his possession. Nor was he by any means alone as a collector. England was always regarded as a good market for Continental tapestries and an enormous number crossed the Channel to be hung up in English halls and bring brilliant colour into sombre oak-panelled rooms. During the reign of James I the Mortlake looms were set up and the exportation of English-made tapestries from the island was several times forbidden.

Besides numerous tapestries a great many other hangings were, used to liven the walls ; velvets with applique devices, embroideries, and large pieces of the curious multi-coloured zig-zag needlework which we are accutsomed to associate with upholstered seats and chair backs rather than with the adornment of walls. When we remember that needlework was one of the principal occupations of ladies of position and quality, we can more readily understand the abundance of this sort of decoration. Besides the hangings for doors and windows, which were often enriched with embroidery, there were the bed hangings and bedspreads by which so much store was set that they were specifically bequeathed by will as important items of inheritance. These hangings and spreads were not only made of costly material, but were enriched with the most lavish and exquisite needlework as well. In the simpler rooms window hangings and bed hangings. were occasionally of printed linen with striking patterns and brilliant colouring.

In addition to the woven and embroidered hangings that decked the walls of oak-panelled rooms, another resource for polychrome decoration was to be found in the stamped, tooled, coloured and sometimes gilded leather that was hung or else fastened tight upon the wall surface. Other wall adornments no less effective were portraits and occasionally other paintings. When neither paintings nor hangings graced the wall, the surface was oftentimes relieved by antlers, heads, fox masques and other trophies of the chase.

Of course, there were numerous small accessories such as candlesticks, sconces, candelabra, and fire dogs, the last named of which were often large and of imposing design. Besides these, such objects as silver and pewter tankards, bowls and platters, pieces of brass and copper, the small brass fireside ornaments and fittings and brass bracket clocks lent welcome spots of interest and lustre.

While many of the floors were strewn with rushes, especially in the fore part of the period under consideration, it was not at all unusual to have rugs made of rushes woven by hand. In the wealthier houses Oriental rugs were by no means unknown.

After the Restoration curtains and draperies assumed an importance in the scheme of furnishing (Plate 1) previously unknown in England. The most splendid fabrics imported from Venice and Genoa, and afterwards made in England, were used for this purpose. Curiously enough, although the Mortlake looms continued in operation during the Restoration period and tapestries were still imported from the Continent, the vogue for this particular sort of wall decoration somewhat languished and abated in use and manufacture, in large measure, no doubt, owing to the new styles of decoration by means of more pretentious panelling, the use of niches, and the inserting of decorative paintings as panels and overdoor embellishments—a change for which Wren and his school were to a great extent responsible. Bed hangings and bedspreads maintained their wonted hold on public taste. Linens and calicoes printed in gay colours and fascinating de-signs, many of them of Oriental origin, took the place of the more expensive fabrics for draperies and hangings in rooms of simpler equipment.

Mention has already been made of the use of mirrors set in the panelling as a means of wall decoration. Mirrors in wonderfully wrought frames were no less esteemed as an effective factor in furnishing elegantly. Since the establishment of glass works at Lambeth and Greenwich it had become possible to obtain the best glass and of a much larger size than formerly and English decorators were not slow to avail themselves of this new resource. Some of the mirror frames were made of coloured, bevelled and engraved glass and were exceedingly rich in appearance. This glass of excellent quality was also turned to account in making large, cut lustres or crystals for the admirably designed chandeliers and .sconces that now became common. Other chandeliers were made of brass, of iron embellished with colour and gilding and of wood painted and parcel gilt.

Paintings, both portraits and pictures of a decorative character, afforded a constantly used resource. And to all this rich array, we must add the colour and grace of form conveyed by the Oriental porcelains the collection of which had become not only a fashionable hobby but an absolute passion among the people at large. Here, again, the power of Chinoiserie showed itself plainly in the history of decoration. The Dutch were not slow to emulate the Chinese and their Delft soon came to hold nearly as high a place in the esteem of English people. What with porcelains, lacquer and other odds and ends of Eastern luxuries that constantly found their way into England, Oriental influence made a deep impression on the modes of the period.

Materials and Colour: Up to the end of the Commonwealth period oak had been the staple wood of England for all purposes architectural and mobiliary, although, of course, there were plenty of occasional departures from this precedent and exceptions to the rule. Nevertheless, the period mentioned must be considered par excellence the “age of oak.” About the time of the Restoration walnut came into popular use, being partly imported and partly derived from native sources which became plentifully available at this time. In addition to walnut, which may be considered the staple wood for fine furniture after the Restoration, other woods were employed for inlay and marqueterie purposes and oak continued to have an accepted position, especially in country districts.

Owing to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and, to some extent, to a certain tide of immigration into England before that event, great numbers of silk workers came over from France and began to ply their craft in England. They soon made brocades and velvets the equals in gorgeous colour, graceful pattern and excellent texture of the fabrics that had previously been imported in vast quantities from Venice and Genoa.

Throughout the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the English colour sense was fresh and vigorous (Plate 1) and, despite the somewhat sombre hue of oak panelled walls, English interiors did not lack for colour and plenty of it. This passion for colour reached its culmination in the latter part of the seventeenth century, so that by 1700 the country was in a. very riot of rich, virile, scintillating colour, a condition that was perfectly compatible with good taste because the massive, strong, and rather dark back-grounds of the architectural setting made. such treatment not only permissible but absolutely necessary.

Arrangement.—During the earlier part of this period the architectural arrangement was rather fortuitous than formal, and the arrangement of the furniture units was much the same. The units themselves were not overly numerous, so that it was not difficult to place the important pieces in the broad spaces where they would be most effective. The fireplace, of course, was always a centre about which a number of movables would naturally be grouped.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century furniture items were far more numerous and notions of symmetrical arrangement, brought back by the refugees, imparted to the rooms an aspect of orderly and balanced composition.

( Originally Published 1919 )

FORM and Colour are the twin foundation stones of art. Form must come first, before the application of colour, but construction is the province of the architect. Wall decoration when extensive may be done by the architect, the decorator, or by both working conjointly. Part I of this book gives a thorough consideration of the treatment of walls in all periods, so that nothing pertaining to form remains here for consideration excepting the arrangement and balance of the furniture and other objects to be introduced into the interior and the matters of design and scale. Consideration of these points will naturally come later.

On the other hand, it is impossible for us even to plan our scheme of decoration without reference to the universally interesting subject of colour.

COLOUR

In this chapter colour will be treated from a simple and practical point of view. It is a subject upon which a vast deal of theory is usually expended, all in itself excellent but usually resulting simply in the obfuscation of the general reader. There is perhaps a better way to communicate it.

As everyone knows, the primary colours are yellow, red and blue, and the binary colours (those composed of two) are orange (yellow and red), violet (red and blue) and green (yellow and blue).

Red, yellow and blue are called primary colours because white light in the solar spectrum separates into these three basic colours. As pure light these colours would fuse back into white. In material pigment they do not quite accomplish this but fuse into grey.

Two simple little diagrams will explain the matter of colour. Yellow, red and blue may be called the “eternal triangle” of colour—let us so arrange them.

As orange is an equal mixture of normal yellow and red, let us place it midway between its two components, also placing the other two binary colours between the components of each. We then have superimposed a second triangle upon the first.

The dotted lines will show at once the opposing or complementary colours. They are opposing because each of these contains none of the other. Orange is a mixture of yellow and red and contains no blue. Blue and orange are therefore opposing. A glance at the diagram will likewise show the other opposing colours. It is simplicity itself.

There is a curious effect which while, of course, experienced by all artists, has not, to the, writers’ knowledge, previously been formally pointed out. It is a most important one to be remembered by all who have to handle colour. Let us glance for a moment at our triangle of yellow, red and blue. Yellow and blue, though occupying opposing points of the triangle and thus contrasting, do yet form a harmony of difference, i.e., they are pleasing in combination.

Blue and red also occupy two opposing points of the triangle and while they are less contrasting than blue and yellow are at the same time less pleasing an harmony.

Yellow and red likewise occupy two opposing points of the triangle. Now these, in their pure state, form no harmony, but rather a discord. If we but remember these things, and also that the three colours in the upper left of the diagram (yellow, orange and red) are advancing or aggressive and warm colours and those in the right (green and blue) are retreating or quiet and cool colours, we have already gone far in the understanding of colour for decoration. Violet is neutral. In decorative practice gold also is neutral.

Our useful little diagram shows that normal orange is half way between yellow and red, i.e., it is composed of an equal power of each. It is evident that if more red be added it becomes a reddish orange, and if more yellow it becomes a yellowish orange. It is also plain that if one follows the dotted line from orange across the diagram to its opponent blue and adds blue to orange he will neutralise the orange by the blue he adds until if a sufficient power of blue were added the orange would be totally destroyed and the combination become grey. It is by this adding of a portion of one colour to another, or the adding to them of white or black that tones are made.

The number of hues and tones to be produced by the mixture of colours is necessarily very large. The most prominent are those composed of any one of the six colours on the second diagram with the one next it —thus yellow and orange produce yellow orange. The others in successive order are red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green.

In practice the most generally useful colours are the slightly greyed hues of these twelve colours and those known as the Tertiary and Quartenary Colours and are produced as follows :

Tertiary: The mixture of two Binary (sometimes called Secondary) colours—Slate (violet and green), citrine (green and orange), russet (orange and violet).

Quartenary : the mixture of two Tertiary colours —Sage (citrine and slate), buff (citrine and russet), plum (russet and slate).

As one thinks of such tones as buff, rose, grey, grey blue, etc., it is plain that such tones are more agree-able and subtle than the strident and hard primary yellow, red and blue.

The strong prismatic primaries and binaries are suitable for accents, about which we shall by-and-by have much to say, but in quantity are not agreeable to cultivated tastes.

With but a few words as to the general characteristics of each colour we shall be ready to proceed to their use in decoration. It should be remembered that these characteristics are those of the pure colours and that in their tones they are modified by the amount of departure from this original.

Yellow: Although sunlight is a white light, yellow gives more of an effect of light than does white itself. If a piece of light yellow paper is placed out of doors on a, gloomy day and glanced at through the window it will appear as if the sun were shining upon it. Yellow in its various shades is therefore useful for the lightening of dark rooms.

Red: It is perhaps safe to say that when the colour red is mentioned many understand by it the colour which is represented by vermilion; nor is this strange when even writers on interior decoration give this hue as prismatic red in their colour charts. Nevertheless, the real prismatic red is a quite different colour, strongly inclining toward the crimson shade and more nearly represented by rose madder or carmine.

Anyone at all familiar with the three-colour process of colour-plate making and its present remark-ably faithful reproduction of tones of every description will at once realise the truth of this, as the “Red” ink used in printing these plates is of a quite carmine hue. The distinction is of high importance, a misunderstanding of the definition of a point at issue being often the main cause of dispute.

It is, for instance, usually observed that red is a very exciting colour. This is quite true of the vermilion red, which contains some yellow and is therefore really orange red, and true to a less degree of the true prismatic red. All reds have the quality of warmth.

Orange: Orange, which partakes of the nature of both yellow and red, therefore combines their qualities of light and heat.

Blue: Blue is one of the retiring colours and is quieting in its influence; it is also cool, in some shades cold. These qualities should be borne in mind.

Green: Green, which is the combination of yellow and blue, has the qualities of light, quiet and coolness.

Violet: Violet possesses richness and sumptuousness, which have associated it with royalty. It has also sombreness, which has associated it ecclesiastically with penitential seasons and death, and individually with a lesser mourning than black.

Having briefly gone over the characteristics and relations of colours, their use in decoration can be taken up, and this can perhaps best be done in an easy-going conversational way. Let us begin with an example:

As a well-dressed man might, for instance, with clothes and accessories of quiet tan, wear a tie of an orange shade, or containing it, so if the colouring of a room were of similar character a strong note might be struck by an orange bowl filled with nasturtiums, an orange screen, or other such object. This strong, introduced note would be an Accent. Without such accent a keyed and related room (or a costume), though harmonious is apt to be monotonous and dead.

But, the man with the tan costume might also, and better yet, wear a tie of blue, and so might the room have a bowl or other object of blue, and if the shade is right it will give an accent of more value and variety than the accent of kindred shade. This is because blue is the complementary or opposing colour of yellow and each therefore gives value and quality to the other.

It will thus be seen that there are two kinds of accent-the related and the opposing—and that without the one or the other a room is characterless and with use becomes exceeding tiresome.

The word accent itself shows its purpose of simply adding emphasis, so that it is at once plain that in such a tan room as we are considering we must not have too much orange or blue (either in mass or number of scattered objects) or instead of accent we shall then have disturbance. It is also obvious that in such a room we might have much more of orange as an emphasis than we could rightly have of blue, because the first is related and the second is not, but is opposing.

It is equally plain that our principles still hold if we reverse the combination. One of the prettiest rooms the writers remember was a simple little guest chamber in a country house. It was furnished in old mahogany and at the rather high-set double windows were curtains of blue and white, while on the floor were simple grey-blue rugs, matching in shade the blue of the curtain. Had there been introduced into this room our previously mentioned orange bowl of nasturtiums the result would have. been perfection.

And the citing of this room brings us to another re-source we have in furnishing. It will be noticed that in addition to the blue in the curtain there was white, and we would now also mention that the wall-paper was of a grey-white with a little scattered snowflake pattern in white talc thereon. We have, therefore, in addition to the blue and orange the introduction of a third element—white ; and a fourth in the mahogany tone of the furniture.

White is not a colour, but is the combination of all the colours and therefore neutral, so that it conflicts with no other color and may safely be used with any.

In the present instance the mahogany is closely related to the orange and contrasted pleasantly with the shade of blue employed, so that here again we have no conflict but a safe and beautiful combination of four colour-elements in the one room. Our resources are growing.

Now say that we introduce, besides the above furnishings, a screen covered with cretonne of which the same tone of blue is the dominant note, but which contains green leaves and perhaps a number of other colours, all of which however occupy lesser space than the blue and are pleasantly related or contrasted—so far as colour is concerned we should still be safe.

We therefore arrive at an important point. Many home furnishers and even some professional decorators are apt to limit themselves too closely for life, variety and pleasantness of effect by the laying out of colour schemes or “rhythmic notes” composed exclusively of varying shades of one colour, or adding simply an accent. On the other hand, many women and even women decorators indulge in a riot of colour without a sufficiently large basis of neutral or at least quiet and undisturbed surface. In short, we see that the two errours to be avoided are all “harmony” with-out “relief” and all “relief” without “harmony.”

We must, in furnishing, therefore use consideration, and a little thought will usually set us right. Take up, as an example, the question of the introduction of the varied cretonne screen into the blue and white room we have been considering. It might, so far as colour is concerned, be safe, but would it otherwise be advisable’? In this room it would not have been, because the room was small and the only unbroken surfaces of blue were the two small rugs. The cretonne, therefore, might have given the room a crowded, restless effect.

Much better, if a screen were required in this case, would be one of which the covering was a plain related blue. On the other hand, had the room been large, with correspondingly large unbroken surfaces of blue and white, the cretonne would have afforded a pleas-ant relief. Here, then, other questions than those of colour have entered–those of space and quantity. Its placing would also have to be taken into account, so involving the question of balance. We note, therefore, simply by way of warning, that in considering one phase of decoration, colour, we must not forget others of like importance and must not be carried off our feet and purchase goods themselves delightful in their col-our effect but inadvisable in other respects for the use we wish them for.

Bearing in mind these interesting principles we can go over the various possible colour-schemes and combinations and see their suitability in many instances and their inadvisability in others, treating each colour as including all its varying shades and tones.

COLOUR IN DECORATION

WHITE AND BLACK

White, not properly a colour, is here mentioned first of all, and for that very reason. It is both a neutral and a universal harmoniser. From the decorator’s point of view we should consider as “whites” not only pure white but all the varying shades, such as grey, cream, ashes of rose, etc., which are too light to be properly classed under those names.

White is also first taken up because walls and ceilings are first to be considered in any furnishing, and for this purpose light shades are most frequently advisable. Of these shades the whites, alone or in combination, are among the very best. Their own beauty and adaptability are a sufficient recommendation, but they possess the further advantage of relieving too great adherence to a given colour-scheme. There is no reason, for instance, why a blue room should be all blue, and proclaim the instant one enters it : “Yes, I am Blue; indubitably, unmistakably Blue.” The use for walls of one of the white or light tones in such a case relieves a scheme which otherwise would be artificial and oppressive. It is quite sufficient that the dominant note of a room should be of the selected col-our without that colour running riot.

Walls in “the whites” will be treated in detail under that section. The same tones are of eminent use for wood-work and curtains and will be discussed under those heads.

White in combination with black recently amounted to a fashionable craze. The combination is rather too startling for a room continually occupied but may have its uses. A reception room with black and white striped paper of not too violent a pattern, and black lacquered or painted furniture upholstered in Chinese or other gorgeous fabric would be effective and not unduly outre. Some of the cretonnes with black and white stripes broken by groups of roses in conventional form are very attractive, and black alone makes the best possible background for flowered cretonnes, bringing out the colours with effect and charm, and being exceedingly sensible, as it does not readily soil.

White in juxtaposition with colours heightens their effect and raises their key, while black reduces and lowers them.

YELLOW, ORANGE AND BROWN

As previously seen, yellow stands for light and in its pure shades makes for cheerfulness in rooms which have but moderate sunlight. By the same token, in strongly lighted rooms it makes for glare. If used in such rooms, therefore, the quieter shades of yellow, such as buff and tan, are usually chosen. Quietness need never mean dullness, but in household practice it too frequently does. We have previously :inveighed against the deadness of many American homes; is it from simple inertia or from incapacity for any originality that so many rooms exist with walls of dead and dull mustard-colour oatmeal paper, which absorbs all light as a sponge does moisture; rugs and portieres in perhaps a darker and still duller shade, “relieved” perchance with brown or sickly cream. Frequently added to this is Mission furniture in the dullest of oak, and leather cushions of the same hue, unrelieved by any ray of brightness, a veritable symphony of mud and mustard! If any reader is unfortunately possessed of such a room we trust he will make speed to import into it some notes of strong orange or blue as previously suggested; but in newly furnishing let us point out the better way. If one wishes to use a quiet shade of buff, etc., there is no objection to quietness if it has life, i.e., enough yellow or orange in its composition to avoid the deadness which, all considered, is really a note of the “ordinary” and the “neutral.”

But quiet tones in even an highly lighted room are not of absolute necessity. It is to be remembered that there are always such things as awnings, shades, Venetian blinds and curtains rich and heavy enough to modify and diffuse a garish light to a happy glow. With such a light it is therefore possible, if one wishes, to employ tones of orange, buff, gold or Chinese yellow, all making for life and cheerfulness.

These tones go well with golden or dark oak, with mahogany, walnut, ivory or painted furniture, so that the yellows are among the most desirable shades for furnishing. It is well, however, not to let this colour —or any other—”run away” with one. A mingling with other harmonising and pleasantly contrasting col-ours is advisable in some of the draperies or in the various objects of ornament a room contains, so as to obviate the artificial air always given by an apartment too definitely of one colour. This is’ notably the case with a strong yellow, for it is unbecoming to some complexions and does not invariably form the best back-ground for the dress of modern women.

The browns are derivatives from yellow mixed with red and some blue. There are many attractive shades, and brown velour for hangings is rich and handsome. The colour should, however, be sparingly used, as it makes for darkness and dullness.

RED AND ITS DERIVATIVES

In its proper shades and proper proportions red is of eminent value in interior decoration. An all red room is too suggestive of the infernal regions for sane and cultured folk. Perhaps the frieze of raw green which so often accompanies such apartments is in-tended as an off-set reference to the Elysian Fields.

The distinction has already been drawn between the true and vermilion reds. Both have. their value, but that of the former is much wider in its application. Indeed, in this prismatic red in its slightly greyed hue of soft crimson, often seen in old silk shawls, and in its lightened tone of rose, we have one of the most useful and one of the loveliest colour resources of the decorator and the home-maker. The deep hues have vitality and warmth, and so are most suitable for city use. Rose has an enlivening and human quality without the heat of the stronger shades, and so in proper quantities may anywhere be used. As red in any shade is an advancing colour its just proportions are naturally much less than of such a retiring shade as soft green and a comparatively small quantity will make it dominant where desirable. Reference to the description of an apartment in the subsequent section on “Unity and Variety” will show a good management of such a scheme.

The soft crimsons above referred to and the soft shades of rose are excellent in solid colours with a stripe or pattern in the weave for upholstering, portieres, and the like. Baby pink is weak and character-less and its use even for the young girl’s room cannot be commended. Far better for this purpose would be walls in some one of “the whites” with cretonnes in a dainty French striped or flowered pattern of rose and blue, with perhaps a trifle of mauve, on a white or cream ground. This with ivory-white or mahogany or painted furniture makes a charming combination. Grey and rose is another attractive and feminine colour-scheme.

In a happy blending with other colours in cretonne and other fabrics, reds have some of their most eminent values. If we are to use colour for beauty, for cheer, for delight—and our lives might be much more enriched by it than at present—it will be found that it is by such happy combinations and blending’s rather than in the laying on of colour in masses that our object will be gained.

The vermilion red is most useful for accents for out-of-doors employment. A few porch chairs of this colour, a hammock, or a small quantity of vermilion on a tent gives a festive touch, in relief to the masses of green in grass and foliage.

BLUES

There are entrancing tones of blue, the employment of which amply justifies the popularity of this colour in decorative use. There are, however, other shades of coldness or hardness of which one can only say : beware.

Furthermore, there is another difficulty in the use of blue to which attention must be called. Both men and women artistically inclined must have noticed in the matter of personal attire how hard it is to secure blue shades which “go together.” With yellows there is not this difficulty; yellows which are even quite different in hue often harmonise well; various shades of red do not always dwell happily together; yet neither of these colours present the difficulty of blue, where a very slight difference in tone often is enough to result in discord. The present writers believe that they are the first to point out the extreme sensitiveness of the colour blue in this respect, and they are glad to pass on the warning to their readers.

We may go further—let us take, for instance, one of the loveliest colour schemes which the colour-loving soul of man has yet devised, old blue and old ivory—a room panelled or papered in ivory white, Louis Seize furniture painted in old ivory and upholstered in old blue, with gold picture frames and candlesticks of the period. It is of the greatest beauty ; it is, as the French would say, “of an elegance,” but does it not lack humanity ? It is not the elegance which proves the obstacle, for if we painted simple cottage furniture in the same tone of ivory, upholstered it in an inexpensive material of the same old blue, and laid cotton rugs of the same hue on the floor, the result would inevitably be the same; it is the nature of the blue; for if it is cool it is also a trifle cold—unloving. But let one take into either of these rooms a bowl of roses (not the purplish American Beauty but the true rose shade, mingled perhaps with cream) and we have an harmony which not only sings but which makes the room a place in which to live.

The artistically sensitive French knew this, and continually we find them mingling with their blue either rose or its lighter shade of pink, or else old gold, which is not quite so good for the purpose.

With these reservations, blue may be heartily commended, especially in its greyed, medium and peacock shades. It is admirably adapted for country and sea-side use, and as previously noted, in proper combination it possesses refinement and elegance.

If baby pink cannot be recommended neither can baby blue—both seem to indicate a “silliness.”

GREEN

Green is another of the retiring colours. It is also cool in many shades, but naturally not so much so as the blue which enters into its composition and which is partially neutralised by its other component, yellow. If a greater proportion of yellow is introduced it be-comes warmer and more advancing, according to the quantity added. As (we write it reverently) The Great Decorator of the World has used these two col-ours of blue and green in sky and sea and vegetation, we must recognise their appropriateness in larger masses than with the reds, and yellows, and brighter blues in which He paints the flowers.

As will be seen in the section on “Unity and Variety” really bright colours are not advisable for walls and ceilings. A green of considerable strength may, however, so be used and “Chelsea” green was much in vogue for panelled walls in Queen Anne’s time.

Green is an eminently suitable colour in its soft tones for rugs and portieres. The violent hues seen in some cheap goods have no place anywhere in decoration. Olive green is rich and handsome; but, like brown, it must be employed in moderation if heaviness is to be avoided. Blue greens are frequently used in painted furniture and when sufficiently relieved with other col-ours are excellent for this purpose. It may be said that green universally needs relief; while a thoroughly wholesome colour as a background and in combination, an all green room would be almost unbearable in its influence, even in the lighter shades. We feel the need of enhancing yellow, orange, or rose.

Soft green, white, and rose is an excellent colour-scheme employed by some British decorators with great success (Plate 64) and too seldom used here.

Blue may also be used with green if the shades of both are right.

Of all colours there are vivid hues which in small quantities may be effectively and beautifully blended with other vivid colours. One of these shades is Paris green. We have seen this combined with vivid rose in a pair of Chinese slippers. But the Chinese are masters of colour: perhaps some day we shall know colour as they do. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon who looks down upon them may sit at their feet and learn.

VIOLET, MAUVE AND MULBERRY

As will later be seen Violet is a heavily worked colour in the “Newer” decoration, elsewhere it is not so greatly employed as others.

We sometimes see rather effective rooms for women in its lighter shade of mauve. There is a dullish, red-dish mauve used in the new French decorations and we have seen wall-paper in this shade striped with greyish white. With textiles of the same shade of mauve much might be done, as it is a firmer and less feminine hue than the usual shade.

Mulberry is a violet so filled with red that perhaps it might better have been included under that colour. It is dark and rich, and if used with a sufficient quantity of lighter colouring is handsome for draperies. Care should be used in selection, for under artificial light some shades of mulberry look brown.

THE GREYS

Normal grey is a fusion of equal powers of the three primary colours, yellow, red and blue. But if there is an excess of any one or two of these the tone would naturally lean toward the colour or colours in excess, so that there are really numerous hues of grey. The warm greys are naturally therefore those which have a yellowish or pinkish tone, while those of bluish or greenish cast are cool.

Greys are preeminently useful as backgrounds, i.e., for walls and ceilings, and of great value in the mingling of various colours in cretonnes and other fabrics ; with green and blue, it prevents the hotness which would result from too much red or yellow.

Occasionally it is employed for the coverings of settees and chairs, and certain shades go well with ivory or gold furniture, the combination being of great refinement and elegance. In such cases, however, grey like blue requires the presence of rose or yellow to give relief.

The cream-grey of linen furniture-covering is cool and refreshing in the heat of summer, but not everyone realises how much the effect will be improved if a few coloured objects, such as couch pillows, etc., are left out to give relief. It would hardly seem needful to point out what a bowl of flowers will do in this respect and yet how often do we see country houses with abundant blooms without and ne’er a flower within.

While probably, if pressed for a close statement, such a theory would be disclaimed, some writers who philosophise upon the subject of colour seem to convey the impression in portions of their text that the qualities of colours are due to their association—that green and blue, for instance, are quiet and refreshing because we associate them with vegetation and the sky. Such a theory would be a distinct errour. Doubt-less these associations may have caused a quicker apprehension and heightening of those qualities in the human mind; but, as indubitably, every true colourist realises that, apart from any association whatever, the qualities we have mentioned are inherently possessed by the colours.

The distinction is of much importance, because we must realise’ that in dealing with colour we are not employing mere symbolism but are handling media whose character is fixed and known.

It is perhaps because of such cloudiness of statement as we have noted that “practical people” who know the actualities of steel, for instance, and respect the builder of the bridge or the skyscraper for its use, often feel that the man who insists upon employing colour in a way fully as appropriate for his purposes is but “fanciful and foolish.”

The simple fact is that no branch of human endeavour is more firmly based upon principles of eternal truth than is Art.

COLOUR AS DICTATED BY PERIODS AND STYLES

It should be remembered that in certain periods certain colours, patterns, and textiles were most used with the interiors and furniture of those periods. These have all been duly treated under those periods in Part I of this book, and if a period furnishing is to be followed, should be thoroughly studied.

These details will not usually be found hampering, as goods in appropriate textures and colours may nearly always be had sufficiently near to the period use to be appropriate.

It should be remembered that with dark-panelled ‘Walls full-bodied colour was naturally used as relief.

VALUE

So far, the term value has not been used, and yet the thing itself has virtually been dealt with in our discussions regarding colour and will necessarily occur again and again throughout this volume. It might conversationally be defined as the lightness or darkness of objects irrespective of their colour. To illustrate, sup-pose we have before us two samples of goods, one a turquoise blue and the other a crimson. Now, putting aside for a moment all question of colour, we at once see that relatively the first is light and the second is dark—these are the ” values ” of those respective pieces of goods. A study in values is given in Plate 58.

The question of value comes into decoration in the form of contrast. We may think of introducing a certain object into the furnishing of a room; its colour may be perfectly satisfactory, but when we try the effect we may find that the object is so light or so dark that it separates itself from all others and “jumps” at us. Its “value” therefore is too high or too low for the room.

SCALE

Scale in colour is a proper correspondence in the intensity of the colours used. An absolute correspondence would be either the use of all the colours in their strongest hues or else a greying of them all in a like degree. Such correspondence as this makes for harmony—and also for monotony. A total want of correspondence makes for entire incongruity. Let us exemplify—as to the first, a whole room done in pastel shades, all equally greyed, would be uninteresting to the last degree. As to the second: bring into another room, in which the textiles are precious antiques of quite sufficient but time-softened colour, a new cushion of raw, untamed red-orange or brilliant blue—and you bring disaster. The existing beautiful tones would be “killed” by the new arrival, and of that itself we should immediately exclaim : “Take it away; it is all out of scale!”

Entire correspondence or entire dissonance should therefore be avoided and an harmonising but not equal degree of intensity decided upon. The reason for this is plain. Some accent is needed for relief and contrast, but over accent simply produces disturbance. We have, it is true, the contrast of the colours themselves, but to avail ourselves of the whole gamut of colour we should add a proper degree of contrast in their intensities also.

A quiet or soft colouring is one in which most of the tones are greyed, with a few of somewhat greater strength: a brilliant colouring is one in which most of the colours are high with a few of somewhat lesser in-tensity: and necessarily there is a succession of degrees between. The degree decided upon is the pitch or key.

And not only may a certain key of colour exist in an individual fabric, but throughout a room full of them: and the same plan of accent may there also prevail. Many decorators, for instance, use in general fabrics of soft colouring—because they are naturally harmonious and easy to manage and then “key up the room” with a few notes of more intense but not incongruous colour with perhaps a black satin cushion or two to add to the contrast. But if one has a proper colour-sense it is not necessary to “play safe” to this degree–the Orientals have never found it obligatory to be anaemic in order to be harmonious. We may take the cue from them and from the age of Louis Quinze, when colouring was, exquisite but nevertheless in good strong tones—in tones, however, not in raw and undiluted rainbow hues.

THE PROPORTIONS OF COLOURS

The proportions in which the respective colours in a colour-scheme should be used have been given and we may mention those in a particular harmony:

Sage 1/2, slate and citron 1/2 each, green 1/2 and blue and yellow 1/32 each.

Such examples are useful as indicating the large amount of neutral tone as opposed to stronger hues commonly advisable; especially for amateurs in furnishing and those who have not a strongly developed colour-sense. It would manifestly be absurd, however, to attempt to apply in practice such tables literally or in any “rule of thumb” manner, measuring off so many square feet to be in such a colour, so many in another, and so on. As there is nothing like actual demonstration let us try it and see.

The proportions in each instance are based on the normal colours, and the moment these are departed from the conditions are changed. In the example given the green would (from its quantity) naturally be employed in the textiles-furniture-coverings, curtains and door-hangings. We should hope that no one would use for these the unadulterated prismatic green, yet that is the hue provided for in the above proportion-table. A modified green would, of course, be chosen, and according to the extent of its modification so could a larger proportion of this colour be employed with a consequent reduction of the amount of whichever neutral the modification impinged upon.

Ceilings usually approximate white, and wood-work and sash curtains are very frequently white; in such cases, then, we have the intrusion of another neutral, still further lessening the necessity, at least, for the employment of so great a body of sage, slate and citron.

But more important still is the advisability (not reckoned with in the proportion table.) of introducing other colour. There has been entirely too much of this “keying and relating” of quiet tones, resulting in the reaction of the modernists who in some phases have run riot in the contrary direction. Let us be both scientific and sane. To stick to our example the general effect of a room in this colour-scheme would be greenish, and the relieving strong colours yellow and blue also equal green. Now the complementary of green is red, and the complementary should always be introduced to give relief. There should, therefore, be some touches somewhere of a modified red, such as rose, garnet or the like. Look at the blue and yellow scheme with a touch of rose in Plate 63: now lay a piece of white paper over the rose and see how the scheme immediately “goes dead.”

And with all the exemplifications of the past, why in the name of art should we confine ourselves to the poverty-stricken colour-combinations we so often see? We might sometimes think from these that blended colour does not exist. Consider the frescoes and tapestries and banners, the glorious needlework, velvets and brocades from the Renaissance to the days of Louis Seize; visit the museums and observe the wonders of Oriental art: look at the indications of colour evident even through the medium of half-tone reproduction in such an interior as Plate 139 and in such textiles as are shown in Plates 130 A, 143 B, 144, 145 A, B and C, 152 B, 162 A and B. We may then realise what colour has been and may be again !

The secret of the decorative effect of blended colour is an open and very simple one. Let us take, for example, a picture or a piece of textile. The hues of either may be of much variety and even brilliant in themselves, but to a great extent they complement and thus neutralise each other, some one colour,, however, being dominant. If we look at a picture or a fabric, then, we shall see two results—if good it counts as a beautiful piece of blended colour; nevertheless its total effect is not a confusion but is generally neutral, with red, yellow or another hue somewhat in ascendancy over the rest. This explains why we may, if we so wish, use an immense deal of colour provided it is properly balanced.

UNITY AND VARIETY IN HOUSEHOLD DECORATION

The improvement in household decoration is one of the most encouraging signs of American artistic development, but in many instances it is but partial: only in the case of the most widely cultured, or those employing the best decorators, can it be called complete. Most reforms begin in the same manner; the improvement at first is usually one of details, finally sweeping on to their proper end.

Household decoration in this country, then, began with the room as its unit, whereas the proper conception is the house, or apartment, as the unit, each room being merely an integral part of a consistent whole. The faulty point of view so largely obtaining has usually resulted in disunity—greater or less in degree according to the taste of the owner. To the average householder, and equally the average decorator, the thought of complete consistency in decoration has hardly occurred, and when it has the result has been at the expense of the equally desirable and necessary variety. It will be the purpose of the present section to point out, and for the first time, how both may be obtained.

DISUNITY

What then is the disunity against which our attention should be directed? Let us at once realise that a home, a club-house or even a hotel is not to be a congeries of rooms of various styles, characters or colourings : it is an entity, and if in the final result we do not feel it to be such then there is disunity.

Happily the day is past when we have such examples as “Harthover,” amusingly described in “The Water-Babies,” where the third floor was Norman, the seeond cinquecento, the first Elizabethan, the right wing Pure Doric and the back staircase from the Taj Mahal, but unfortunately we may still cite such examples as the following—examples that would be unthinkable at the hands of the best men but which are not beyond the perpetration of some whose establishments bear the sign “Interior Decorators.” The hall wall then, say, is of a greenish-gray sand-finish, and the furniture of mahogany. In open view at the left is the library, in Tudor style, with panelled walls and bookcases of dark oak and with upholstery and hangings of a deep crimson red. On the right is the drawing-room, with walls of yellow damask, and Louis Seize furniture in ivory-white, covered in the yellow of the walls. At the rear we discover the hospitable dining-room papered in blue, with its festive board and other furniture in quartered oak of golden hue. Each one of these rooms may be consistent in itself—but fancy the prospect to the visitor entering the hall and from his point of vantage glancing about at the disunity opened before him in these four rooms.

Even if the construction of the house made it possible for us to view but one of these rooms at a time the result would intrinsically be nearly as bad,, because one’s optical memory is not so short that the character of one room is forgotten in passing into the hall and on into another room.

We may still say that there are builders; who are not architects, that there are artisans who are not artists.

THE IDEAL

The most certain method of improvement in any direction is the keeping before us of an ideal; or, to phrase it in our more modern way, the scheme of “what we are after,” and that scheme must be firmly based upon the facts and circumstances.

The home, to suit the requirements of modern life, must possess two sets of qualities. On the one hand our aim should be to secure a restful habitation, not a museum or a melange. The watchwords here may be rest, peace, sleep. On the other hand we are living, active human beings, fond of variety and filled with many interests. These may be comprised in the words cheer, action, companionship. Our homes must express both. The first means unity: the second variety. How shall we accomplish the securing of the one without sacrificing the other?

UNITY

Unity must exist in many directions but one of the most important of these is colour—and it is one of those most frequently violated. Unity in its other relations will be considered in other chapters.

As shown in the chapter on “Walls: as Decoration and ,as Background,” neutral backgrounds are by no means a necessity; they are, however, largely employed by all good decorators and certainly much simplify the work of the person superintending his own furnishing. Indeed, when we consider the following line of thought regarding backgrounds, it will be plain that treating the walls of a series of rooms in other than a rather, neutral manner will land the amateur among problems which while susceptible of solution he might find beyond his management.

BACKGROUND

I. If we preserve unity in the background (walls and ceilings) we shall then have a basis throughout the house which will act as a balance to the various other colours that we may and should introduce in attractively furnishing it. Naturally this unity does not need to be actual identity; it will suffice where rooms are but singly visible if a general impression be kept. Where rooms communicate it is certainly better that the likeness should be very close: if, for instance, one is panelled it would be better that both should be, and that the tones should be the same in each. If the walls are painted or papered the general tone of wall-surface should be kept, but identity is not necessary, especially if the purpose of the rooms be different.

II. A moment’s practical thought will show us that if we keep this unity throughout and choose any strong colouring for our walls, we should have a definitely yellow, red, blue, green or purple house—a condition which would be intolerable. We are therefore guided to the selection of a more neutral colouring.

III. Neutrality means to many—drabness. To the lover of beauty it means some of the most beautiful tones in a beautiful world. Among these are the ivories, champagne, dull gold, creams, buffs and certain tans; pinkish grey or ashes of rose, bluish grey, greenish grey and mauve grey, or the combinations of these.

FLOORS

Some good decorators also extensively use rugs of the same character, or at least general colouring, throughout the house, considering the floors as a portion of the background and likewise choosing neutral shades such as grey and taupe. This is usually unnecessary and involves too great a sacrifice of decorative opportunity.

FURNISHINGS

The securing of unity by harmonious and closely related backgrounds is much, but suppose we should now proceed to fill this beautiful shell of the house, apartment or club-house with objects of many incongruous hues ! Should we not at once destroy the unity we had taken such pains to secure? And yet, speaking by and large, there is usually too little colour in American and British homes rather than too much–and the too little is often badly used.

The truth is that the western nations have greatly lost their colour-sense, either through materialism, drabness of life, or what other defect it behooves us not to argue here.

The principles of colour harmony which have been mentioned are true of all intensities of colour and are therefore perfectly adapted to any of the three tendencies in decoration—as has been mentioned some decorators use in general quiet, attenuated shades of colour and then “key up” with a few more vivid spots: others use tones such as those shown in the colour-charts, of sufficient vitality and yet of a harmonising quality: the so-called “Modern” school, considered in the next section, uses strong and positive colour. The plan which will be suggested is of equal use whichever degree of intensity may be decided upon.

THE USE OF COLOUR IN DECORATION

Blue and the greens which contain but the normal proportion of yellow are retiring and are cool.

All shades of yellow and of red, except those largely neutralised by the admixture of other colours or o black or of white, are advancing and are warm in tone.

Suppose, then, we place in a room with neutral back-ground rugs of a soft green and hang portieres of the same in the doorway. So far, we shall have a room which is quiet, cool and restful. We shall also find that it lacks life, and in continual occupancy would prove somewhat depressing in its influence over mind and body.

If the reader will refer to Plate 59 he will find a room in which the rugs and portieres are of just this character, but into which have been imported a few touches of rose. The depression has gone; the quiet remains; the room is now livable and “human.” These few touches of rose have done the work.

Furthermore, although these touches are few and although rose is but a modified red, it will be found that the rose is more noticeable than the green.

If yellow and blue had been used instead of rose and green the result in these respects would have been much the same. In other words yellow, orange and red are dominant over green and blue and such quiet shades as tans, brown and greys.

Shades of yellow and of red, and their combination orange being dominant, if we choose any one of these shades and carry it by the use of various objects and furnishings throughout the various rooms we shall have unity.

We may use then, with the above, other and quieter colours alone or in combination in the different rooms and we shall have variety.

Let us take a concrete example.

The illustration (Plate 59) was painted directly from an actual bedroom in an apartment. How shall unity and variety be carried through the remaining rooms? Let us take up each in detail.

Reception Room. Such a room may well be characterised by greater elegance than a bedroom and yet should preserve an inviting and companionable atmosphere rather than the formal frigidity often experienced. Rose having been selected as the dominant (though one of, the others might have been chosen as well) it must also be used here, and as it possesses both the qualities of elegance and humanity it may be used in considerable quantity. We shall need ample relieving surface, so that it would be well to employ a panelling in ivory-white or else a handsome paper of the same general tone, striped or brocaded in the surfacing and not in another colour. The bedroom shown in the illustration was afterward papered in this tone and two rooms so carried out would thus harmonise as to the wall effect.

We should also have ample relieving space in plain or approximately plain colour. Indeed, in choosing for an example the apartment, or the equivalent house with small rooms, the writers have consciously chosen the most difficult subject with which to deal. The difficulty lies in the fact that one of our most beautiful decorative resources is the rug and fabric of blended colouring, but as these cut up and crowd in effect the small room we must forbid ourselves the, use of these in such instances or choose them with great discretion. As we shall have much colour in this room before we have finished, it would be wise to choose one rug, largely covering the floor, of plain warm grey, or in two tones of that colour closely approaching each other and in small and simple pattern, or plain with a deeper border. The portieres had also better be of rather solid color—a rose velvet, a brocade of unobtrusive pattern or the less expensive rep of irregular weave. On the chair-coverings we may let ourselves go considerably. For these we may select preferably perhaps some such material as the stripe shown in the chart or a blend of various colourings in which rose shall be dominant. This fabric might be of cream, rose and blue stripe, not too wide in pattern, or of tapestry, or petit point, again not so large in design as to be out of scale with the room or the surfaces covered. If there is a sofa or settee it would naturally have the same covering as the chairs, but if there is a large couch instead it would be better to use a plain material such as Burgundy rose velour and again let ourselves go with an abundance of varied but harmonious cushions. A chart of this colour-scheme is given in Plate 60, but it must be remembered that in all these charts the samples of textiles are necessarily much out of proportion to the large surfaces of walls and floors.

The lamp had better be of vase shape in grey pottery, or mottled rose, or solid black with a reflecting surface, or of Chinese porcelain, and the shade in rose silk. The black bowl is exceedingly effective and the rose of the shade reflects in its upper curves.

In any room relief may be secured, where necessary, in the smaller objects, and this relief may be either in the direction of greater neutrality or more colour. Such an article as a vase of ivory-white or grey porcelain or pottery would give the former, a handsomely tooled binding in blue, a colourful brocade or Chinese textile or embroidery under the lamp would aid in supplying the latter. The gold or silver tones of candlesticks, etc., add richness and variety.

It will have been understood from the above description that there is not only no intention of confining the readers to the materials shown in the charts but that they may go far afield in choice provided the general colour-scheme and proportions be kept. And this is true of tone as well as of fabric, for it may be considerably altered so that harmony is preserved, and the shade of one fabric may well be lighter or darker than that of another. The same effect may also be carried out in very inexpensive materials.

Second Bedroom. If this room communicates with the first (a portion of which is shown in Plate 59) it should by all means be in the same colouring of green, rose and white. This does not presuppose monotony but harmony, and variety may be gained in numerous other ways: in the disposition of the furniture, in the treatment of the bed and the windows and in the smaller objects, for instance. Other small variations may be made, such as using plain or self-figured rose for the chairs, instead of cretonne. Indeed, cretonne has been so greatly employed of late years that restraint in this respect is advisable. If the two rooms do not communicate we may use blue as the secondary colour, and of this scheme a colour chart is given (Plate 61). The paper might be of the narrow stripe in cream and grey : and we might add that this colour-combination in any form is excellent for either a warm or cold exposure. The rugs should be mainly or entirely of blue. The chair-coverings may be in any material (perhaps tapestry) giving approximately the shades and proportions of the sample—the blues not too bright and greater in quantity than the rose. Or these coverings may be in rose and an additional supply of blue be introduced elsewhere so as to carry it through. A room is a picture painted with materials of various sorts instead of with pigment, and the principles in both arts are the same—the prominent colours should not be in one spot of each only but be judiciously distributed in smaller quantities elsewhere as well. A screen might be in blue, or better still in blue and grey, the grey harmonising with that in the walls.

So far we have four colours—the blue, the rose, the grey of the walls and the colour of the furniture—perhaps mahogany. We may extend our palette still further. In the sample given in the chart of a possible chair-covering, tans and greens appear with harmony. Into a room furnished much in this general key was recently introduced a canary in a tan Chinese bird-cage with emerald green tassels. It proved an inspiration in the direction of varied colouring.

The blue rugs above referred to should be kept simple. The border or design could be of rose or of quiet tan if there is some quantity of this elsewhere in the room. The shade for the lamp or electric lights had better perhaps be plain rose silk.

It is to be noted that while this colour-scheme has been assigned to a bedroom it is equally available for rooms of other character, and that most of the colour-schemes are interchangeable. They have been thus as-signed only to give concreteness, such examples being much more helpful than much loose generality.

Sitting- and Sewing-room. It is with such rooms as these that we may secure charming results at little expense. Let us take as an example the sensible shades of tan or wood-brown, with rose again dominant to carry through the unity of the, apartment. The room chosen for such a purpose should naturally have a good light. If it be sunny and warm in tone choose the cooler shades : if it has a north light warmer ones should be selected. The choice of goods is wide and one may readily secure decorative materials from quiet greyish wood-browns to rich and warm tans.

In the chart (Plate 62) is exemplified a rather warm combination, but with cooler paper of a linen shade. It could run into ashes of rose, cream or light buff, if not too strong, and still not essentially depart from the general key of wall surface we are employing throughout, because it will look cooler in combination with the colouring of the other surfaces in the room than it really is.

The assortment of inexpensive rugs at our command is perhaps greater in tans and browns than in other colours, so that we may easily make a choice.

Good general tones for a bordered rug are given in the chart, but it would be well to have some small pattern in the central portion, because every thread dropped in sewing shows upon a solid colour. Any pleasing and harmonious design may be chosen, but it should be quiet if one follows the writers’ suggestion that here if anywhere is the place to use cretonnes. Two samples are given in the chart, one a little brighter and cooler than the other. There are many others as good as either, and they run all the way from 75 cents to $4 a yard, or more. Neither of those shown is expensive.

Dining-room. A dining-room should always be most attractive, and we have reserved for it one of the most charming of colour-schemes—pinkish rose and silver grey. As it is not possible to give additional charts, this is omitted, as the general plan has been so fully dealt with that a few observations will be all that are necessary. As usual the quantity of the neutral shade should be larger than of the dominant, pink-rose. The rug had better therefore be of grey, though it may contain rose or have a rose border. If the sideboard is of the Sheraton type with brass rail for a curtain this latter may be of one of the beautiful pink-rose and silver-grey stripes, in which the satin of the grey lights up with a silvery sheen. The screen before the serving table may be of the same, as this material possesses both quiet style and elegance. The lights may be shaded with rose, casting a warm glow over the room. It would be much better with this combination to have the side-lights and candlesticks of silver finish rather than of brass.

While we have taken rose as the dominant note throughout there are other shades of red which might be chosen; such as Burgundy or a soft crimson. These are darker and less luminous than rose and would require more discrimination to blend happily.

When we have said that either yellow or orange may be used as the dominant over blue, green, grey, or tan, and in combination therewith, we have covered the whole gamut of colour, for the shades of any of these may be infinitely varied provided that harmony is pre-served. If one prefers the still more softened and greyish tones to those given they may as readily be used, but in the proper proportions of the colours in the actual atmosphere of a room all of the schemes will be mellow and harmonious.

Violet has not specifically been mentioned, though it may well take its place among the blending of col-ours in cretonnes, tapestries, etc. In its pure tones it is a difficult colour to carry through a series of rooms. When used its natural relief is gold or cream colour or both. Grey mauve is a delicate and beautiful colour for a boudoir but inappropriate for more robust rooms.

It may here again be said that as the materials used in the colour charts and mentioned in this section are variable in many directions, the same idea may be carried out irrespective of the employment of costly or inexpensive goods. It is naturally difficult to suit all circumstances, as one reader may be able to use antique furniture, rare fabrics, Ming vases and costly rugs, and another, who deserves equal attention, may be limited in means but mightily interested in the improvement of his home.

Though such immense variety has already been provided for, this plan extends still further in its scope. One dominant may rule two quieter shades of approximately equal quantity as, for instance, rose or yellow over green and tan. Nor have we as yet considered the correlative idea.

THE CORRELATIVE PLAN

As, has been said, yellow, orange and red are dominant and advancing colours except when attenuated by the admixture of other colours or of black or white. Suppose, therefore, we attenuate them. Yellow and orange when so reduced become tints and tones—creams, champagnes, buffs, tans, browns and olives. Attenuated red, except in the shades we have mentioned of rose, Burgundy and mulberry, are not so useful in decoration. Pink alone is rather jejune, though in blending with other colors it is very happy and enlivening—a pink and apple-green sprigged pattern on a cream-white ground is a good example. Brickish red has its uses, as in floor tiles and fireplaces, but is vigorous, owing to its still retaining a great strength of red. The pinkish grey known as ashes of rose, is of great delicacy and refinement and so one would hardly care to carry it through more than two rooms, unless in a woman’s apartment.

Let us therefore consider the derivations of yellow; for here we have great scope. In these tones it has lost its dominant qualities and may so be carried through a series of rooms ‘in quantity, to produce unity, other colours being used in various rooms as relief. This, it will be seen, is the correlative or reverse of the former plan. In that the dominant, was carried through; in this the neutral will be.

In order to illustrate as fully as possible within limits we give a colour chart embracing two rooms (Plate 63). To begin with the walls—where we should always begin—those in the drawing-room may be papered in a rich stripe or brocade of champagne. Better still would be panelling, enamelled in the same shade.

Either the beautiful blue and gold brocade or the yellow and grey stripe, or something approaching either, might be used for the chair-coverings in this room, the unused one being employed in another. The rug could be a plain or small-figured one of the tone shown, or of the lighter shades seen in Chinese rugs. It had certainly better be plain or plain with a plain border if used with the delicately patterned blue and gold fabric. If a Chinese rug of unobtrusive pattern, and with the usual blue designs, very quiet in tone, could be secured this might be used with the stripe. If the blue and gold is employed a few touches of rose would be required in small objects to give warmth and life. An entirely blue shade for the lamp should be avoided—it would give too cold a light. It should be of a deeper champagne or yellow, either plain or with only a little blue. Any picture frames used should be of gold (dull) and lighting fixtures of brass, also dull. Candlesticks should be of brass, not silver.

In carrying these modified yellows through a series of rooms the tones used may vary considerably where the rooms do not communicate. Instead of champagne we may go off to creams and buffs and tans with some use in the rugs of even browns or olives. Yellow, mauve, and grey; yellow, blue, and grey; and buff, grey, and rose are all exquisite combinations. A very happy colour-arrangement recently seen was this : panelled walls painted deep cream, softly polished black Sheraton furniture, a Chinese rug of a beautiful grey-blue with design in buff and rose, and draperies in striped tan and grey-blue. Transitions should nowhere be sudden and startling but should be gradual and harmonious. And with these many varying shades we may and should employ other varying colours as relief. Nothing so gives an apartment a “decorated,” arranged, and artificial look as the too great prominence of a colour carried throughout : whether it be the dominant or the base which is so carried we should simply feel its presence ; it should not jump at us at every step.

In the colour charts it must be remembered that it is possible to show only enough of the wall material to suffice for colour. In the actual work there would be a far greater proportion. Not only must there be large surfaces of these more neutral shades, but also a sufficiency of plain or nearly plain more strongly coloured area to balance the ornamental fabrics used. In general, ornament demands the relief of plain surfaces, plain surfaces demand the relief of ornament. The. writers especially wish to impress these two points, regarding a not too great prominence of any one colour and a not overloading with ornament; as, if the method given were otherwise carried out, the intention would be parodied and a sincere attempt at helpfulness quite destroyed.

THE LARGER SCOPE

A consideration of unity and variety would not be complete without thought directed toward the decoration of larger premises than those so far discussed. Their treatment is at once easier and more difficult; easier because the large room gives more scope to the play of decorative facilities; more difficult only because there are more rooms.

Their very spaciousness, if not cluttered with objects of all descriptions, has the effect of minimising pattern and harmonising colour. The smallness of a floor debars us from cutting it up with design, lest it look smaller than ever: and if we did use quiet Oriental rugs we should have to exercise our wits and our energies to find two or three sufficiently akin in tone and figure. Upon a spacious floor we may, however, by the use of due discrimination distribute several pieces even of differing characters. The few chairs which may find place in a small room must usually, for the avoiding of distraction, be covered with the same material: in the large living-room we may use one covering for most of the seating facilities and then indulge in a burst of varied colour with the big easy upholstered chairs. Chests, large cabinets, consoles and large luxurious couches are mostly forbidden by smallness of space but are the very things we need where there is abundance of room.

The opportunities for variety provided by the system here outlined are almost infinite. In a house of thirty rooms half a dozen of them might be in one general scheme and yet each be individual. If in so many the combination of rose and blue were used, for example, the rooms themselves would be on different floors and for different purposes—perhaps a drawing-room, nursery, man’s room and boudoir with accompanying bedrooms. The furniture and furnishings of these various classes would naturally make a decided difference in the employment of the colouring and give very different effects. Then in one room the rose would be used in one place and in another in a different place; the shades may vary considerably; the additional col-ours used for relief need not be all alike; plain goods would be used in one situation and blended or patterned in another and the character and designs of the textiles would naturally not be the same. In a boudoir and adjoining bedrooms the furnishings of the former would be the more luxurious—to mention one particular alone the curtains of the boudoir would be silken, perhaps with such an applique as: is suggested in the chapter on Windows ; those of the bedrooms might appropriately be a beautiful white net. An indication of the varying treatment of communicating bed-rooms has already been given. In a man’s room the colouring might well be deeper and more masculine—mulberry or Burgundy and plum-blue; in a young girl’s the lighter French flowered stripes of rose and blue on cream; thus totally varying the tone and character, yet preserving the adopted hues and the unity thus gained.

THE USE OF COLOUR IN THE “MODERN” DECORATION

The employment of colour is probably the most outstanding feature of this method of decoration, de-scribed in the last chapter of Part I, and the more extreme examples of its use are apt to irritate persons neutral by temperament or training, precisely as does “noise” in modern music. The use of positive colour in the days of William and Mary in England and Louis Quatorze in France was as great as it is among the modern men and women, and yet it is safe to believe that interiors of those periods would not affect the quieter-minded as do some examples of modern work. This is but to say that in these specially mentioned cases the use of colour is not happy and that their harmonies (?) need revision or use in a different manner. Turquoise and blue-green have run a maddening course: one might sometimes think that blue-green, strong violet and red-orange, and green, golden-yellow and blue-violet were the only colour combinations known, were it not for such others as red-orange walls with bright blue woodwork and furniture, and a typically German ugly green, red and tan “relieved” by mauve. The unentrancing terra-cotta also has its innings. Now these hues may be, or were, more unusual than the beautiful rose-reds, yellow buffs and tans, grey-blues and apple-greens—and the fact that they were not employed in such quantities and prominence by the master colourists of the past shows us there was a reason.

There is also occasionally a tendency to use but two well-harmonising colours in a room : such as ivory and blue. grey and green, yellow and cream, yellow and blue—every one of which combinations needs for re-lief touches of rose-red or orange.

Absolute white and black has been greatly employed, to which there is no objection except that it is much more apt to stand apart from colour than would ivory and black.

With the object of seeing just why these combinations have been so greatly exploited the writers have gone over a large body of Peasant Art, which, as has been said in Part I, is one of the inspirations of the movement. They found red-orange walls and ceilings stripped with blue-green, and the primitive yellow and vermilion red with black and white, but in the overwhelming majority of cases tones were used and in beautiful combinations. Many of these tones were bright and cheerful and others quiet. So useful are these combinations as suggestions for colour-schemes that it will be far more valuable to mention some of them than to recite for adaptation what has already been done by modern decorators. The manner in which these schemes may actually be used is indicated in the section on “Unity and Variety” just preceding. These colour-memoranda are given just as transcribed, mostly from costumes and textiles, as these notes sometimes show the general proportions in which the tones are used. Doubtless some of these combinations have been employed by modern decorators.

Cream white, plum, brown, pale rose red, with touches of buff and pale blue.

Cream, buff and indigo, relieved with touches of soft red.

Background of gun-metal grey, design in pale buff and a tone of light red.

A tone of cranberry red, tone of bluish-green, tone of indigo, all relieved with pale-buff.

Reddish buff with relief of maroon, white and dark green (nearly black).

Cream and strong orange, light indigo and black. Burgundy rose, medium green, light yellow, black and white.

A very odd one was cream, light plum and salmon, relieved with light yellow and black.

And a very beautiful one from an Italian costume, cream white, Burgundy rose, quiet apple-green and plum, with a spot of red (which would better have been bright rose) and small touches of indigo and bright orange.

Tan, yellow, dull blue and dull green.

Firecracker red, dark blue, green and black.

Regarding colour and colour-combinations, it should be remembered that even among artists and experts there is a certain amount of divergence of view as to what is attractive and harmonious, due probably either to the individual eye or temperament, and so it is unwise to indulge in too much dogmatism upon the subject. This applies also to intensity of colour, strength being a delight to some and a positive disturbance to others. As a general rule it may, however, safely be said that the prismatic colours in their purity should be employed only in small portions, but that tones, and good strong tones, too, such as those shown in the colour-plates of this chapter, will blend well when properly used and in proper proportions.

Colour in the home is productive of joyousness and cheer, and in its right use is in no way hostile to rest-fulness and peace.

Suggestions for the practical use of colour in this newer decoration naturally appear in their respective departments—the chapters on Walls, Floors and Textiles.

( Originally Published 1919 )

INTRODUCTION.—In England and America, the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the nineteenth, which really belong to the preceding century through stylistic affinities and as a directly logical outcome of influences well under way before the year 1800, constitute a period of the greatest complexity as well as of the greatest interest. It will be understood that what is said in this chapter applies to the American Colonies and the infant republic, after its severance from the Mother Country, as well as to England. But it must also be distinctly understood that all the evolutions of the ^styles considered reached their full and richest fruition only in England and that they were reflected in America in less elaborate renderings. This statement does not mean to asperse in the slightest degree the culture or taste on our own side of the Atlantic, but the estates that were able to support the expense of the highest decorative achievements of the age were comparatively few in number, and although there were not wanting instances of the greatest elegance and most lavish ,expenditure in furnishing of various town houses in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Charleston and New York, and of some country houses in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina, the majority of people, from force of circumstances, were obliged to be content with the simpler though not less admirable interpretation of modes that attained an hitherto unparallelled development in the British Isles.

At the very beginning of the eighteenth century we have the heritage of Baroque inspiration remaining over from the seventeenth century. Following close upon it came the severe and somewhat heavy classicism of which Kent was the chiefest and most able exponent. With the middle of the century we find an utterly new influence that was expressed in England by the Brothers Adam and those that followed in their wake, and in France, a little later, by the architects and designers who imparted to the style we know familiarly as “Louis Seize” its peculiar grace and refinement.

The Adam influence was of classic derivation as was also the heavier scheme of interpretation practised by the Kentian school, but it expressed classicism in its more attenuated and refined forms and laid emphasis, as a rule, rather upon the elegancies of decoration than upon the bold masses and the marshalling of vigorous structural or semi-structural members by way of embellishment. Adam delicacy, in turn, was in course of time supplanted by the robust and often severe forms of the Classic Revival, in which the, sterner Greek modes and the more heroic Roman phases that at times savoured of bombast were stressed with insistence.

Besides all these well-defined influences, there was “the Chinese taste,” which recurred again and again in one form or another throughout the century, adding its charm to the manifold factors that contributed to make the eighteenth century one of the most opulent as well as varied decorative epochs in English history.

Architectural Background and Methods of Fixed Decoration.—One fact of tremendous importance in the art of interior decoration has already been noted in the Foreword, but too much stress cannot be laid upon it, and we therefore repeat it here. That fact is that interior decoration does not consist merely of selection and arrangement of movable furniture and garnishings; the architectural background and the fixed decorations are every whit as vitally essential to a successful and complete composition, and it is impossible to attach too much emphasis to this truth, a truth that some professional decorators too often minimise while not a few amateurs are even more prone to ignore it. In Part III special attention is paid to the treatment of plain walls where the occupancy of rented quarters, apartments and the like makes it impracticable to effect far-reaching structural changes in the background. In the paragraphs that follow, special attention will be devoted to an analysis of backgrounds and fixed decorations.

The opening years of the eighteenth century witnessed virtually the same features of interior architecture as were in vogue during the last years of the seventeenth century, features of which, however, we shall now give a somewhat more detailed description. There were spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, symmetrically de-signed with window and door openings so disposed as to contribute to the air of regularity. The window openings were large and high, while their trims were often made the objects of formal ornamentation. Doorways also shared a distinctly decorative and usually architectural treatment, traces of Baroque influence being more or less discernible in such features as continuous segmental pediments or interrupted pediments with urns.

The panels of the walls were large (Plates 7 and and were often bounded by boldly profiled (Plate 138) bolection mouldings. In size the panels were graduated according to the parts of the room; shallow and broad panels would be placed between door or window heads and the cornice, tall and narrow panels between windows, a single panel for the chimney piece (Plate 137), whatever its dimensions and shape might be, while the ordinary wall panels were of generous proportions. Elaborate naturalistic carving of foliage, fruits, flowers and figures in swags and drops (Plate 137), wrought in high relief or undercut in the manner of Grinling Gibbon, were still used and were supplemented in many instances by sundry supporting architectural scrolls and by conventional motifs in low relief, such as acanthus foliage on a cyma moulding (Plate 6), classic laurelling, and all their well-known affinities.

Very fully developed and elaborate cornices adorned such rooms, and the plaster coves and ceilings, wrought with the utmost dexterity of the plasterer’s art, echoed the flowers, fruit, foliage (Plate 137) and figures to be seen in the decorative wood carving. The floors, while usually of plain boards, not infrequently exhibited parquetted patterns, in the manner already mentioned in the preceding chapter, or else a device in chequered tiles of stone or marble.

It is safe to say that there was never a time when interior architectural woodwork was carried to an higher point of development or displayed more admirable characteristics. Even in the simpler houses, where three of the walls of a room would ordinarily be plastered, there was almost invariably some well-proportioned panelling above the fireplace or even covering a greater part of the whole of the wall on that side of the room. For many of the elaborately carved and panelled interiors, the wood used was oak, cedar, deal or pine. The oak and cedar were left unpainted; deal was sometimes merely waxed, or slightly stained and waxed, and sometimes painted; while pine was ordinarily painted, although not invariably, and, when left in its natural state, assumed a mellow golden brown tone from the action of the atmosphere. In at least one in-stance known to the authors, the panelling of a late seventeenth century house in Pennsylvania, belonging architecturally, however, to the category under discussion, consisted of pine and poplar together. Neither paint nor stain of any kind were ever used upon it and all of the wood took on a rich ginger brown hue of great beauty.

When the panelling was painted, white, which was much favoured in Holland at the time, was sometimes used, but by no means so universally as many people seem to imagine. Grey, grey green, buff, brown, pale yellow, blue, green and green blues of great beauty were in common use and imparted a richness and warmth that strongly commend a wider employment of similar treatments at the present day. These painted interiors were very commonly further embellished with gilding applied to mouldings and carving.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, as previously stated, the taste for lacquer became a positive passion. Much lacquer was imported from the East, but the importations could not begin to supply the demand; much furniture was lacquered both by artisans and by amateurs, who regarded skill in this direction as an eligible and polite accomplishment. The vogue for lacquer endured throughout the reign of Queen Anne and even lasted for some time afterwards. What with the universal admiration for lacquer in an especially colour-loving epoch, and the very considerable proficiency in lacquer processes attained by British craftsmen, it is not surprising to find lacquered decoration occasionally extended to the fixed woodwork in rooms and not reserved solely as a method of nobiliary embellishment. It is worth noting that this architectural employment of lacquer has been revived in a few instances and on a limited scale in our own time, with admirable results.

In the more sumptuous interiors of this type, the fireplace surrounds and facings were of carefully chosen marble or stone, while in the simpler interiors the surrounds were of wood and the facings frequently of glazed tiles, sometimes plain, but more usually of Delft make with monochrome blue or rose devices or else with polychrome decorations. The surround commonly consisted of a bold bolection moulding and there was generally no mantel shelf or else only a very narrow one.

The fixed decorations were rich and adequate. There were mirrors empanelled in the walls or set in the doors, decorative paintings set in panels over doorways, in chimney pieces and in central positions on the sides of walls. There were cupboards (Plate 7) built into the woodwork, usually in corners, with coved tops care-fully scalloped and enriched with carving and some-times parcel gilt, or with smooth surfaces in the coving covered with decorative painting. Coves and the flat surfaces of ceilings, likewise, in addition to the rich cast plaster reliefs, were often adorned with paintings.

When the walls were not fully panelled, they were sometimes painted, sometimes covered with wall paper in highly decorative and bright-coloured patterns, and sometimes hung with rich fabrics tacked tightly in place. Occasionally the panels of the doors themselves were embellished with mirrors or with decorative paintings.

Sconces, lanthorns and chandeliers of varied forms in plain brass, in wrought-iron painted and parcel gilt, in wood richly carved and gilt or painted and parcel gilt, and in brass or cut glass profusely hung with crystals added greatly to the rich effect of the permanent background.

Such were the possibilities and characteristics of the fixed architectural interior settings during the reign of Queen Anne and in the years immediately following her demise.

Early in the Georgian period, under the influence of such men as James Gibbs, Sir John Vanbrugh, Sir William Chambers and, above all, Sir William Kent, there was a clearly marked departure from the freedom and flexibility of architectural and decorative interpretation, as practised by Sir Christopher Wren and his immediate school, and a reversion to what was fancied to be a purer and more scholarly presentation of classic principles as set forth by the great architectural exponents of the Italian Renaissance. For this reason the work of Inigo Jones evoked a renewed measure of praise and admiration but, quite apart from any enthusiasm for the achievements of earlier Engish architects, the men of the day, one and all, placed themselves at the feet of Vitruvius, Vignola and Palladio and followed the precepts of these great men of the past with the most meticulous and sometimes simian precision. To the votaries of the new school Palladio was especially dear and they so generally accepted him as their standard and so glorified his work and precepts that they ” raised him in their time almost to the position of a demigod.” Actuated as they were by this harrow and almost fanatical admiration for merely one individual’s explication of classicism, it is scarcely to be wondered at that they were “unreasonably prejudiced against the work of the Wren period by the discovery that, although classic in principle, the rules laid down by the great architects of the Italian Renaissance had by no means been strictly adhered to.” This attitude, quite apart from any other agency, explains in large measure “the prejudice that existed against Sir Christopher at the close of his brilliant career and the exaltation of the earlier work of Inigo Jones.” Wren had both displayed a perceptible tinge of French influence and also shown not a little personal independence in his interpretations, and this damned him in the eyes of the early Georgian purists who “accepted so fervently the principles of Italian classicism as the only form of true culture that all buildings which exhibited variations were regarded by them as beneath notice or consideration.” In their zeal of archaelogical solicitude—to quote Sir Horace Walpole, architecture had “resumed all her rights” and buildings were designed “in the purest style of antique composition”—they often produced work that savoured of pedantry and missed the spontaneous inspiration and elastic quality necessary to give it the vital significance of an understanding contemporary expression.

At the same time, while the spirit of classic purism was dominant, there were numerous successful and acceptable adventures into the realm of Baroque design, as witnessed, for instance, by some of the creations of James Gibbs, but it was restrained and chastened Baroque, conceived and executed in the light of classic severity. Notwithstanding the rigidity of ideals and the conscientious exactitude with which the foremost architects held themselves to precedent, a great proportion of the early Georgian work possessed merit of an high order and exhibited both dignity and charm. It is an enduring memorial to the skill and good taste of the designers and also equally a striking testimony to the intelligence and appreciation of a clientele that made possible the realisation of such designs. It was, indeed, a golden age of appreciative interest and liberal patronage on the part of wealthy laymen in the persons of the great nobles and landed gentry, who found that the “court of the first two Georges offered” them few attractions and that there was little “scope for competion in politics during the long and all-powerful sway of Walpole.” Furthermore, in the entire absence of foreign hostilities, there were no openings for gaining distinction in military or naval careers and, consequently, “it would seem that numbers of these great nobles and men of leisure embraced the study of art as the principal occupation of their lives. The particular branch of art which interested them most keenly was the pure classic architecture of Ancient Rome,” and their extensive diversions in this field of research rendered them both capable critics and enthusiastic patrons.

The interiors of the great houses then erected displayed a sense of architectural composition that has never been surpassed in English domestic building and even the less pretentious dwellings of the period clearly reflected the prevailing sense of symmetry and architectural amenity that had permeated all ranks of society. So thoroughly had Palladianism and a feeling for elegant proportions taken hold of the popular imagination that they may truly be said to have become endemic among English-speaking people of that day. Both inside and out, houses were planned to convey the impression of symmetrical balance and the same care for symmetrical composition was observed in the treatment of the individual rooms, which were, as a rule, approximately square and high-ceiled. Structural features that is to say, doorways, windows and fireplaces, were symmetrically placed so as to emphasise the effect of balance (Plate 9) and were given such architectural adornment that they constituted an important item in the decoration of the room and to a great extent dominated the placing of the movable furnishings and deter-mined their character.

The details were vigorous in line and classic in fashion—fluted pilasters with appropriate capitals, correct architectural entablatures, pediments of several types, accurately designed friezes and cornices and bold, well-considered mouldings. Doorways frequently were graced with superimposed pediments (Plate 7), either straight, or interrupted with a central urn or bust, and the same motif was apt to be echoed in the chimney piece which extended all the way or almost all the way to the ceiling. When there was no pediment above the doorway, the note of decorous architectural formality was often sustained by a fitly conceived panel with suit-able embellishments. The overmantel panel with its imposing architectural setting was made a central feature for the reception of a portrait (Plate 7) or a decorative painting or, when the chimney piece was less structurally elaborate, a mirror in a frame of strongly architectural design, perhaps with the additional decoration of a painting in the head or in side panels, might be placed directly above the mantel shelf. The mantel-piece itself was of wood or of marble (Plates 7 and 137), often elaborately carved with devices inspired by designs of classic provenance pourtrayed in the works of the Renaissance exponents of Greek and Roman antiquity.

About the middle of the century, under the influence of Sir William Chambers, the elaborate chimney piece, reaching nearly to the ceiling, which had received the sanction and best efforts of previous architects, gradually fell into disfavour and gave place to a newer mode of Continental fashion.

“When he [Sir William Chambers] returned to England in 1755 [from the Continent], he was accompanied by Wilton and Cipriani, afterwards so well known as an artist and decorator. He also brought Italian sculptors to carve the marble mantel-pieces he introduced into English houses.

These were made from his own designs, and the ornament of figures, scrolls and foliage was free in character. Strange to say, these mantel-pieces, de-signed and made by an architect, were yet the means of taking away this important part of interior decoration from the hands of the architect altogether and causing it to become quite a separate production, made and sold along with the grates.

In former times it had been an integrant portion of the room, reaching from floor to ceiling, balanced and made part of the wall by having its main lines carried round in panelling and enriched friezes. It was the keynote of decoration, and the master builder of the times grew fanciful and exerted his utmost skill upon its carving and quaint imagery, centralising the whole ornament of the room around the household shrine.

Mantel-pieces had gradually come down in height, though still retaining much of their finer proportions and classic design. Many causes had contributed to this, the chief being the disuse of wood panelling and the preference given to hangings of damask, foreign leather and wall-paper. In the reigns of Queen Anne and the Little Dutchman the custom of panelling was partially kept up. . . . At this time the upper half of the chimney piece was still retained, but only reached about half way up the wall [in many instances]. Gibbs, Kent, and Ware kept the superstructure as much as they could, but Sir William Chambers dealt it the most crushing blow it had yet received by copying the later French and Italian styles and giving minute detail more consideration than fine proportion. He discarded the upper part altogether and helped to make `continued chimney pieces’ things of the past.”—( Warren Clouston’s “Treatise on Chippendale.”)

Window trims, while vigorously designed, were comparatively plain and nearly all of the carved and moulded architectural enrichment was bestowed upon the overdoor decorations, cornices and friezes and, up to the time of Chambers, the chimney piece. The window openings were tall and sufficiently wide and were often somewhat recessed with carefully panelled jambs and soffits. The sashes themselves had heavy muntins and the rectangular panes were the same size or slightly larger than those in use during the Queen Anne period.

During much of the early Georgian era the walls continued to be fully panelled with large panels (Plate 9), frequently of the bevel flush type (Plate 7), separated by broad stiles and rails with thumbnail mouldings. Very often a moulded chair rail separated the base panelling from the upper panels. The panels were generally of a uniform size, but were graduated to the exigencies of space when there was occasion. Cupboards and buffets, and occasionally niches with coved and scalloped tops, continued in many instances to be built into the panelling at appropriate places and were generally given an additional enrichment of intricately wrought mouldings and other carving of a character to correspond with the ornate cornices that not infrequently exhibited a wealth of carved foliation, egg and dart motifs or similar devices. It will thus be seen that the carved and panelled woodwork was an highly important item in the decoration of an early Georgian room.

The ceilings, though sometimes comparatively plain, were also occasionally embellished with lavish foliated and floriated bands and mouldings and other designs, wrought with all the dexterity of which the highly skilled plaster craftsmen were capable. On such ceilings colour and gilding were likewise wont to play an important part. When the walls were not fully panelled—the abandonment of full panelling, as already noted, became more common as the century advanced—they were apt to be covered with rich fabrics, wall-paper or, sometimes, with fine leather appropriately decorated.

It is most important, in our process of visualising the panelled rooms of the early Georgian period, to bear in mind that the use of unpainted woodwork was abandoned comparatively early in the century. We have seen that the earlier architects and decorators, when they did use paint as a variant to the deal, pine, cedar, oak or walnut panelling, did net confine them-selves to white or cream white, as people sometimes fancy, but resorted very frequently to colours such as those already mentioned. In the early Georgian epoch, while not eschewing white—white, it is true, was more commonly used in the American Colonies than colours —they quite as often or oftener employed full-bodied tones of cream, cream yellow, green, blue green, drab and brown and these tones contributed materially to give the appearance of richness and “comfort for which the rooms of the period are noted. Frequently additional grandeur was obtained by gilding or partly gilding some of the carving.”

In addition to the fixed decoration supplied by the rich woodwork, the stately chimney pieces and the plaster adornment of the ceilings, decorative paintings were often incorporated in the scheme where a suitable over-door or other similar space invited their employment, mirrors were permanently affixed in suitable positions and choice specimens of sculpture were placed in niches especially provided for them or upon pedestals Where their presence would contribute to the general aspect of balanced dignity and elegance.

While surveying this particular period of eighteenth century decoration, we must not fail to take due note of two influences that marked a wide and striking departure from the prevailing Palladianism—the “Chinese Taste,” fostered by Sir William Chambers, and a fanciful pseudo-Gothic manifestation largely abetted by Sir Horace Walpole. The former movement coincided with and gave especial emphasis to one of the periodic recrudescences of unusual interest in things Oriental whose recurrence in the history of English and Continental decoration afforded an agreeable and inspiring note of variety and gave rise to many features of permanent worth; the latter movement was not happy in its conception, was taken up as a fad by dilettanti who were not in sympathy with the Gothic spirit and did not really understand it, and produced no results of lasting importance. The Chinese work of Sir William Chambers, and of those who imitated or emulated his endeavours, was in the main performed in an honest and legitimate manner, created an interesting and not unwelcome relief to the predominant classicism of the period, and extended its application to movable equipment as well as to fixed decoration. The Gothic work of the day was palpably a piece of affectation and even, at times, grotesque in its forms and we may be thankful that its ephemeral course left no momentous traces behind it.

Shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century, an entirely new architectural influence became paramount and as the introduction of this influence was due almost wholly to the Brothers Adam, and as they and their contemporaries and imitators were its accredited exponents, we shall be justified in calling the second half of the century, and, indeed, the first decade of the nineteenth, the Adam Age. Impelled by their extended studies of classic art and architecture at fountain head, and realising clearly what their architectural predecessors in England had completely failed to realise—that classic precedents were susceptible of a far wider and more elastic interpretation than had hitherto been given them, that architecture and the decorative arts in the golden ages of Greek and Roman development had not been straitly confined by an unalterably rigid set of rules and interpretative conventions whose authoritative exposition was to be found only in the works of Vitruvius, Vignola and the other dogmatists to whom Kent and his school had tightly pinned their faith, and that classicism, without being adulterated or distorted and robbed of its fundamental genius, was susceptible of a previously undreamed of urbanity, refinement and even playful exuberance of expression—the Adelphi proceeded to. refine, enrich, revivify and even revolutionise the architectural and decorative conceptions of their day and generation. They not only introduced the epoch-marking notes of attenuation and slender grace, along with a more exuberant, lively, diversified and elegant system of decorative motifs, all derived, however, from classic precedent, but, at the same time, they also showed how classic architectural interpretation could be thoroughly domestic, intimate and lively in tone as well as ponderous and monumental. When they began to practise, domestic architecture in England had fallen somewhat into a groove and was in danger of becoming narrow, rigid and pedantic. Without sacrificing any principles of classicism, they rendered it human, infinitely more interesting, and elastic in scope.

The Adeiphi were no less formal in their modes of expression than their predecessors, but their formality was vastly more varied, richer and intensely genial. There was a finesse and a polish about their conceptions that fully accorded with the spirit of the day, a period which someone has aptly termed the “age of the drawing-room.” Indeed, they may be regarded as in no small degree responsible for the creation of that spirit. One of the eminently pleasing forms in which their humanised formality found a fresh outlet was in the varied shapes of the rooms frequently introduced into their compositions. Hitherto, although rooms were designed with a due regard for satisfying symmetry in their proportions, they were habitually rectangular in shape. Not content with confining themselves to the monotonous convention of rectangularity, the Brothers Adam made the very shapes of their rooms fulfill a decorative purpose and frequently designed circular, semi-circular, octagonal, oval and elliptical apartments or rooms with semi-circular, arc-shaped, tribune or arcaded ends when they deemed that, by so doing, they could enhance the elegance, vivacity or interest of their creations. At the same time they made the ceilings (Plates 10 and 159) and floors enter into a comprehensive and inter-related scheme of decorative unity that had rarely before been equalled.

To a greater extent, perhaps, than had ever been done previously, they treated the walls of their more important rooms as architectural compositions (Plate 10), distinct and complete in themselves, with a due and ordered disposition of panels (Plate 10), pilasters, capitals, pediments, friezes and cornices. All of these features were usually in low and rather flat projection so as to emphasise the sense of space and prevent them from seeming unduly obtrusive, unless the apartment was so large that it could easily stand a succession of bold projections without their becoming oppressive or destroying the aspect of spacious freedom. The decorative details, both upon these architectural members and upon the panelled or other intervening flat surfaces, were refined and delicate in scale and in low relief. Pilasters, pediments and other dominant projections were sometimes fashioned in carved wood, but more frequently were executed in plaster; the low relief wall panels and other ornamental details were almost invariably done in plaster or compo. Never before had the art of the plasterer or of the worker in compo been given so ample an opportunity to display its manifold possibilities and charms.

The panels, or successions of panels, were often covered with a complete and sufficient decorative design of airy arabesques, urns, patere and other motifs in low relief and the effect of this rich mural adornment was generally further enhanced by the use of a pale-coloured background in order to throw the raised work into sharp contrast. At other times the wall panels exhibited no plaster or compo relief but were painted, upon a solid body colour, with devices similar to those employed in the reliefs just mentioned.

Even with their plainer and less pretentious walls, on which there was no display of architectural features, decorative panels, either in relief or painted, were used to good effect and constituted a valuable item of fixed embellishment. On walls of a still less elaborate type—walls in the Adam mode varied from the utmost exuberance of detail to the opposite extreme of classic austerity—countersunk panels and niches were introduced, either in conjunction or separately, and were so disposed that the most striking results were obtained from the agreeable alternation of light and shadow, for the Adelphi were masters in the management of this simple but often neglected and misapplied resource, as they also were in their handling of low relief. On the plainest walls, whose surfaces were unbroken by either projections or depressions, the rich and delicate detail of the cornice (Plate 69), along with the decoration of door and window trims, was skillfully manipulated to present an elegant contrast between concentrated ornament and foil. Wooden panelling entered little if at all into the interior decorative schemes of the Brothers Adam for they were too deeply imbued with the ideals they had formed during their travels and researches in classic lands to be much enamoured of this method of wall treatment, notwithstanding the great body of previous English precedent and the materials at their disposal. Instead of wooden panelling, they occasionally employed marble, but their methods of treating plaster were capable of such agreeable variety that there was little need to resort to other means of interior finish. In a great number of cases, especially with the plainer walls, a chair rail or moulding was carried around the room, thus creating the appearance of a base for the treatment above. In some instances, also, fabrics and wall-paper were used, but painted walls seem to have accorded more nearly with the spirit of Adam interior backgrounds. The system of colouring commonly employed will be more fully discussed in a subsequent section, but it seems advisable at this point to call attention to what an extent the ensemble of Adam interiors was dependent upon the light, delicate and often pale tones of the flat wall surfaces.

Decorative paintings of landscapes (Plate 159) and architectural subjects, in the Italian manner worthily represented in England by Cipriani and others of his fellow-countrymen who had heeded the invitation of the Adelphi, were plentifully used and were set either in countersunk panels or in flush panels surrounded with plaster or compo mouldings in the fashion of a frame. These panels were introduced with great frequency and in various shapes over (Plate 11) doorways, above fire-places and wherever else decorative expediency dictated. Wedgwood plaques (Plate 159), with designs by Flaxman or Lady Templetown, were often made the central features of arabesque panels, and large plaster or Wedgwood medallions, with heads or with classic figures in low relief, frequently occurred either with an accompaniment of flowing arabesques to enrich a large wall or overmantel panel, or else in a severely chaste composition as the sole enrichment of one of the smaller countersunk panels already mentioned. Busts or other pieces of sculpture (Plate 10) were sometimes strikingly used for wall decoration and so placed that the shadow of a niche behind them supplied a most impressive background against which they were silhouetted.

Mirrors fulfilled an important function in the fixed decoration of many Adam rooms and were set above mantels, over consoles in symmetrical placings or some-times in the panelling of doors, the gilded frames being designed to accord with the light and airy interpretations of classicism elsewhere in evidence. Not a few door heads contained semi-elliptical fan lights, filled with clear glass or with mirrors, and traversed with delicately moulded leaden tracery. The effect of these door heads was singularly rich and beautiful.

Mantel pieces, as might be expected, were the objects of no less solicitous care (Plates 10 and 69) than was lavished upon all the other permanent accessories. They were of the finest white marble carved in the characteristic Adam motifs, consisting of urns, swags, drops, flutings and the like, sometimes with a central panel above the fireplace opening exhibiting a Flaxman or a Templetown design in low relief, and frequently yellow (Plate 69), buff, black or green Italian marbles were so combined as to throw the carved devices into conspicuous relief, or else the whole mantel structure was of wood carved in the same refined and delicate fashion or with the more intricate detail modelled in compo and applied to the wooden ground before painting. There were few architectural superstructures or attached and “continued” chimney pieces, as in the days of Kent, and the chimney breast above the mantel shelf was adorned with a mirror or in some one of the other ways previously indicated. For many of the fireplaces, grates of burnished steel or of brass were designed in a fashion to coincide with the rest of the decoration.

The woodwork of doors and of door and window trims (Plate 69) displayed refined mouldings of rather low relief and the same chaste and delicate decorative detail, sometimes elaborate, sometimes simple, as al-ready noted in the wooden mantels and other permanent features. Straight door heads often carried a considerable degree of elaboration and occasionally central panels in the manner shown in Plate 69. The refining effect of flutings and of other close parallel lines was especially well exemplified in Adam woodwork. As the century advanced the size of window panes gradually increased and, although there was no approximation to the horrors of large sheets of glass with which we are now sometimes afflicted and which utterly destroy the character of a window, the lights were perceptibly larger than they were during the first half of the century. The muntins, also, were appreciably pared down in dimensions. Wrought ironwork, while used chiefly in exterior embellishment, also often made its appearance in the composition of stair rails and balustrades and was fashioned in graceful, light and frequently attenuated devices to correspond with the interior ensemble.

The ceilings (Plates 10, 69 and 159), designed by the Brothers Adam were among the most beautiful and finished of all their exquisite compositions. The Adelphi not only had a goodly heritage of plaster tradition behind them in the work of English designers and artificers, but they also had constantly in their mind’s eye the wonderful ceiling enrichments of the classic precedents upon which they drew so freely for inspiration. In the matter of physical execution they were able to avail themselves of the services of skilled plasterers, adepts in every minute detail of their craft, and also, in addition to this, they made extensive use of a newly perfected process of applying compo ornament in large moulded sections. The low reliefs, which the Adelphi knew how to employ with such marvellous effect upon walls, they used to no less advantage in the decoration of their ceilings. Motifs of the same description as those already noted were, of course, employed in ceiling treatment. Sometimes the ceilings were uncoloured, sometimes there was a pale ground colour to throw the low reliefs into sharp contrast, and some-times whole surfaces were covered with painted panels or frescoes, polychrome enrichment and gilding. A great many of the ceilings were flat, but it was not uncommon to find them coved and still others domed and vaulted. Some of these vaulted and domed ceilings were quite plain except for the ornamentation around the cornice and, we may add, were exceedingly beautiful and effective, one of their great merits being the perfection of their proportions. There was the same relative gradation between the elaboration of ceilings and the elaboration of walls, some of them being exceedingly ornate while others were quite simple, but even where the walls were almost devoid of ornamentation there was usually some attempt at more decorative amenity on the ceiling, especially if it was a flat ceiling and had not the interest of curving lines to fascinate the eye.

Floors were made of both wood and marble and a certain degree of restrained decoration was sometimes employed, but in most cases the floor was either regarded as a plain foundation for the rest of the composition or else intended to be carpeted so that a fixed decoration thereon would have been lost. The increasing vogue of full-sized carpets or rugs, both of which were often especially designed and woven for the rooms in which they were to be used, discouraged the elaborate ornamental parquetting of floors, a fashion that had obtained at an earlier date when large floor coverings were not so numerous.

A survey of the elements entering into the fixed decoration of Adam rooms, as indicated in the fore-going paragraphs, shows that a hitherto unprecedented degree of refinement and completeness had been attained—indeed, we may say that it has never since been excelled—and that punctilious care was bestowed upon the least as well as upon the greatest factors comprehended in a decorative scheme. That this thorough and painstaking care was contributory in a great degree to the success of the Brothers Adam in their domestic work we need hardly emphasise.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, although the architectural and decorative influence of the Adelphi was still strong and far-reaching and constituted a force to be reckoned with, other influences were beginning to creep in from France as a reflection of the Empire mode, a mode altogether heavier and less in-spired than the creations of the Adam Brothers. Architecturally it may be termed the style of the ” Greek Revival”; in mobiliary and decorative parlance we know it as the Empire mode. In England the process of architectural change at this time was not so clearly marked as in America. Architectural traditions were, perhaps, more firmly established or, at least, more widely established; and, in the second place, there was not the widespread building activity that occurred at the very end of the eighteenth century and in the first three decades of the nineteenth in the recently established republic, where population was rapidly increasing and where a great many men, rejoicing in a fresh burst of prosperity and new-found wealth, were erecting for themselves homes commensurate with their affluence. We might, indeed, say that in England the architectural change was chiefly to be observed in a gradual falling away from those vital and blithesome qualities that had distinguished the work of earlier days and a slipping into a more sombre, stolid and inelastic form of expression. It was as though both architecture and interior decoration were suffering from an incipient hardening of the arteries. Details grew heavier and more pompous, there was less variety in the forms employed, and the numerous enlivening devices of fixed decoration, that had so glorified and characterised the hey-day of Adam influence, one by one dropped out of fashion until we come to a full realisation of the architectural and decorative bathos in the prevailing vision of great rectangular rooms wth plain plaster walls, whose monotony was now and then relieved by a niche; door and window trims heavily detailed in severe and rather monumental Greek and Roman motifs, among which the key fret and the anthemion were conspicuous ; plaster cornices echoing the same inspiration, heavy plaster ornaments to match around the edges and in the centres of ceilings ; and plain, vigorously moulded black marble mantels without any fixed architectural adornment above them on the chimney breast, a place that seemed now to have become sacred either to a family portrait or else to a large mirror set in a heavy gilt frame. Altogether, it will be observed, the ground had become well prepared for the final plunge and slump into Victorian desolation, dullness and materialistic commercialism without a ray of imagination to lighten and redeem the benighted epoch.

In America, the Adam influence had borne ripe fruit and continued to make itself felt in a somewhat modified, but nevertheless beautiful, form through the work of such men as Samuel McIntire of Salem. Adam expression, however, had never attained the far-reaching spread that it had in England and in the very late eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, when there was so much building to be done along the whole Atlantic seaboard, building both public and domestic, in order to keep pace with the, access of a newly stimulated national expansion, and when, moreover, there was the greatest enthusiasm everywhere through-out the country for all things French, it is not surprising that the style which we know as the “Classic” or “Greek Revival,” echoing the current phase of French architectural sentiment should have taken deep root and achieved a wide development, modified, it is true, by local conditions and necessities, but unmistakable in its parentage.

The interiors in this new evolution of domestic architecture were commonly characterised by a great deal of solid dignity and decorum, an impression materially assisted by the customarily spacious dimensions of the rooms, without much enlivening imagination or decorative resourcefulness to give to the ensemble that vitality that had always radiated from the background of a room conceived by the Brothers Adam or by the, men who professedly followed their lead. The walls were plain, unrelieved expanses of smooth plaster (Plate 12) extending from baseboard to cornice and were either painted or tinted some pale, cool colour—grey, pearl, drab, buff, and a light green inherited from Adam usage, were in high favour—or else they were covered with wall-paper, usually of a very excellent quality and meant to last.

About the end of the eighteenth century and in the very beginning of the nineteenth, the landscape papers were extensively used alike in rooms and in halls and many of them, both polychrome and monochrome, were both beautiful and dignified and lent a peculiar charm and breadth to the rooms in which they were hung, a charm that nothing else has ever quite taken the place of. In addition to these landscape papers, papers with striking Chinese motifs of figures, animals, pagodas, bridges, birds and flowers, frequently in vital colouring, enjoyed some vogue. There were, also, the mono-chrome French papers printed with carefully out wood blocks from cartoons by David * and other equally noted contemporary French artists. These papers pourtrayed scenes from classic mythology and were designed as panels to be hung in a sequence. Of all the early wall-papers, they were, perhaps, the finest in both conception and execution.

A little later on in the nineteenth century, when these beautiful wall coverings had either passed out of fashion or were no longer obtainable, their place was taken by papers designed to represent moulded panels, or by paper marbled, mottled and veined and laid off in vertical and horizontal lines to simulate the joints of masonry. The best of these masonry papers—and some of them were by no means bad—contained cartouches in the centre of each oblong block and within the car-touches were small monochrome scenes of classic or historical provenance. Some tone of grey was usually chosen for the execution of such papers and, it may be added, the masonry papers were as a rule hung in halls, where their pattern did not conflict with the movable decorations and where their pictorial note lent a touch of interest in default of other features to arrest or amuse the eye.

Door and window trims were bold and heavy in de-tail and, when any attempt was made at ornamentation beyond flat, rectangular mouldings, Greek key fret and anthemion motifs generally appeared and also square thistle or acanthus leaf pater e at the angles. The panels of doors and shutters were small, with the occasional exception of large panels in the lower halves of doors, and were defined by a number of small, flat mouldings which often gave them a complex appearance. The woodwork was usually painted white, al-though such pale colours as pearl or light grey were now and then used by way of variety. Green, or some-times white, Venetian blinds were much in fashion at this period and added a touch of decorative interest to the windows which otherwise they would not have possessed. Floors were of plain boards without any essay at adornment. In hallways marble tiles were sometimes used, either solid white or black and white chequered.

Plaster decoration consisted of moulded cornices and of ceiling borders and central ornaments that echoed the motifs of the woodwork in the manner al-ready mentioned as occurring in contemporary houses in England. Ceiling borders were not invariably used, but the central ornaments in the larger and more important rooms were rarely omitted as they formed a point of departure from the ceiling for the imposing chandelier which had by now come to be regarded as an almost indispensable adjunct.

Mantel-pieces of black or dark grey veined marble, oftentimes with two plain pillars supporting the shelf, were in common use. White marble and wood painted white, and fashioned in the same pattern, were also much used. In some of the more elegantly equipped rooms the low mantels of white marble were elaborately carved in the current French style and in some in-stances displayed griffin or caryatid side supports in-stead of the pillars just alluded to. These latter pieces of sculpture were really very beautiful and imparted an air of elegance and distinction to any room in which they were placed, quite sufficient to redeem any impression of heaviness conveyed by the other items of fixed equipment.

The architectural and decorative mode that followed the Classic Revival, which, indeed, grew from it and into which the Classic Revival gradually declined when its period of decadence set in, is discussed in Chapter IX.

Furniture and Decoration.—In the early part of the eighteenth century—the last years of the reign of William and Mary and the reign of Queen Anne—every article of furniture that we now have was in use and, besides this, there were some things that we have since allowed to fall more or less into oblivion to our own great decorative loss. While many of the ‘nobiliary fashions of an earlier date persisted to some extent

the panelled oak pieces and the more elaborate walnut creations of late Stuart times and the walnut, marqueterie and lacquer achievements of the William and Mary era—and especially in the provincial towns and country districts, a new and powerful influence in furniture design was everywhere apparent. This new element has been called the curvilinear influence and was particularly manifest in the prevalence of cabriole legs for seating furniture, tables and cabinet work, shaped aprons for tables and wall furniture, shaped and curving tops or cresting for bureau bookcases, cupboards, cabinets, highboys and other pieces of wall furniture, shaped heads with cyma curves for panelling and mirror tops, and even the introduction of curved lines into structural features such as the fronts of bombe or “kettle-front” cabinets and chests of drawers. This influence came into England directly through Dutch channels, but was only one instance of similar concurrent influences prevailing throughout Europe which may be attributed to a complex and mixed Baroque and Oriental parentage.

Although oak continued to be used to some extent for furniture making, the favourite and fashionable, and we may also say the standard, wood was walnut, either solid or as a figured veneer laid on over a base of oak or of some other wood. The cabinet makers of the period, however, did not restrict themselves in their finer work to the expression of their talents in walnut alone. They made considerable use of other woods which increasing commercial facilities were placing within their grasp; they freely employed marqueterie in the more refined “sea weed” patterns which had superseded the larger multi-colored floral and foliated motifs; they continued to produce many pieces of lacquer, admirable in colour—red, green, cream, yellow, blue, brown, silver and black—and in decoration; they decorated not a few pieces with paint and parcel gilding; they strained various fabrics over carved and moulded wood bases; and last, but not least in significance, under the impetus of designs furnished by such men as Kent and his school, who required pieces of a certain scale and pomp to. accord with the stately interiors then being created, they executed massive and heavily carved tables and consoles, coated with gesso richly gilt and topped with slabs of marble or vari-coloured scagliola, as well as other pieces in a similar monumental vein to match.

About 1720 mahogany began to be used and the advent of this wood as a material for furniture construction opened the way for developments in both structure and ornamentation that would not have been possible in any of the previous media. Before speaking more explicitly, however, of the changes induced by the popularisation of mahogany as a cabinet wood, attention should be called to what has aptly been termed “Architects’ Furniture,” a species of mobiliary equipment that exercised a profound effect upon the appearance of a great many interiors during the first half of the eighteenth century. Architects were designing stately rooms with lofty ceilings and broad wall spaces on a scale and in a style hitherto unknown in England. For these spacious interiors the “small calibre” furniture of the familiar “Queen Anne” pattern was totally in-adequate in scale and often unsatisfactory in the minutiae of style. The want of something more imposing was partially filled by the heavy carved and gilded pieces of which mention has already been made, but there was still an obvious need for something further in the way of large case work. And this further need was met by the architects who proceeded to design large book-cases, cupboards, presses and cabinets in a scale commensurate with the positions they were to occupy and in a style that was distinctly architectural in conception, even to the details of ornamentation, free use being made of pillars, pilasters, entablatures, pediments of various types, urns and cornices whose every feature was transferred from architectural to mobiliary usage. This was one step farther than, and a logical development from, the built-in cupboards and buffets previously discussed. This “architects’ furniture” was constructed either in the natural cabinet woods current at the time, chiefly walnut and mahogany, or else was made of pine or deal and painted to accord with the fixed woodwork of the room in which it was placed.

During the early Georgian period, and synchronously with the carved and gilt Kentian pieces and the “architects’ furniture,” a great deal of the other furniture underwent a process of elaboration that was more observable in decorative details and the amount of decoration applied than in structural forms. It began with what is known as the “Decorated Queen Anne” type and progressed through the heavily, and often overly, embellished creations of chair and cabinet makers up to the rise of Thomas Chippendale into prominence as the arbiter of furniture fashions. About the middle of the century there had been a recrudeseence of the “Chinese taste” in the Oriental and pseudo-Oriental forms inspired by the designs of Sir William Chambers. It was left for Chippendale to temper and correct the excesses of design that had prevailed prior to his regime, to adapt and improve upon the. precedents that he found previously established, and to introduce new elements by which he sought to elevate mobiliary taste of his day and, needless to say, this he succeeded in doing.

The heritage of English precedent that Chippendale found ready to his hand, he refined and, in many cases, elaborated with the utmost skill, displaying his genius and originality, not in the futile effort to create some-thing utterly different from all preexistent fashions, but through a sane and reasonable adaptation to contemporary requirements as he conceived them and as the means at his disposal prompted him. The “Chinese taste” he interpreted in a manner perfectly consistent with the needs and environment for which he was working; the “Gothic style” in its undiluted form, though obviously an anachronism and a piece of affectation, altogether out of keeping with the architectural settings then being created, he handled with tactful ad-dress and contrived to keep it from being aggressively offensive; the Rococo inspiration, derived from current French models, he translated successfully into an English body and, although there was nothing in any of the phases of British architectural and decorative backgrounds to which it in any way corresponded, managed so to express the style that it did not conflict with its environment. But it was in what might be called his “composite” work, in the expression of which he freely drew from various sources and commingled elements Chinese, Gothic and Rococo in the same piece along with traditions of earlier English derivation, that he achieved his most signal successes as a great master of style. Whatever diversities of origin such pieces might reveal upon close and searching scrutiny, there can be no question that their ensemble was in full and harmonious accord with the architectural environment of the day.

Early in the second half of the eighteenth century, under the revived classic impulse imparted by the Brothers Adam, the whole spirit of furniture design underwent a radical change and the mobiliary equipment of the period was created with the avowed and patent intent of close coincidence with the newer phase of architectural expression. Emphasis was laid upon straight structural lines and the decorative details were of obviously architectural provenance. The attenuation and restraint discernible in architectural forms were communicated to the structure of the furniture and also visibly affected not only the forms of the ornament employed but also the amount of ornament and the manner of its distribution. While Chippendale, so long as he followed the bent of his own inspiration, worked almost exclusively in mahogany and carried the manipulation of his chosen medium to the highest development of which even so facile and accommodating a material was susceptible, the access of Adam influence popularised a great diversity of materials which, while they did not displace mahogany as a cabinet wood, were freely used concurrently with it and vastly added to the resources of colour possibility and contributed to the general lightening effect of contemporary interior decoration. Satinwood especially came into high favour. At the same time painting and inlay were exploited to the full extent of their capabilities as decorative factors. Hepplewhite, Shearer, Sheraton, and also the lesser lights who wrought at the same time and followed in their wake, were all profoundly influenced by the new ideals of which the Adelphi were successful protagonists and the work of all these cabinet makers and designers exhibited a kindred regard for and observance of the reversion to purer classic principles with the attendant attenuation of proportions and dominance of straight lines as well as the use of motifs of more or less immediate classical provenance.

At the very end of the century we discover the classic forms merging gradually into the “Directoire” phase of expression, while early in the nineteenth century—a period synchronous with the very apparent decadence of Sheraton design—we find the more bombastic manifestations corresponding to the Empire fashion in France for, notwithstanding the abhorrence of France and of French politics, French styles were as potent and pervasive as ever. For a detailed discussion of Empire forms, as well as for the minute particulars of all the furniture variations during the period included in this chapter, the reader is referred to the “Practical Book of Period Furniture,” Eberlein and McClure.

Other Decorative Accessories and Movable Decorations.—During the early part of the eighteenth century, the tapestries which had played so important a part in the decorative composition of former times, retained somewhat of their pristine popularity and remained to a certain extent in evidence, although they did not constitute one of the distinctively characteristic features of the time.

Hangings for windows consisted of either brocades, damasks or velvets in bright colours and strong patterns, much like the fabrics used for covering upholstered furniture, or else of printed linens and chintzes of agreeably bright colouring and in designs similar to those shown in the illustration. Both kinds of hangings were used either with or without valances and were often hung from box heads which were covered with the same material strained over the wood.

In large rooms chandeliers, were often used; some-times they were made of carved wood, painted and parcel gilt, sometimes of brass, sometimes of wrought iron which was occasionally embellished by colour and gilding, and sometimes of glass with large crystal pendants. Sconces, too, were conspicuous items of decorative equipment and were made in the manner just noted in the description of chandeliers as well as with various other devices of embellishment.

In addition to the mirrors employed in fixed decorative treatments, great numbers of mirrors, both large and small, were in common use. Some were tall and narrow, others were long and low, while others still were quite small. It was quite a usual thing for a mirror to be made in several divisions. The edges were often bevelled, even where the head of the mirror was elaborately shaped, and it was not an uncommon thing for the surface of the glass to be adorned with shallow cutting where such decoration would not interfere with practical utility. Then again, side panels in large tripartite mirrors were frequently adorned with poly-chrome paintings in reverse, in the Chinese manner, which added greatly to their decorative value. A number of the early mirrors were framed with bevelled glass of a different colour, very often a rich deep blue, although other colours were used. Most of the mirror frames, however, were of walnut and were either adorned with marqueterie or were carved and parcel gilt; or they were of pine or some other soft wood, carved and coated with gesso and wholly gilt; or else they were of lacquer with gilt, and also sometimes with polychrome decorations. Sconces, when not of metal or of carved wood, painted and parcel gilt, were often made in combination with small mirrors and were framed in the manner just indicated. A number of mirrors, especially those intended for overmantel decoration, were framed in combination with decorative paintings, the mirror forming the lower part of the composition and the painting the upper portion.

Pictures—portraits, landscapes and decorative paintings of fruits and flowers or of combined architectural and landscape subjects—constituted another valuable and much used decorative resource, and likewise framed prints, both plain and coloured, were extensively employed.

Sculptures, especially in marble but to some extent also in bronze, were much in vogue and were placed either on pedestals or in niches designed to receive them. These marbles and bronzes were often in the form of urns and vases as well as busts, figures and groups. Porcelains, in the shape of urns, vases, jars and other articles, both large and small, especially during the China-mad days in the early part of the century, were freely employed as decorative adjuncts.

From the middle of the century onward, when the Adam influence had become dominant, the same decorative accessories as just enumerated continued to be used, but their forms naturally underwent such modifications as rendered them in keeping with the altered conceptions of elegant design. With the ornate wall surfaces of many of the Adam rooms, there was less opportunity to use the tapestries which earlier in the century had continued to enjoy at least a certain cur-tailed degree of favour. The method of draping window hangings was often more involved and the cornices surmounting them frequently assumed more pretentious forms than had hitherto been common. Chandeliers were lighter in line and more intricate in design and there was a preference for metal with numerous pendent glass prisms rather than for wood painted and gilt or for brass alone in its more robust but graceful designs. Sconces, too, reflected the same trend toward attenuation and were quite generally adorned with cut glass drops and pendent prisms which greatly added to the brilliance and lustre of the illumination when the candles were lighted. The sconces, also, not uncommonly displayed, along with mirror frames, the airy surmounting or surrounding ornaments wrought in gilt compo supported on wires. In the heads of mirrors were often inserted paintings with classic motifs or de-signs in gilt relief on a ground of plain colour or else devices painted in reverse on the under side of the glass.

Materials and Colour.—In the early part of the century the woods chiefly used were oak, walnut and, for panelling, deal and pine and fir also. About 1720 mahogany, while not wholly displacing the others, came into use for cabinet purposes and grew more and more popular. Gesso laid over a pine foundation and gilt was also an important source of decoration.

The fabrics were brocades, velvets, plain and with cut pile figures, brocatelles, damasks and silks. The simpler fabrics were printed linens, muslins and chintzes. In both cases the colours were strong and vigorous and the designs usually bold and often large in detail. As the century wore on the diversity and brilliance of colouring became less pronounced. Pale and delicate pastel colours were freely employed and stripes had a tremendous vogue. The patterns on the brocades were refined in scale and often attenuated in accord with the prevalent trend of contemporary style. Even when the colours used were fairly vigorous, they were so disposed in quantity that their emphasis was appreciably modified. Needlework in petit point and gros point also played a prominent part for the covering of furniture.

After the middle of the century and all through the period of Adam ascendency, while mahogany retained a place of honour, satinwood and other light coloured woods, such as sycamore or harewood, maple and similar light toned materials enjoyed huge popularity, for the whole tendency of the time was toward a lighter and more cheerful and blithesome colour scheme. Not only was furniture very commonly made of light coloured wood or painted some light tone, but the fixed wood-work also was painted in various pale hues, as were the walls and ceilings. The scale of the earlier work, both in architectural usage and in furniture contours and decorative motifs was heavier and required heavier colours; the lighter scale and refined, attenuated motifs of the Adam period demanded lighter colours and would have looked utterly out of place with the full-bodied tones of an earlier era.

The same thing was true of fabrics. The silks, damasks, brocades, velvets and other stuffs used for hangings and upholstery were light in colour and refined in the details of their pattern. At this time also Aubusson tapestry, by the nature of its colour, design and texture, came into vogue for furniture covering and also for rugs and carpets.

Arrangement.—During the earlier part of the century, while symmetry and formality of arrangement were duly considered in the disposition of the movable furnishings, there was still a certain amount of the casual latitude of earlier days to be seen in the placement of the principal articles that entered into the composition of a room. Under the Adam regime, however, the principles of formality and balanced symmetry were oaried to their fullest limit. It was the period of the dominance of pairs. It might be pairs of consoles, or pairs of sconces, or pairs of sofas, or pairs of candelabra—but wherever there was an opportunity to introduce the element of balance by the use of duplicates, the opportunity was seized and made the most of.