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DECORATION 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 


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 '• Yet Nature is made better by no mean. 
 
 But Nature makes that mean ; so o'er that art 
 li''hich, you say, adds to Nature, is an art 
 That Natitrc i/uikes" Shakeespbare. 
 
//v^^^ 
 
 THE 
 
 ART OF DECORATION 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS H. R. HAWEIS 
 
 ! I 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE ART OF BEAUTY* ' THE ART OF DRESS ' ' CHAUCER FOR CHILDREN 
 'CHAUCER FOR SCHOOLS* ETC. 
 
 ilFOH^"^^' 
 
 IV/TH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1881 
 
 All righ.ts reserved 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Art Revolt 3 
 
 The Natural Basis . . . . • . . . . 5 
 
 Beauty 9 
 
 Exquisite Obstructives 17 
 
 Art is for the People 20 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 Surroundings 22 
 
 Unintelligent Adoption 24 
 
 ^Harmony 27 
 
 JPecorating 29 
 
 What a Room should be 31 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Old Queen Anne Style 33 
 
 Grinling Gibbons • • 37 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Queen Anne Walls 40 
 
 Chippendale 43 
 
 Queen Anne Costumes 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 New Queen Anne Style 51 
 
 Colourless Liveries 52 
 
 Nature's Protest . . • • 55 
 
 dScconti 25oafe, 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 P'.arly English Furniture -59 
 
 The Meaning of Furniture 60 
 
 A Fourteenth-Century Room 63 
 
 The Development of Art 66 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 Noontide 69 
 
 Gothic and Renascence Work 71 
 
 A Tudor Room . . .76 
 
 Renascence * Taste ' . . . 79 
 
 The Worship of Wreck 87 
 
 Ghastly Ornament 88 
 
 Black and White in its Place 93 
 
 Renascence Influence on Dress 94 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Grotesque and Raphael Ornament io6 
 
 A Pompeiian Room 113 
 
 Roman Ornament ' 123 
 
 Grotesque Oak Carving . . • 124 
 
 The Grotesque as a Background 125 
 
 A Graver Mood , 127 
 
 A Charles the First Room 129 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The After-Glow 133 
 
 BOULE AND his WORK I35 
 
 A Louis Quatorze Room 137 
 
 The Garden in the House 139 
 
 ^Colour 141 
 
 A Scientific Background ........ 144 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Decline (Louis Quinze) 147 
 
 Lacquer and Porcelain 151 
 
 Orientalism in Dress 155 
 
 A Louis Seize Room 159 
 
 A Whited Sepulchre 165 
 
 Marqueterie 167 
 
 Artists who Emancipated Art 170 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Pseudo-Classicism 174 
 
 An * Empire ' Room 176 
 
 Empire Dress and Imitation Greeks . . ... 180 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 CHAPTER I.— ON PLACE AND TONE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Arrangement of the Room 199 
 
 ( I. A Renascence Eclectic Room . . 203 
 
 II. An Eighteenth-Century Eclectic 
 
 Eclectic Rooms ^^^^ ^^^ 
 
 I III. A Modern Eclectic Room , . 206 
 
 Balance 207 
 
 ^^roportion . . • 211 
 
 Symmetry 212 
 
 Light and Shade 213 
 
 CHAPTER IL— ON WALLS. 
 
 Colour of the Background 215 
 
 Tapestry 219 
 
 Embroidered Walls 222 
 
 Leather 223 
 
 Silk . . 224 
 
 Paper 225 
 
 Paint and Stencilling . . » 227 
 
 Mirroring . . . . . . . . . • • 229 
 
 Ceilings 229 
 
 CHAPTER IIL— ON WINDOWS. 
 
 Transparent Walls . . , . ' 235 
 
 Medieval Painted Glass . .237 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Modern Painted Glass 240 
 
 Coloured Windows at Home 242 
 
 Amateur Efforts . . 244 
 
 Glass Partitions and Screens 246 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— ON MIRRORS. 
 
 Pallor not Light 248 
 
 What not to do 249 
 
 Old Mirrors 251 
 
 Painted Mirrors . . . ' 253 
 
 Mirror-frames 254 
 
 Picture-frames 258 
 
 Use of Convex Mirrors ^ . 262 
 
 CHAPTER v.- -ON MOVABLES. 
 
 Principles . 263 
 
 Comfort and Chairs 264 
 
 Comfort and Beauty 269 
 
 Materials and Framework 271 
 
 Colour . . . . -^ 278 
 
 Weight 281 
 
 Sofas 283 
 
 Tables 289 
 
 CHAPTER VI.- ON MOVABLES {continued). 
 
 Carpets 293 
 
 Curtains 298 
 
 Bookcases 304 
 
 Plate and Cutlery . . . 307 
 
 Pianofortes , 31S 
 
 Doors 327 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— ON FIRE-PLACES AND FIRES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mantel-pieces . 333 
 
 Grates and Stoves 339 
 
 Stove Ornaments 344 
 
 Wrought-iron 346 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— LIGHTING AND 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 Becoming Lights 350 
 
 Lamp-forms 353 
 
 Concealed Lights 354 
 
 Pumps and Pipes 355 
 
 Anti-Smuts 358 
 
 Drain Ventilation 359 
 
 CPIA^TER IX.— ON THE BEAUTY OF FREEDOM. 
 
 Ars longa, vita brevis 361 
 
 Chords in Colour 363 
 
 Becoming Colours 365 
 
 Helpers 367 
 
 Helpers who Hinder 370 
 
 The Old Masters' Mischief 376 
 
 Reform from Below 378 
 
 Misuse of Pictures 379 
 
 CHAPTER X.— ON OUR STREETS. 
 
 Trees 381 
 
 Our Chimneys . . . 383 
 
 Coloured Houses 385 
 
 Street Nomenclature 391 
 
 Street Nuisances 394 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 Indigenous Art 396 
 
 Help in Amateurs 399 
 
 The Court Painter 401 
 
 A Word on Architecture 404 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Diagram of Colour 12 
 
 Seventeenth-Centijry Cabinet, belonging to the 
 
 Rev. H. R. Haweis 34 
 
 From an old Wood-cut, circa 1690 47* 
 
 New Queen Anne Table 54 
 
 Florentine Figure in Terra-cotta, Fifteenth Cen- 
 tury 72 
 
 Lamp-stand, Italian, Sixteenth Century, full of 
 
 Anatomical Impossibilities 83 
 
 Knife-case, dated 1564 : an instance of the Bathos 
 
 OF Art 84 
 
 Sixteenth-Century Cabinet : an instance of the 
 
 Worship of Wreck 86 
 
 Cabinet showing Architectural Fashions in Fur- 
 niture 91 
 
 Line of Beauty 95 
 
 Imitation Roman . . . . . . . -95 
 
 Imitation Greek 95 
 
 Henry VIII. Hat 97 
 
 From early Tapestry in the possession of the Rev. 
 
 H. R. Haweis '.98 
 
 Trunk-hose, with short waist and tabs derived 
 
 FROM the Classic 100 
 
 Etruscan Figure, from a Vase loi 
 
 I Early Greek Figures 102 
 
 Pease-cod bellied Doublet, from Bertelli . . . 103 
 
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FIG. PAGE 
 
 21. Figure of Hercules, showing the Muscles which may 
 
 HAVE ORIGINATED THE ROUND TaB .... IO4 
 
 22. Tabs : from a Print by Hollar 104 
 
 23. Renascence Version of a Classic Fashion . . . 104 
 
 24. Empire Version of the same 104 
 
 25. A Classic Fashion (from Roman Bust) . . . .105 
 
 26. Nineteenth-Century rendering of same . . . 105 
 Q^j. 'Raphael Ornament' 107 
 
 28. Raphael Ornament from the Loggia at the Vatican 109 
 
 29. Raphael Ornament from the Loggia at the Vatican hi 
 
 30. Frieze of Painted Wall, in the House of Germani- 
 
 cus, Palaces of the C^sars, Rome . . . . 116 
 
 31. Painted Wall, from the House of Germanicus, 
 
 Palaces of the C^sars, Rome 117 
 
 32. Painted Wall, from the House of Germanicus, 
 
 Palaces of the C/Esars, Rome 119 
 
 33. English Lady, after Hollar, 1640 . . . .129 
 
 34. Doublet, about 1646, time of Louis Quatorze . . 142 
 
 35. Snuff-box, Louis Quinze Ornament . . . .145 
 
 36. Clock, Louis Quinze Ornament 148 
 
 37. Lacquer Cabinet 153 
 
 38. Ornament upon Benares Brass Vase . . . . 156 
 
 39. Georgian Hoop, derived from Oriental Source (1750) 157 
 
 40. Costume, time of Louis Seize (from a caricature, 
 
 circ. 1786, entitled 'Modern Elegance' . . 160 
 
 41. Table, time of Louis Seize 162 
 
 42. What Helen of Troy would appear in a Convex 
 
 Mirror 250 
 
 43. Venetian Mirror-Frame 256 
 
 44. 'Empire' Mirror 259 
 
 45. Early Renascence Frame, belonging to Rev. H. R. 
 
 Haweis 261 
 
 46. The Upholsterer's Darling 266 
 
 47. Seventeenth-Century Chair . . . . . . 268 
 
 48. Greek Chair : Prototype of the common English 
 
 FORM 272 
 
 49. Italian Renascence Chair : THE Decadence. . . 273 
 
 50. Fourteenth-Century Seats 274 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii 
 
 FIG. PAGK 
 
 51. CttAiR OF DaGOBERT, IN THE LoUVRE, DATED ABOUT 63O 274 
 
 52. Chair of Assyrian character on a Bas-relief from 
 
 Xanthus, in the British Museum 275 
 
 53. Stool, in Sculpture, from Nineveh . . . .276 
 
 54. Ancient Sella, or low Seat 276 
 
 55. Chair of Sesostris 280 
 
 56. Seventeenth-Century Chair ^82 
 
 57. Old French Sofa, in the possession of Luke Ionides, 
 
 Esq. . . ' 285 
 
 58. Greek Sofa 287 
 
 59- \ Roman Forms 288 
 
 60. / 
 
 61. Silver Table at Windsor Castle, time of Louis 
 
 Quatorze 290 
 
 62. Design for a Bookcase ....... 3<^5 
 
 63. Candlestick, Italian, Sixteenth Century . . . 311 
 
 64. Ancient Knives and Forks 3^7 
 
 65. 'Cottage' Pianoforte, with decorated back. . . 319 
 
 66. Novel Design for a Pianoforte, Side View . . 325 
 
 67. Back View of the same 325 
 
 68. Iron Bolt, French, about 1550 32S 
 
 69. Georgian Lock 33° 
 
 70. Inlaid Pillar in the Church of Ara Cgeli, at Rome 335 
 
 71. Iron Bolt, Sixteenth Century ...... 347 
 
 72. Mirror with Wrought-iron Frame .... 34^ 
 
 73. The Golden Candlestick, from the Arch of Titus . 351 
 
 74. Our Chimneys , 3^4 
 
ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 St. Ethelreda, Abbess of Ely, embroideress of the celebrated Opus Angli- 
 
 cum. Seventh century. 
 Daughters of Edward the Elder, embroideresses of note. Ninth century. 
 St. Dunstan (Archbishop of Canterbury), goldsmith, painter, and designer. 
 
 Early tenth century. 
 Matilda, queen of William the Conqueror, supposed designer of the Bayeux 
 
 tapestry. 
 Dame Leviet, Dame Alderet of Winchester, embroideresses to Queen 
 
 Matilda. Eleventh century. 
 Alwid and Leuide, embroideresses to Queen Edgitha. Eleventh century. 
 Edgitha, wife of Edward the Confessor. Eleventh century. 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 John of St. Omer, court decorator to Henry HI. 
 
 William Torell, goldsmith and statuary in metal, &c., temp. Henry III. 
 
 and Edward I., died ijcx) (designed Queen Eleanor's tomb : Richard 
 
 de Crundale did the marble-work). 
 William the Florentine, court decorator to Henry III. 
 Alexander the carpenter, and John de Spalding, Master Albericus, sculptor. 
 
 1253- 
 Master Robert de Beverley, mason, Westminster Abbey, and his brother 
 
 Ralph. 1267-8. 
 Fergus, a brazier of Boston (gave two bells to Crowland Abbey). 
 William of Sens (France), architect at Canterbury. 
 
XX ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Odoricus, designer of Roman inlaid pavement in England, 1267 (West- 
 minster Abbey). 
 
 William of Ireland and Alexander of Abingdon, sculptors (Eleanor 
 crosses). 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 William of Wykeham, architect of Windsor and Winchester Cathedral. 
 1 324-1404. 
 
 Walter le Bole, mason, 1342, with costly livery found him, worked at 
 Westminster. 
 
 Andrew le Glasswright, of Great Yarmouth. 
 
 John of Oxford (worked at Westminster 5 Edw. III.) 
 
 Master Yevelee, chief mason there, 1388 : Robert Kentbury, Thomas 
 Lippynham, and Thomas Padington, masons. 
 
 Adam de Witteneye, a bedder of stone. 
 
 G. da Trevigi. 1304-1344. \ Carvers 
 
 Toto. 1331-1351- J 
 
 William de Notyngham, afterwards of Norwich (William Brasiere), and 
 descendants, founders. 1376. 
 
 Master John of Gloucester, bell-founder. (20 Edward III.). 
 
 Rose de Bui'eford of London, embroideress to Isabella, queen of Edward 
 II. Early fourteenth century. 
 
 Hawkin Liege, from France, sculptor of Queen Philippa's tomb in West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Richard de Whittington, Lord Mayor of London under Henry V. : archi- 
 tect of nave of Westminster Abbey. William Colchester, head mason, 
 John Russe, and Richard Knappe, masons under Whittington, receiving 
 costly liveries. 
 
 Sir Reginald Bray, 
 
 Master Pageny, designed for Henry VII. : was to have made his tomb. 
 
 Torregiano (who broke Michael Angelo's nose), worker in marble, bronze, 
 and wood, sculptor of Henry VII .'s tomb under Heniy VIII. (the chapel 
 was built by Englishmen, of equal talent, unnamed). 1472-1552. 
 
ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND. xxi 
 
 Torregiano built high Altar, Henry VII. 's Chapel. Effigy by him, in 
 
 burnt clay, in Chapel of the Rolls, Chancery Lane. 
 Pupils: Lawrence Umber, 'kerver'; Humphrey Walker, founder; 
 
 Nicholas Ewer, coppersmith and gilder. 
 Drawsherd, Sherif of York, sculptor, Westminster. 
 Alan Strayler, limner and illuminator. Abbey of St. Albans. 
 John Bell, Robert Maynard, printers. 
 John Prudde, glass painter of Westminster. About 1447. 
 Gervasius, a monk at Canterbury, carver. 
 Raignold Chyrch, burgess ^nd bell-founder, Bury. 1498. 
 Thomas Chyrch (his son), gun and bell-founder. 
 William Ffoundor (the founder) and Thomas of Lynn, founder. About 
 
 1485. 
 Awsten Bracier (the brazier), bell-founder, &c., temp. Henry VII. 
 Thomas Essex, mason ; William Austin of London, sculptor of Richard 
 
 Beauchamp's monument, in St. Mary's Church, Warwick, 1439. 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 John of Padua. 
 
 Hans Holbein, court painter and designer to Henry VIII, (1509-1547). 
 1498-1554. 
 
 Luca Penni, employed by Henry VIII. Died 1 5 50. 
 
 B. da Rovezzano, carver. 
 
 H. Walker. 
 
 Ralph Page, Peter Baude, ironcasters in Sussex. 1543. 
 
 Nicholas Hilliard, goldsmith, carver, and portrait painter to Queen Eliza- 
 beth, and embosser to Jaraes I. (son of £i gentlen^an of fortune). Born 
 
 1547. 
 John Tonne, cast bells in Sussex and Essex. 1540. 
 George Clarke, bell-founder, and John Dier. 1564. 
 Thomas Draper, founder, and Mayor of Thetford. 1592. 
 Jan van den Gheyn and Peter van den Gheyn, bell-founders. 1558-1580. 
 Mark Gerards, designer for glass, architecture, &c. 1561-^635. 
 Inigo Jones, ai-chitect tq James I. 15 73-1 653. 
 George Heriot, gol(^smith to James I, 
 
xxii ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND, 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 John Dwight, M.A., Christ Church, Oxford, potter and inventor of 
 
 Fulham porcelain in England. 167 1. 
 Nathanael Stone, of Exeter : sculptor of various tombs at Westminster, 
 
 probably of Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth. 
 Nicholas Stone, master mason to James I., sculptor of the tomb of Villiers, 
 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 Henry Stone, called ' Old Stone,' painter and stonemason. Died 1653. 
 J. Fuller, painter, and son — Fuller, coach-painter. 
 Henry Gyles of York, glass-painter. About 1687. 
 Peter Paul Rubens. 
 
 Francis de Cleyn, master of tapestry works. Died 1658, 
 Gibson, the dwarf, page to Charles I., and portrait-painter. 
 Hubert de Sueur, sculptor of equestrian statue of Charles I. 
 John Baptist Caspars, designer. Died 169 1. 
 William Lightfoot, architect. Died 1671. 
 Marchant, Brown, Tassie, Pistrucci, cameo workers. 
 Sir Christopher Wren, architect. 1632-1723. 
 Grinling Gibbons, wood-carver and sculptor. 1648-1721. 
 Laureans, Watson, &c. , pupils of Gibbons. 
 Francis Place, (amateur) desigrper. 1645- 1 728. 
 Tobias Norris, John Clark, William Newcome, Hugh Watts, H. Oldfield, 
 
 Miles Grey, &c., bell-founders. 
 Monsieur Rotiere, graver of the Mint and sculptor. About 1677. 
 Wise, Rayman, and Barak Norman, fiddle-makers and inlayers. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 John Hakewell, artist and house -painter. Died 1791. 
 
 James Wyatt, Adams (brothers). Sir W. Chambers, James Gibbs, 
 
 Vanbrugh, William Kent (first landscape gardener), architects. 
 John Baker, coach-painter. 
 Angelica Kauffmann (painted cabinet panels). 1742 -1808. 
 
ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND. xxiii 
 
 John Flaxman, John de Vaere, Webber, Angelo Dalmazzoni, Angelini 
 (designed for Wedgwood's pottery). 
 
 T. Chippendale and his son, Baker, Capitsoldi, Ceracci, Cipriani (deco- 
 rated Carlton House), Coit, Collet, C, Cotton, Davy, A. Heppelwhite 
 (published in 1789 designs for 'Empire' furniture), Hyman, Johnson, 
 J. Linnell, Matthias Lock (published designs of furniture of every 
 kind), and Copeland, Pergolese, Pigalle, Sheraton (published an ex- 
 tensive Dictionary of his trade), Totham, Voyers, Wilton, Gillow, 
 designers for furniture. 
 
 Banks, John Duke, the Forsters, the Fendts, fiddle-makers and inlayers. 
 
 Moser, modeller of Bow china, originally a chaser. 
 
 Thomas Frye and his daughters (painted Bow). 1 710-1762. 
 
 John Bacon, sculptor (modelled for Lambeth ware). About 1760. 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 [In a list so mixed and necessarily brief it is impossible to mention all 
 names, and it must suffice to quote those artists best known, as originators, 
 not imitators, of a school, and the firms best able to employ good 
 workmen.] 
 
 Sir Jeffrey Wyatt, or Wyattville, architect to George IV. 
 
 Joseph Paxton, architect. 
 
 Crace and Co. (a fashionable firm, middle of the century). 
 
 Evans, of Shrewsbury, glass-painter. 
 
 Clayton and Bell, glass -workers. 
 
 W. J. Aitchison, architect (has designed for furniture). 
 
 Gillow and Co. (a firm of decorators, employing skilled labour). 
 
 Minton & Co. 
 
 Owen Jones, art designer and decorator, author of valuable works on art. 
 
 Pugin, architect, designer, and writer on art, on Gothic and Mediaeval 
 
 principles. 
 J. M. Whistler, artist ; designer of the * Peacock Room ' and furniture on 
 
 Japanese principles. 
 Cottier and Co., decorators, and workers in decorative glass. 
 Powell and Co., glass works of all kinds, including stained glass windows 
 William Morris, art designer (in all branches), scholar and poet. 
 Bume Jones, artist, designer of stained glass, &c. , for Morris and Co. 
 
XXIV 
 
 ART-DESIGNERS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Walter Crane, artist (has designed for embroidery, wall-papers, &c.) 
 Charles Eastlake, keeper of the National Gallery (has designed for plate, 
 
 furniture, &c.) 
 Burges, architect and decorator, on Mediaeval principles. 
 Ilelbronner and Co, (depot for textile fabrics copied from ancient sources). 
 James Fergusson, F.R.S., architect and author of valuable works. 
 
firjft 2£'Oofe 
 
 The Search after Beauty 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 €l)c H^xt flcbolt 
 
 OST people are now alive to the importance of 
 beauty as a refining influence. The appetite 
 for artistic instruction is even ravenous. We 
 cannot be too thankful that it is so, for the 
 vacuum can be filled as easily as the purse can be 
 emptied. Just now every shop bristles with the ready 
 means : books, drawings, and odjets de vertu from all 
 countries are within everybody's reach, and all that is 
 lacking is the cool power of choice. 
 
 It will be my endeavour to point out in these pages 
 that choice remains, and to warn my readers that beauty 
 and art, like pure water, rely upon the tidal flow of new 
 thoughts ; they lie in no stagnant pool. The mind which 
 blindly accepts fashions simply because they are fashion- 
 able, without trying to discriminate in what the new is 
 better than the old, may be said to resemble those caged 
 reptilian jaws, champing without discretion flesh, feathers, 
 and blanket at once. 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 No doubt things are rapidly mending in domestic 
 art. People brought up in that fog which the French 
 Revolution left us floundering in, people who loved 
 sunsets and flowers and music may be, who sketched 
 scenery, enjoyed Byron, and went punctually to the 
 Royal Academy — but scarcely noticed their own walls 
 and carpets (I speak of the mass of ' genteel ' society 
 thirty years ago) — these people woke up some time 
 since to the influence of surroundings on the mind and 
 temper. They began to resent the discomfort and 
 ugliness which their indifl"erence had attracted round 
 them, and they inaugurated a kind of Reformed Faith 
 in art. 
 
 How long since did the clogged wheels begin to 
 yield to individual efforts } Who was the first hero who 
 pulled up and burnt his ' cheerful ' patterned Brussels, in 
 scarlet and sour green t Who first sold his drawing- 
 room ^ suite' — his velvet sofa backed with cotton — his 
 six small chairs with torturing backs, two arm-chairs, 
 vile marquetry table, and gilt console ? The orthodox 
 * chiffonier ' of unmeaning shape, with mirror-back that 
 reflected our frightful bodies in one focus, and mirror- 
 doors that made fun of our detached legs in another : 
 and all the floriated false curves and flourishes ground 
 (not carved) in mahogany and glued wherever they 
 were likeliest to be knocked off — all the false ' em- 
 bossed mouldings' (also glued on), recalling nothing, in 
 their vacant misconstruction of classic types, but human 
 teeth, or emblems of disease ingeniously connected : 
 where are these horrors now t 
 
 They are all relegated to the seaside lodging-house, 
 
THE ART REVOLT. 5 
 
 along with the glossy white walls and rattling and 
 writhing fender, and the rampant-lion rug. 
 
 We can all rejoice at this result : but few of us can 
 apply the moral, for few remember whence the horrors 
 sprang, or realise that all this outrageous vulgarity of 
 design and bad, scamped work, was the final British 
 version of something in itself good — nay, the apotheosis 
 of art as applied to furniture — the fashion of Louis 
 Ouatorze. 
 
 What has come, as a reaction, is just sufficiently 
 better to express the popular sense of having done 
 wrong. Society has confessed its sins and promised 
 to amend : but there is always the risk when running 
 from one ' lion in the path ' that we shall run straight 
 into the jaws of another. Alas ! the new faith has 
 assumed a livery quite as forced as the old one : quite 
 as ugly it often threatens to be, with stiff patterns 
 instead of flowing ones, morbid colours instead of gay 
 ones, but equally ill-proportioned, vulgar, and machine- 
 begotten, perhaps more depressing. The New Art 
 furniture at its worst is a very ghastly parody on its 
 name, and without the wholesome discipline of en- 
 lightened discrimination I fear that it has a future 
 more dismal still than any previous fashion. 
 
 If people would think for themselves, turning over 
 the leaves of Nature's book instead of simply aping 
 others, we should have more comfort and more beauty 
 in our homes. 
 
6 THE SEARCH AETER BEAUTY. 
 
 At present our eyes seem blinded by prejudices 
 rooted so long ago that we have forgotten their origin. 
 We should never have asked whether the culture of 
 beauty is good for us, had we observed that beauty 
 simply means the harmonious adaptation of each thing 
 to its purpose and to the purposes of the rest ; that 
 the mere forces of nature, such as growth, circulation, 
 balance, and all other laws resulting from eternal at- 
 traction and repulsion, are the parents of curves and 
 colours, which have no moral significance unless we 
 impart it. And we should never have pushed culture 
 too far if we would have taken a hint from the humblest 
 creatures which select their habitations anci adapt their 
 array to circumstances. 
 
 To be healthy and happy, we must have beautiful 
 and pleasant things about us. If we cannot have trees 
 and flowers, mountains and floods, we can have their 
 echoes — architecture, painting, textile folds in changing 
 light and shade. 
 
 Every nation reflects its surroundings in its art, 
 while its art is spontaneous, not scholastic, and that is 
 how schools of art have grown up. Art may be said 
 to be good wherever natural laws dictate it, and bad 
 in proportion as it sets natural laws at defiance ; this, 
 whether there be any conscious attempt to copy nature 
 or not. From the Chinese effects indirectly derived 
 from their transparent atmosphere, their dazzling and 
 involved foliage, and their strange beasts, down to the 
 quaint homely art of colourless Iceland, it seems as if 
 nature were working through us ever outward. 
 
 Thus Art, if we will suffer it, becomes a natural 
 
THE NATURAL BASIS. 7 
 
 chronicle ; though we can hardly estimate progress by 
 any particular cult. To-day, energy runs rather to 
 books than carvings, but picture and language are 
 equally the expression of thought. The ancients talked 
 and looked about them : we write and read. 
 
 But surely of late one kind of expression has been 
 unduly neglected, and the pictorial kind to which we 
 usually apply the term Art is better than mere language 
 because it can please the eye without making incessant 
 demands upon the brain. It unites us more completely 
 with outward nature ; it can delight a thousand eyes and 
 hearts at once ; it draws us out of ourselves ; and its 
 variableness is infinite. Art properly applied should 
 counteract the influence of books, which nurse the 
 modern bent towards privacy and self-contained reserve. 
 
 As to the kinds of art which are right and proper, 
 every age has its particular wants and its particular 
 expression, but no age which truly loves beauty will 
 confine its art to very narrow limits ; the more it studies 
 beauty the more elastic it finds it. And if we will give 
 scope to the impulse and not bind it in with ' bits and 
 bearing-reins,' it will take care of itself independently 
 of ' a school ' and all orthodox lines. 
 
 Therefore, people who formulate, and who follow, a 
 fashion v/hich is not the natural outcome of the time, 
 are not to be relied on as teachers of what is absolutely 
 good and bad in art. They are sure to be hoodwinked 
 by their prejudices, and seeing but one small side of 
 beauty themselves, they are apt to try and make every- 
 body believe that no other side exists. 
 
 And everybody is apt to believe it, because, when 
 
8 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY, 
 
 we don't much care, it is convenient to have some one 
 to think for us, and the sheepwalk is soon beaten out in 
 a new direction with as little profit as ever to the sheep. 
 When the mass agree in overshooting the mark, some 
 sensible person points out that this is not all the world 
 consists of — that a few other ideas remain to be worked 
 up — and a reaction sets in with a violence proportioned 
 to the previous excess. 
 
 Such is the history of every fashion, as I have else- 
 where shown : ' the rise — usually from a basis of good 
 sense — the apcgee, and the decadence, in which the 
 original motive is lost, as surely as the message in the 
 old game of ' scandal,' then reform, and da capo. 
 
 This is what is happening now. We tore Louis 
 Quinze (as the finale of Louis Quatorze) to pieces till 
 he became abhorrent : then came the invariable recoil 
 from ornate -to simple forms : but it is as easy to vul- 
 garise poverty of thought as splendour, and when we 
 see what British vulgarity made of a school based 
 on the most gorgeous interpretations of classic types 
 (found in luxurious Athens and Rome), we might pre- 
 dict what it v/ould do for a school never very good 
 from the first, being based on a servile copy of early 
 Greek modes (temp. Napoleon I. — without of course 
 any of the natural conditions which evolved the modes 
 of early Greece). 
 
 These * First Empire ' copies are what we are copy- 
 ing now under the imaginary name of ' Queen Anne.' 
 I shall presently compare them with the genuine 
 
 ' This inevitable tendency has been spoken of in my books The Art of 
 Beauty and The Art of Dress. 
 
THE NATURAL BASIS. 9 
 
 fashions in the reign of that queen. And these copies 
 of other copies are an affectation quite as artificial as thd 
 imitation ' Louis Quinze ' curves we have just done with. 
 The fashion is not the natural growth of our age, for 
 Britain is now in no ascetic or squeamish mood. With- 
 out the renewing of fresh vigour and new thoughts every 
 fashion becomes vulgar and effete, as a body dies when 
 the blood ceases to circulate in it. Hence the present 
 ' aesthetic ' craze, when it does not represent individual 
 thought and effort, is as poor and parrot-like as any 
 other craze that had led intelligent creatures astray. 
 
 An object is beautiful or the reverse according as it 
 pleases the eye, and a combination of objects is beautiful 
 or the reverse according to their harmony with each 
 other. All this depends as much on graceful shadows 
 as on lights. 
 
 In painting a picture, the artist has to consider, ist, 
 colour (which includes form) ; 2nd, keeping (which 
 governs colour). 
 
 Technically speaking, by ' colour ' is meant not so 
 much any particular tint or tints, as the arrangement of 
 all tints in an agreeable composition : by * keeping ' is 
 meant an arrangement so skilful that the eye is not 
 confused by the variety of incidents however many, but 
 falls at once on the main point of interest to which 
 everything works up, and at once receives a definite 
 impression of the ensemble as * cold ' or ' hot,' tender or 
 severe. 
 
lo THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 A room is like a picture ; it must be composed with 
 equal skill and forethought ; but unlike a picture, the 
 arrangement must revolve around to a point which is 
 never stationary, always in motion ; therefore the * keep- 
 ing ' becomes a problem far harder than the colour. 
 
 The main point of interest to which the decorations 
 should work up, is the inhabitants ; but as they can 
 never be reckoned upon, the picture must be composed 
 as it were without the subject, like a poem without a 
 point or a story without an end. This must be done by 
 keeping the tone of colour down. That is to say, one 
 part must not be so much more decorated than another 
 as to put the rest out of tune ; the general tone, or cor- 
 responding value of contrasting tints must be equalised, 
 in subservience to the living beings that are yet to come 
 in. Still, there should be ' keeping ': — some minor point 
 or nucleus where interest centres, and where the chief 
 colours may be grouped, en attendant the main object. 
 
 It has always seemed to me that in this cold country 
 the fireplace is the most natural nucleus ; and it is pro- 
 bably because this has been unconsciously felt, that 
 people range their best ornaments, the biggest mirror, 
 the clock, the candlesticks, &c. upon the mantel-shelf 
 
 In summer, some bay-window or shady niche might 
 be the best nucleus, where the flowers in gayest pots, 
 the curtains of softest folds, might be grouped : and in 
 some such spot of main brilliancy the inhabitants, who 
 would be sure to gravitate thither, would be the better 
 thrown up and set off. 
 
 People always go to the prettiest and brightest part 
 of the room, by instinct — at any rate young people will 
 
BEAUTY. II 
 
 ('Bulvver observed that, in some note of his anent the 
 sunny and shady sides of a street) ; and if the prettiest 
 part of the room is also the most comfortable, they will 
 stay there. 
 
 Group therefore the easiest and best-shapen seats 
 where you wish people oftenest to sit : place there the 
 ornaments of finest colour — an oriental jar of turquoise 
 and orange, a brazen shield, a fine clock, flowers, or 
 whatever makes the brightness of the room ; then this 
 shrine, so prepared for habitation, must have its main 
 colouring carried out by other parts of the room, and 
 this will be the less difficult where the ornaments are 
 many and antique. 
 
 Every standard scheme of colour, Egyptian, Greek, 
 or what not, is based upon an intuitive knowledge of the 
 rules of harmony ; and such knowledge is best studied at 
 the fountain-head. Nature. Remember, a landscape is 
 the finest of all backgrounds — perfect in itself; and when 
 life is introduced, still perfect : perfect from afar, per- 
 fect on close scrutiny. And from nature we learn that 
 it is not the poverty or simplicity, but the variety and 
 closeness of invention, which makes a work grand. 
 Thus in the colour-art as in the sister art, music, we 
 may attain the most varied effects by happy combina- 
 tions. The rules of art are wide, not narrow, and will 
 admit all tastes ; hence, many schools contribute to the 
 general fund of beauty, all good in their way, and yet a 
 certain kind may appeal to this mind or that, more 
 than another kind ; for individual opinion must be ad- 
 mitted to be free, even where it rejects 'the better part.' 
 
 * No colour harmony,' says Ruskin somewhere, * is of 
 
12 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 high order, unless involving indescribable tints ; ' and it 
 has also become an axiom that to satisfy the eye and 
 produce harmony of colour, the presence of all the three 
 primaries ^ — blue, y ellow and red — is required, either pure 
 
 ' Those who do not understand the technical terms in Art may be glad 
 to know that the mixture of the primary colours makes the secondary 
 colours ; the mixture of the secondaries forms the tertiary hues ; thus — 
 
 Red ) 
 
 Blue \ Primary 
 
 Yellow) 
 
 Red 
 
 Blue j 
 
 Blue 
 Yellow 
 
 Yellow 
 Red , 
 
 Purple 
 
 Gieen v Secondary 
 
 K Orange 
 
 Green 
 Orange 
 
 Orange 1 
 Purple ^ 
 
 Purple ' 
 Green 
 
 Complementary Colour?, as seen 
 on diagram below. 
 
 Citrine 
 
 Lxertij 
 
 Russet V-Tertiary 
 
 Olive 
 
 b-b 
 c — c 
 
 &c. 
 
 •U33JS-^^01FA 
 
 purple. 
 
 Fig. I. — Diagram of colour. 
 
BEAUTY. 13 
 
 or in combination. But this does not mean that big 
 masses of blue, red, and yellow are ever to be placed in 
 discordant juxtaposition — only that these colours, in 
 some fit degree or tint, are to relieve the eye from 
 surfeit. For uniting pure colours, the quieter greys, 
 browns, or any of the tertiaries, with all their respective 
 tones of intensity (for which see Redgrave's or any other 
 manual), are invaluable. I have here shown by a dia- 
 gram what is meant by primary, secondary, and tertiary 
 colours, and every colour admitted in a noticeable mass 
 should be balanced somewhere by its complementary 
 (which stands opposite it in the diagram). Without 
 due balance colour, like form, leaves an uncomfortable 
 impression on the eye, and what constitutes balance I 
 have defined elsewhere (p. 203). A little red goes as 
 far in producing an effect as a good deal of blue ; a still 
 smaller quantity of yellow produces as great a one. The 
 proportions have been defined as 8 blue, 5 red, 3 yellow ; 
 still, the nicely calculated rules of colour as laid down 
 by the profession might be rigidly adhered to with a 
 very unpleasant effect, and a fine effect is sometimes got 
 in defiance of rules ; therefore no manual is as safe as an 
 ' eye for colour.' This is a faculty so happy and so 
 subtle that it may fairly be called a sixth sense. And 
 a room, or a dress, arranged after that true natural in- 
 stinct will always be beautiful, however surprising ; the 
 boldest combinations will 'look right,' for they will 
 always be found to be based on observation of Nature. 
 
 Precise and immutable as are, no doubt, those natural 
 laws, they are still in process of discovery, and the loving 
 study of a sweet pea or a daisy, for its grace of fibre, its 
 
14 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 strength of elastic build, its dainty contrasts of purple 
 and white and red, will teach us more than all the 
 manuals, perhaps more than all the picture galleries. I 
 shrink, myself, from dissections and skeletons, even of 
 the rainbow, for if we are not born with an eye for 
 beauty, they cannot give it us. No study of counter- 
 point can give us an ear for music, no spectrum analysis 
 pleasure in a dragon-fly's mail. Watching Nature, 
 practising combinations learnt from her, is the real 
 school ; and in all the finest decorative works we find the 
 masses distributed in such a way as could have been 
 derived only from the basis of art — Nature. ^ 
 
 Stothard kept a collection of butterflies which he 
 studied for hints upon colour and texture. Blake 
 strolled out and questioned the flowers and dew-drops 
 till every blade and grain had for him its fairy, its special 
 voice. Some colour-students have kept birds' eggs for 
 the same purpose ; and every bit of ore, every shell, 
 every feather has its own perpetual lesson for our eyes 
 and minds if we will but open them. And valuable as 
 are the rules of art, pressed from the experience of ages 
 of thinkers. Nature will ofttimes deny them all, and send 
 the primrose to prove that yellow and orange may mix, 
 with or without light green — its blossom and leaf ; or 
 the lupin, that blue and lilac are a happy combination ; 
 or the tulip, that scarlet and crimson and white may be 
 divided by faint blue ; and half her kingdom to tell us 
 that in spite of green being unpopular with the milliner 
 and upholsterer, it is the colour above all others which 
 * goes ' with all the rest — the peacemaker, on whom they 
 all rely. 
 
BEAUTY. 15 
 
 When we are planning out the picture we mean to 
 live in, the room that we wish to make a background for 
 the highest created animal, humanity, it is certainly 
 worth while to take our best pains if art is anywhere 
 important /^r se. And I am by no means sure that the 
 total neglect of art-lore and the patient study of a flower 
 or two will not result in something noble and beautiful, 
 however unlike other people's work. One thing is certain, 
 that a room where the main decorations are composed of 
 the carefuUest productions of antiquity — say, at least 
 before 1700 — will be more easy to keep in harmony 
 than a very modern room, however costly its ornaments, 
 because colours were less shrewdly distilled, more cloudy 
 and soft ; and it will be more interesting, because the 
 ornaments were made under the influence of compara- 
 tive leisure and freedom ; leisure to observe nature, leisure 
 to reason from nature to art, leisure to conceive^ and to 
 work at the new-born idea until the workman got to 
 love it, before sending it forth to the world. Never was 
 the saw of the wise king of Spain truer than now : 
 * Give me old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old books 
 to read, and old friends to talk to : ' when referred to 
 house-decoration. The modern productions made after 
 the old manner, as by Minton, Doulton, and at Valery, 
 with laboriously dimmed tints and careful crooked- 
 nesses, are as different from the real old things as a 
 tame daisy is from a wild one — and always remind 
 me of a very artful lady acting the wood-nymph, a sort 
 of Venus in a bonnet and veil ! There is no spontaneity 
 in them, the effects don't come because they must, but 
 because they are calculated on ; so that, however well a 
 
i6 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 thoroughly modern room is arranged, it wearies, and 
 wants freshness. 
 
 The details of furniture are little less important, 
 though they are certainly not more important, than dress, 
 by reason of their intimate propinquity to ourselves. This 
 must infallibly have been felt by students of beauty in all 
 ages, and helped the formation of every school of art. 
 The human surroundings react so continually upon the 
 cultured mind that we are inclined to endorse the old 
 Italian notion (at Italy's apex of culture) of a beautiful 
 dress as a genuine element in the perfection of the 
 individual ; ^ and in old England Italian sentiment on 
 
 ^ ' Even the outward appearance of men and women and the habits of 
 daily life were more perfect, Aore beautiful, and more polished than among 
 the other nations of Europe. The dwellings of the upper classes fall 
 rather within the province of the history of art, but we may note how far 
 the castle and the city mansion in Italy surpassed in comfort, order, and 
 harmony the dwellings of the northern noble. The style of dress varied 
 so continually that it is impossible to make any complete comparison with 
 the fashions of other countries, all the more because since the close of the 
 fifteenth century imitations of the latter were frequent. The costumes of 
 the time, as given us by the Italian painters, are the most convenient and 
 most pleasing to the eye which were then to be found in Europe : but we 
 cannot be sure if they present the prevalent fashion, or if they are faithfully 
 reproduced by the artists. It is nevertheless beyond a doubt that no- 
 where was so much importance attached to dress as in Italy. The 
 people was, and is, vain ; and even serious men among it looked on a 
 handsome and becoming costume as an element in the perfection of the 
 individual. At Florence, indeed, there was a brief period when dress was 
 a purely personal matter and every man set the fashion for himself ; and 
 till far in the sixteenth century there were exceptional people who still had 
 the courage to do so, and the majority at all events showed themselves 
 capable of varying the fashion according to their individual tastes. It is a 
 symptom of decline when Giovanni delle Casa warns his readers not to be 
 
BEAUTY. \7 
 
 this matter found some echo, as we may judge from 
 Chaucer's emphatic notice of persons' dresses. 
 
 . Furniture is a kind of dress, dress is a kind of 
 furniture, which both mirror the mind of their owner;> and 
 the temper of the age ; which both minister to our 
 comfort and culture, and they ought to be considered 
 together. 
 
 Right and delightful as it is to cultivate beauty, it is 
 no doubt possible to carry the * lust of the eye ' too far 
 like other things Those * aesthetic ' folks who worship 
 Signorelli, and sit among blue china and green paper 
 mourning over the 19th century and yearning for the 
 Past like the lost Children in the Wood for the departed 
 uncle, sometimes make us think we might be cloyed with 
 beauty (if this be its haunt), till we would hail tripe and 
 onions on Judson-dyed china for a relief 
 
 There are other colours in the rainbow beside green 
 and blue : the present is as good in its way as the past. 
 Such teachers are far from helpful, save that they show 
 us that if Taste means sensibility and judgment, there 
 may be unhealthy sensibility and prejudiced judgment 
 — and both may be affected. One of the reasons why 
 average culture does not progress very fast, is because 
 those who might guide it seem to study nature with such 
 resolute obliquity of vision, and practise speaking the 
 simplest things in the obscurest language, and ' pose ' 
 
 singular or to depart from existing fashions.' — The Renaissance in Italy 
 (Burckhardt), translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. 
 
 C 
 
i8 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 and attitudinise so sedulously, that patience gives way 
 before them and Culture gets blamed for the follies of 
 its disciples. But whilst we accept the fact that rotten 
 grass may taint a fair stream, we must not therefore give 
 up the stream nor the grass in the meadow, but rather 
 try to set the balance straight by cutting down the un- 
 healthy products. 
 
 The past certainly produced more beautiful works 
 than we do, and I hope to show, in a brief retrospect of 
 ancient rooms, how much we may learn in the old 
 schools. There are many reasons why it did so ; though 
 I doubt whether early art consciously aimed at being 
 beautiful and pleasing (as, e.g.. Renascence art did), so 
 much as it aimed at being helpful and instructive, turn- 
 ing to edifying account every flat surface within reach. 
 
 One reason is, the old artists had ample time and a 
 limited demand ; now, there is a large demand, and 
 limited time allowed. They worked by hand where we 
 work by machinery ; and the difference between the one, 
 which bears evidence of an individual mind, over the 
 other, which is quite unintelligent, must be clear to all. 
 The force that with us runs into genre pictures only and 
 perhaps literature, then ran into bronze-casting, stone- 
 cutting, wood-carving, and missal-colouring : for carvings 
 were the books of the people ; art was their common 
 library, so to speak ; hence it was so largely used to 
 expound religious precepts. Under such circumstances 
 we can understand how the personal religion of the work- 
 man, or superstition if we choose to call it so, often 
 rendered his work conscientious as well as quaint. 
 
 Still, the past was dirty and cruel, enslaved and 
 
EXQUISITE OBSTRUCTIVES, 19 
 
 suffering ; we are better, morally, socially, physically, 
 though we do not so much appreciate ornament. A far 
 larger community is civilised, able to afford luxuries, and 
 in a great hurry for them. And though religion does 
 not enter into the artisan's scheme of work, and he can 
 neither be terrified nor bribed into fervour, yet on the 
 whole we are safer, healthier, freer, happier than ever we 
 were. 
 
 Not that there was no bad, scamped work then as 
 now ; or varying qualities in tapestry and wainscot, of 
 which the bad specimens have perished whilst the few 
 best have survived. Not that everyone in Signorelli's 
 day was as great as Signorelli. Rotten grass has existed 
 from the beginning of the world. But it is in our power 
 to weed away what is bad in all departments of life ; 
 and if we applied as much pressure to the labourers as 
 we might if we ourselves knew right from wrong ; if 
 we appreciated the value of conscientious brain-work 
 and honest study of nature in art-products as most 
 cultivated people don^ty we might now have results as 
 beautiful as ever our ancestors had, and far more numer- 
 ous. The supply always in the long run equals the 
 demand. When we know what we want, we shall get 
 it, but no class of persons so materially hinders the 
 wholesome and wide-reaching reformation in domestic 
 art as the class who sit aloof and say that art is not for 
 the people but for the elect,^ that the 19th century is 
 dead to beauty and the case hopeless — for they not only 
 cause the Philistines to blaspheme, and make the new 
 efforts ridiculous, but they exercise a numbing and 
 
 ' See Mr. Poynter's letters in the Times. 
 c 2 
 
20 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 depressing influence on those with whom the carrying 
 out of the reform greatly lies, the better-educated trades- 
 men, who lose heart even with good intentions. 
 
 2trt i^ for i^t people 
 
 Changes must emanate from the public, not from 
 their servant, the producer : for it is they who pay for it, 
 not any elect body. The painter paints for the Royal 
 Academy, but it is the people who buy his pictures. 
 The musician composes an opera — the people support 
 or condemn it. The poet writes, and the people 
 publish his work if he expresses their thoughts — not 
 without. Emerson puts it quaintly, that we love 
 ' those who tell us what we know ; ' and the main 
 value of art lies in its education of the people, the 
 drawing out in noble form what is already there. 
 Naturally, the upholsterer cannot afford to be independ- 
 ent of the people — he must supply their demand, and 
 give them as little for their money as they will accept. 
 And here is the point — what do the people want and 
 care for in domestic art t for what they insist upon they 
 will assuredly get. 
 
 Educate the public that they may recognise what is 
 good, whether in colour, shape, or construction. Educate 
 the workman that he may be equal to the coming 
 demand. Give him an interest in his work. Separate 
 the good art-workman from the human machine who 
 spends his life in making only legs, or only scrolls, or 
 some other fractional part of a design which he never 
 sees in its entirety and therefore cannot contribute 
 
ART IS FOR THE PEOPLE. 21 
 
 intelligently to. But no one can cdncate him but the 
 customer. He cannot subsist on an ideal. 
 
 We know more, we notice more, than we did. Let 
 us guard ourselves from old errors in a new direction by 
 examining the principles of beauty in what we admire — 
 every one for himself. This, and this only, is the secret 
 of originality.\ 
 
 To care for beauty, to nurse our precious freedom to 
 think for ourselves and to do as we like in art-matters, 
 to avoid the fatal sheep-walk which the timid and 
 ignorant so soon beat out, the stereotyped house of the 
 stereotyped art-decorator, to give our individual stamp 
 to our own little /r^/r//// in the common heritage of the 
 Beautiful ; this is what we have to do, this is the way to 
 create a new, a national school of art in England, and 
 the way to carry into domestic life pleasant and refining 
 influences. 
 
 Having now laid down my premisses (not, I hope, too 
 sweepingly), that rooms and their furniture should be 
 beautiful ; that beauty is confined to no people and to 
 no period ; that blue and green are not the only colours 
 in the rainbow ; and that the present ' aesthetic ' craze 
 unvitalised by new blood is poor and parrot-like ; I will 
 proceed to more practical hints on the art of decoration. 
 
 ^^im-^is^ 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE importance of surroundings and their effect 
 on personal appearance is very considerable. 
 People certainly look different in different 
 rooms. Some look vulgar in one place and 
 refined in another, just as some look pretty in one dress 
 and plain in another. A pale person against a pale wall 
 paper disappears ; whilst in a well-coloured room human 
 pallor may be set off and made pleasing. A person of 
 high colour in a room full of hues which do not properly 
 contrast with herself either derives so much reflected 
 glow that she becomes empurpled and fiery, or else her 
 personality is destroyed by the surroundings over-assimi- 
 lating or absorbing her, so that she becomes a mere 
 letter in an alphabet of violent colour. 
 
 In my book, the * Art of Beauty,' the suggestion that 
 surroundings ought to be adapted to persons, and the 
 colours of rooms to their inhabitants, was much misun- 
 derstood. A great deal of small fun was made out of 
 my supposed assertion that ladies should dress up to 
 
SURROUNDINGS. 23 
 
 their rooms, or re-decorate them to suit every new dress, 
 or refuse to dine out without a warranty of the colour 
 they were expected to sit against. Of course all this 
 was wide of the mark. What I did say, and what con- 
 tinued observation has confirm.ed me in, is, that rooms 
 being a background for human beings, and coloured 
 surfaces having definite artistic relations to one another, 
 different hues must be arranged with thought and skill 
 where juxtaposition to faces and complexions is un- 
 avoidable, i.e., not only in dress, but in the wall papers 
 and furniture of rooms. Not that people are to adapt 
 themselves to their walls, but that their walls are to be 
 adapted to them ; not that there are to be special niches 
 and panels where fair beauties or dark beauties, or 
 ladies in red, green, or yellow, are to sit, loll, or stand, 
 but that a room, in its decoration and general colour- 
 ing, is to be regarded as an accessory to the main 
 object, the individual, and to be so skilfully planned 
 that dark and fair, red, green, and yellow persons, are 
 equally well treated within it, and look equally well. 
 Nor must this be thought impossible or impracticable, 
 for there is no doubt that there are certain colours which 
 are infallibly good backgrounds, just as there are others 
 which are unmistakably bad backgrounds : that these 
 are not few but many, and that they are not all blue- 
 green or green-blue, very little experience can teach — in 
 short, nearly every colour and material may be com- 
 bined into a harmonious whole with a little care and 
 artistic reflection. 
 
 One of my strongest convictions, and one of the first 
 canons of good taste in house decoration, is that our 
 
24 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 houses, like the fish's shell or the bird's nest, ought to 
 represent our individual tastes and habits, never the 
 habits of a class. Fishes are not all herrings, birds are 
 not all sparrows ; let us, too, accentuate the varieties 
 which exist among us. There is nothing so foolish, 
 nothing so destructive to the germination of real taste 
 and art-feeling in England, as the sheeplike English in- 
 clination to run in a flock. Instead of using their brains 
 and eyes, people cry out, ' What shall I do .'* ' or worse, 
 ' What do other people do } ' and directly they find out 
 they do it too, like babies. This manner of proceeding 
 reminds me of a young lady whom I once taught to 
 sketch from nature, and who drew a line or two and 
 then asked me, ' Where is the next line to go to } ' 
 * Look and see,' was all I could reply — the very last 
 thing she thought of doing. 
 
 Why will not people use their own faculties, and 
 judge for themselves what looks best here or there, and 
 so contribute something new and individual to society } 
 
 Unintelligent SCtiojtiom 
 
 If you adopt other people's ideas, you ought to have 
 some better reason than because someone else does it. 
 ' 'Tis poor feeding where the flavour of the meat de- 
 pends on the cruets,' said Mrs. Peyser, and it is a poor 
 fashion which has not its own apology in grace and 
 good sense. 
 
 It is marvellous what mistakes we may fall into 
 unless we observe whether or no Precedent defies Pro- 
 priety. No thoroughly bad fashion would ever take a 
 
UNINTELLIGENT ADOPTION. 25 
 
 firm hold on society were it not for the indolence of 
 those who can, but will not, think for themselves, and 
 the timidity of those who dread what is new. For in- 
 stance, one hears ladies laying down the law in this 
 style : * You must have old point on your mantel-shelf; 
 it is indispensable. Everyone has it ! ' Yet good sense 
 tells us that a delicate fabric designed to adorn a lady's 
 dress is as unsuited to the rough and dusty service of 
 furniture close to the fire as a pearl necklace or ostrich 
 plumes. Why, therefore, *must' we adopt a freak of 
 luxury, founded on neither good sense nor good taste } 
 Again, we hear, * Fire ornaments are quite gone out ; 
 you must stick a Japanese parasol in the stove, or fill it 
 with tinsel and waterlilies.' It matters not how out- 
 rageous the notion — primroses planted in the fender, a 
 rockery of ferns, a scent fountain playing up the chimney, 
 or a white satin bow from the register — the argument is 
 always the same : ' I am telling everybody of it, and 
 they are all doing it ! ' 
 
 This is the way in which foolish fashions speedily 
 infect a whole community, because each person is afraid 
 to be independent, or likes to have somebody to think 
 for her. I quote the stove, because no other part of the 
 house has been so tortured into a false position or an 
 unnatural aspect ; yet why, in this uncertain clime, a 
 fire-place is never to confess its name when not in use, 
 any more than a chair or a piano, I do not know. 
 
 It seems to me better that a thing should be candidly 
 acknowledged in disuse than made ridiculous by misuse, 
 and it is better to risk being called eccentric than to 
 follow a bad example ; yet, given that a fire-place ought 
 
26 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY, 
 
 reasonably to serve as a flower-pot or a fish pond in sum- 
 mer, and that a mantel-shelf ought to be dressed like a 
 lady, if a fine were imposed on everybody who copied 
 her neighbour's work the result would be interesting as 
 the products of original minds, for the various methods, 
 if not all good, would be certainly all new. 
 
 Good sense is the basis of all that is beautiful, and 
 details of ornament as well as the ensemble ought to be 
 the natural result of our habits and tastes. Without the 
 renewing of fresh vigour and new thoughts, every fashion 
 becomes vulgar and effete, as a body dies when the 
 blood ceases to circulate in it. Hence the present 
 aesthetic craze, when it does not represent individual 
 thought and effort, is as poor and parrot-like as any 
 other craze which has led intelligent creatures astray. 
 
 People require teaching, helping, forcing to develop 
 their own resources and to evolve their own tastes. The 
 schoolboy is punished for using a * crib,' not because it 
 is wrong, but because it is his duty to exercise his brains. 
 And, although a foolish opposition to all reigning habits 
 may become equally weak, for people should have the 
 courage of their opinions — courage even to echo if need 
 be, without limiting their speech to a continual echo — 
 yet those would-be leaders are stumbling-blocks to pro- 
 gress who say, 'This is done, therefore do it.' ^ Nay, do 
 not go on nibbling at the half-eaten grass — move on- 
 ward to pastures new, little lambs. > 
 
HARMONY. 
 
 The fashionable practice of modelling rooms too 
 severely upon a single period is open to grave objections. 
 It binds fetters of iron on the owner, who can never 
 work-in any new element, however beautiful. It seems 
 to destroy all liberty of action ; and, moreover, when 
 the room is inhabited, the sense of propriety is outraged 
 by the impossibility of confining the dresses of the 
 guests — or, indeed, the manners and customs — to the 
 required limit. A newspaper or a piano is an anachro- 
 nism in a real Queen Anne (not ' Empire ') room, and I 
 know Queen Annites who consistently banish both. 
 Tea would be an anachronism in a Tudor room ; or at 
 least, if used, it ought to be spoken of by its native 
 name tcha (tea, with accented a), as it was in this country 
 when it first appeared, being written chaw here in 1615, 
 and chia by the Portuguese. 
 
 Sensitiveness to anachronisms naturally increases 
 with attention, but too severe consistency — fair enough 
 as an antiquarian freak — when elevated into a system 
 seems to me intolerable, since our walls and furniture 
 were made for us, not we for them. 
 
 Still, a happy liberty must not be confounded with 
 outlawry— a feverish effort to be different from others 
 often results in disagreeable eccentricities— but that 
 some sort of harmony with surroundings is needful in 
 dress and bearing I shall strive to show. It stands to 
 reason that (short of preparing a ' specimen room,' or a 
 museum for reference only) it is better to allow some 
 
28 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 latitude to modern tastes and requirements than to 
 trammel all the guests with laws and liveries, or to have 
 to suffer in silence the incongruity one has learnt to feel 
 too acutely. 
 
 Without tiresome adherence to a given date, we 
 must study unity of plan, and banish all really discor- 
 dant elements. For instance, a room furnished notice- 
 ably in the Georgian style should not contain obtrusive 
 Victorian manufactures. A very Japanese room should 
 not be marred by early English work, such as would be 
 unlikely to reach Japan. On the other hand, a Georgian 
 room may contain Jacobean furniture ; a Jacobean room 
 m.ay take hints from old Japan or Egypt, for objects of 
 contemporary or earlier date may be assumed to 
 have a possible right in the room, which those of a 
 later date cannot have by any stretch of imagination. 
 Similarly, Chinese art would be fish-out-of-waterish in 
 an early English home. China was not opened up till 
 the sixteenth century, and modern Chinese work would 
 be ill-placed in a Jacobean room, as it would dispel the 
 illusion of antiquity, and at once betray that the room 
 was spurious, or that modern additions and excrescences 
 were being added. 
 
 Such things might fairly be carried by the present 
 generation into an antique dwelling place, but they 
 would always look ' out of keeping ' and uncomfortable. 
 This makes, in my opinion, a room avowedly eclectic 
 easier to manage and more suitable to modern wants 
 than any other. Good taste, which means sensibility 
 and discrimination, will decide what incongruity means, 
 and what principle or system is to govern the arrange- 
 
DECORATING, 
 
 29 
 
 ment, leaving a margin for accidents and after-thoughts, 
 and bearing in mind throughout that a room is not an 
 ornament independent of circumstances, but chiefly an 
 accessory and support to beings who move and change 
 continually. 
 
 It is this very fact which endows us with liberty to 
 suit our own taste, or the varying tastes of a family, in a 
 room ; and when the meaning of harmony is rightly 
 understood, we see that it means not only a simple, im- 
 poverished cadence like a slight air played by one hand, 
 but it admits of complex and even elaborate develop- 
 ment. Indeed, you may play with colours, as with 
 notes, so as to satisfy all ears. The key may be in the 
 main major or minor, the tone may be high or low as 
 you wish it, but harmony is vowed neither to simplicity 
 nor exuberance ; either may be harmonious, either dis- 
 cordant. You may attain a harmonious effect by the 
 redundance of elements, such as hangings, furniture, 
 china, pictures, and all ornaments, however many and 
 various ; or you may attain it by the paucity of ele- 
 ments. Nothing but an 'eye' for beauty can arrange 
 either little or much well, so as not to weary or satiate. 
 And if you cultivate your eye, you will arrange your 
 own house better than any decorator can do it for you, 
 and you will avoid the badge of a ' Smith house ' or a 
 * Brown house.' 
 
 The province of a decorator, commonly forgotten, is 
 not to take your house out of your jurisdiction ; he 
 might as well control all your possessions and sell every- 
 
30 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 thing he did not personally covet. His province is to 
 help you in that mechanical part which you cannot do 
 yourself. He may guide you ; he must not subjugate 
 you. He should be competent to save you from a fiasco 
 if you are utterly incapable of thinking for yourself, but 
 he ought surely to harmonise your individual opinions 
 with the general laws (broad as they are) of art which 
 he is supposed to have studied, not to make your 
 house the replica of another he has done. A man's 
 house, whilst he is in it, is a part of himself Such 
 stipulations as professional decorators are apt to make — 
 that, having undertaken to decorate your room, they are to 
 do it in their own way, and not to be * hampered by your 
 prejudices,' ^ is, I think, a principle a priori false, though 
 I can well understand the professional views and reasons. 
 However ignorant the customer, and however accom- 
 plished the decorator, the customer's opinions and wishes 
 are of the first importance in this as in every other 
 province of trade, and the ' public ' will never improve 
 until they are respected. What should we say if the 
 linen-draper took a leaf out of the decorator's book, and 
 if when we asked for red silk the shopman politely 
 replied, * Madam, I consider red silk unsuited to you, 
 and I suggest green merino ; and if your prejudices are 
 opposed to the laws of art, represented by the present 
 fashion and my stock, I prefer to decline your order ' } 
 We should resent this, though a dress does not last so 
 long as a new wall-colour, it can be got rid of sooner. 
 There are certain patterns, as there are certain colours, 
 repugnant, like particular aliments, to certain constitu- 
 
 ' Such strenuous conditions are laid down in (e.g.) House Decoration 
 (Art at Home Series). 
 
WHAT A ROOM SHOULD BE. 31 
 
 tions ; and, although constant interference by customers 
 in the progress of the work would be very vexatious to 
 any workman, yet he has no right to object to any 
 alteration demanded — to any exchange, e.g., of a stiff 
 for a flowing pattern, or a bright colour for a dull one, 
 when, the work finished, it is displeasing to those who 
 have got to endure it for years. 
 
 The customer ought to meet a tyrannical decorator 
 with Shylock's dignified answer, * It is my humour,' and 
 the detail of colour of device which the decorator wants 
 to put up, whether you like it or no, may be regarded as 
 the * harmless necessary cat ' which every freeborn Briton 
 has a right to hate if he will, as Shylock hints. 
 
 To obtain a harmonious whole, you must not omit 
 the main element — yourself ; and the premiss that your 
 ' prejudices' are not to count only fosters the ape-like 
 propensity, already common, which we ought to try to 
 get rid of. We do not want any new recipe for creating 
 apes, we have too many. One is the decorator's * preju- 
 dice ' when his stock-in-trade is limited. Beautiful in 
 itself, and satisfying the cultured eye in all its parts, the 
 dwelling-room ought to offer relief and sympathy in 
 colour and shape to all moods, all types. The domestic 
 surroundings, like dress, have a definite effect on the 
 spirits, almost on the character ; they may be sym- 
 pathetic or irritating. Note their importance in a sick 
 room, for example, which any observant nurse will 
 confirm. A well-coloured room is cheerful, yet not 
 
32 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 obtrusively gay, calm without depressing the spirits, soft 
 or rich in tone without partaking too much of either cold 
 or hot tints ; and offering no broad blank spaces to 
 fatigue the mind or exercise it to devise possible 
 additions, nor patterns which teaze the eye to count and 
 follow their impertinent gyrations. It should, in fact, 
 be like a calm, pleasant expectant smile on a kindly 
 face, — not a sour stare, nor an obstreperous loud laugh. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 <©Iti <©uccn %nnt ^fetple* 
 
 F the gaudy red and gold monstrosities of 
 twenty years ago (Louis XV. fashions vulgar- 
 ised) may be likened to the obstreperous loud 
 laugh, some of the would-be-aesthetic modern 
 rooms, all splinters and ashen tints (George III. modes 
 vulgarised) may be likened to the sour stare. Grim and 
 acidulated in colouring, cold and formal in aspect, 
 dotted with heavy high chairs falsely fathered upon 
 Chippendale and falsely modelled on Greek forms, and 
 rickety little tables and sofas glossy and spotty with 
 inlaying almost like a snake's skin, and made with sharp 
 legs which seem to prick and sting the carpet — we find 
 no large conceptions of beauty or pleasantness either in 
 the true George III. room nor its copy. Why are these 
 things called * Queen Anne * unless in jest because she 
 never lived to see such furniture ? 
 
 The art which was popular here in that quiet queen's 
 day was chiefly Jacobean, for foreign fashions did not 
 cross the silver streak as swiftly as they now do; and 
 
 D 
 
3t 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY 
 
 that was of a heavy, large, but right noble type. The 
 woodwork was capital. The chairs were heav}', square, 
 velvet-covered, with twisted or slowly curved legs, which 
 will bear any superimposed weight. The well-seasoned 
 oak or chestnut-wood has the hardness and polish of 
 
 Fig. 2. — Seventeenth Century Cabinet, belonging to the Rev. H. R. Haweis. 
 
 bronze. The vast bedsteads, chairs and cabinets, in- 
 telligently carven by hand (you could not overturn tJmn 
 with your skirts) — which were in keeping with the massive 
 dress of Anne's day — stood against oaken panelling which 
 for simple propriety of treatment, admirable construction, 
 and cleanliness, is unparalleled. There is no such work 
 now. The joints which were meant to bear the rough 
 
OLD QUEEN ANNE STYLE. 35 
 
 polishing with beeswax and vinegar of strong-armed, 
 old-fashioned housemaids, have borne the rougher 
 usage of neglect and defacement for 150 years, and still 
 harbour no parasites between the well-seasoned seams. 
 
 Meantime increasing social wealth, security, and 
 comfort were annually rendering strength in furniture 
 less important, and ejfect was more generally sought. 
 The odour of the Renascence had not quite faded, 
 Under Louis XIV. and his successor in France the luxuries 
 of Imperial Rome seemed more enviable as they were 
 better understood ; the passion for novelty and surprises 
 inspired all that was best and worst in the fashions of 
 the time ; and the decadence of taste rnoved on through 
 a few beautiful phases. The black oak with its splendid 
 honest lights and shadows had long yielded to the rich 
 marqtieterie mdidQ gay with chased brass and ormolu, 
 which was peculiarly French both in its artificiality and 
 the cleverness of its delicate finish. Her Majesty the 
 Queen possesses specimens of this work contemporary 
 with Anne, but it was no more English than the Floren- 
 tine mosaics which were made in the sixteenth century, 
 and it ought to be called Louis XIV. What ivas 
 English, perhaps the only fashion which may be cor- 
 rectly called after Queen Anne,^ was the new invention, 
 grained paint. 
 
 There are many rooms and doorways of true Jacobean 
 and Annean work in Gray's Inn Square and that 
 district, which would be worth preserving in some more 
 
 ' Grained paint was known to the ancient Romans, but this unpleasing 
 classic fashion appears not to have been popular in England until Queen 
 Anne's time. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 fashionable locality, and windows adorned with the 
 wreaths and architectural ornaments of Renascence 
 origin, giving on avenues of trees planted in lordly rows 
 according to the good old English taste. The orna- 
 ments were grained over, whatever they were made of. 
 Paper for wall-hangings was already in use, humbly 
 emulating the designs of the old leather and silk which 
 had long adorned richer walls, but its quality was not 
 yet satisfactory enough to commend it to popular taste. 
 Paper-hangings are essentially English — even Jacque- 
 mart admits that. France received the manufacture 
 from us, and presently added improvements ; England 
 may have derived it from Holland or Spain, where 
 stamped paper-hangings are said to have been first 
 made about 1555. Stencilling and whitewash were still 
 extensively used, as they had been for centuries, whilst 
 princes and the wealthier citizens moved to and fro 
 against a background of Flemish or English tapestry, or 
 silk, velvet, and gilt leather, in carved panels of oak, and 
 overhung with pictures and mirrors. The finer French 
 ' Gobelin ' tapestry, applied to walls, screens, and chairs 
 of refined and easy form, was the rage in France, where 
 luxury reached its height under Louis XV., and meek 
 England followed France as closely as she dared. 
 
 The rooms, therefore, which the wealthy inhabited 
 during Anne's brief reign and for some time before and 
 after, were by no means cold or bare in tone. They 
 were brilliant, either with the superb colouring and gold 
 of Spanish leather or Flemish looms, or with the sombre 
 lustre of polished and carven wood. Pepys speaks of 
 * hanging the long chamber where the girl lies with the 
 
GRINLING GIBBONS. 37 
 
 sad stuff that was in the best chamber, in order to the 
 hanging that with tapestry,' only a few years before 
 Queen Anne reigned, which proves that various stuffs 
 were in use for that purpose ; and Evelyn about the 
 same time tells us of Lady Mordaunt's room at Ashstead 
 * hung with pintado full of figures great and small prettily 
 representing sundry trades and occupations of the 
 Indians, with their habits,' — of rooms * parqetted with 
 yew ' which he ' liked well,' and of wainscots and 
 chimney-pieces carved by Gibbons ; of Persian carpets, 
 of Mr. Bohun at Lee, who had Japan screens instead of 
 wainscot (a little later Paris went mad after Japan 
 lacquer, till Martin devised a mode of imitating it), and 
 of the new French tapestry ' for design, tenderness of 
 work and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, 
 beyond anything I ever beheld.* 
 
 In such rooms, * exceedingly glorious and pretty to 
 look at,' the Queen Anne beauties moved and crackled 
 about, in rich brocades, and buckram, and marvellous 
 low bodices, and played at being Romans or rustics in 
 equal magnificence. 
 
 <©rinling <iSi66on^» 
 
 We cannot go farther without a few words on the 
 quality of the carving which distinguished Anne's and 
 her father's reign, and on the genius of the first English- 
 man who founded a school of art in his native land. Of 
 his life we know little, of his character nothing, save what 
 Evelyn tells us : he was * musical, and very civil, sober 
 and discreete in his discourse.' 
 
38 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 But his work indicates a conscientiousness, a firmness 
 and facility, a grace of fancy, and a sympathetic under- 
 standing of bird, beast, and flower, which may well 
 reflect the habit of mind which brought it forth, and it is 
 sufficient to stand in the beautifully re-decorated Chapel 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge, where the Gibbons'- 
 carvings long unnoticed now stand forth from a golden 
 ground, to be struck with an almost passionate admira- 
 tion of the dainty groups, as Evelyn himself was. 
 Like all truly great work, it stands outside criticism. 
 We forget whilst looking at it that the canons of art 
 repudiate naturalistic decoration, and that a frieze of 
 undying flowers is rather astonishing, and that lilies-of- 
 the-valley, carnations, and blue-bells are not alike dark 
 brown, as Gibbons' contemporaries forgot that such 
 wreaths were rather Gothic than classic, when they laid 
 them round Wren's pillars. The fragile stalks and 
 tremulous leaves engross our minds, the wood is alive, 
 and Gibbons remains independent of cavillers and 
 canons. 
 
 In Trinity Library, similar work in pale pear-wood, 
 standing forth in bold bouquets nigh a foot from the 
 background, is even more marvellous, and we have the 
 curious opportunity of comparing, in the case of one 
 decayed bouquet, first-rate modern work with Gibbons' 
 own. An eminent English carver who has revived in 
 the present day some interest in wood-carving, undertook 
 to copy exactly the decayed bouquet ; and this he did 
 in somewhat boastful spirit, insisting when he sent it in 
 that his own was superior to the master's. But vast is 
 the gulf between them. Gibbons' leaves are thin as 
 
GRINLING GIBBONS. 39 
 
 paper, his stalks as delicately finished behind as before, 
 a third the density of the copy : his curves are more 
 subtle, his poise of dainty twigs more nice and wondrous ; 
 the comparison is most interesting and instructive. 
 
 Gibbons' finest work is at Chatsworth, where certain 
 nets of game seem to represent the dying struggles of 
 soft-plumaged birds with startling truth, a miracle of 
 carving ; and in St. Paul's Cathedral, in St. James's, 
 Westminster, the South Kensington Museum, and other 
 places, there are fine examples of Gibbons' skill. But 
 who ever goes to see them .-* They hang enveloped in 
 the gloomy atmosphere of unlovely London, killed by 
 the dull colouring of grained painting and senseless 
 dirty Renascence scrolls and borders ; they are to all 
 intents and purposes lost. 
 
 The wondrous skill of the young artist, of whom 
 Evelyn's description is well known, working in his 
 humble studio ' neere Sayes Court,' commanded a good 
 price, happily, while he yet lived, to say nothing of the 
 munificent retaining fee, or pension, of \s. 6d, a day from 
 George I., which Gibbons enjoyed during the last seven 
 years of his life. What was more, it created a school of 
 ingenious imitators, one of whom, Watson, who worked 
 under Gibbons at Chatsworth, was but slightly inferior to 
 the master ; hence the conscientious hand-work in mould- 
 ings, Corinthian capitals, rich door-frames, pediments, 
 mantel-pieces, and furniture, which renders Georgian 
 houses interesting, was directly inspired by Gibbons and 
 the finer taste of Stfuart times. Gibbons died in 1721 : 
 but it is probable that latterly he rather supervised than 
 executed his world-famed wreaths. His best work was 
 
40 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 done in Charles II.'s reign, when he was associated with 
 Wren, like a delicate bindweed around an oak. 
 
 To return to the ordinary furniture of James II. and 
 Anne. 
 
 <auccn 3llnnc 3©ali^, 
 
 Among the humbler gentry who could not afford the 
 rich carvings and French marqueterie, the wainscoted 
 rooms, whether whitevvashed or no, were Jacobean in 
 their furniture : but papers of a thin poor kind, in- 
 tended, as I have said, to imitate the punched leather 
 and stamped velvet in their spotty, rather patchy pat- 
 terns, covered the walls of the less carefully built 
 apartments, Flock paper was supposed to represent 
 velvet rather successfully. The woodwork, when carving 
 like Gibbons' was not accessible, was sliced at the edges 
 inta slight arches and angles, sometimes pretty in form, 
 but hardly pretending to art in their rude simplicity of 
 design and execution, save in the moderation of the 
 curve, and the graining began to creep into every avail- 
 able place with its base and facile tricks — even real oak 
 was smothered under its more fashionable semblance, 
 as false flowers later were thought more stately than 
 real ones. Stucco began to simulate wood reliefs 
 wherever it was possible. It had been largely used for 
 ceilings, and for ornamenting caskets, &c., all through 
 the Reformation times ; now it covered pilasters, door- 
 panels, mantel-shelves, &c., still retaining the beautiful 
 designs derived from classic art and modified by six- 
 teenth century genius ; but no doubt losing spirit and 
 grace. The windows were still often latticed, and the 
 
QUEEN ANNE WALLS. 4I 
 
 walls remained thick enough to form deep window-seats 
 and doorways ; but the newer furniture was far smaller 
 and weaker than what was made in the previous century, 
 and inlaid pieces, mounted in brass, began to be sought 
 as the new French fashion. Their mechanical excellence 
 covered a multitude of sins. 
 
 Not that the application of brass and ormolu to 
 furniture, nor inlaying with coloured woods, was peculiar 
 to Queen Anne's time, nor even indicative of it, for 
 nothing was peculiar to it but the grained paint. In the 
 fifteenth century the Italian ' intarsiatori ' caught from 
 ancient stone mosaics the idea of mosaic in woods. 
 Inlaying was not rare in the sixteenth century, and in 
 the curious Spanish piece combining organ and cabinet 
 which stands in the South Kensington Museum among 
 the old musical instruments, we may judge how perfect 
 the manufacture had become as early as 1560. There 
 we see marqueterie so skilful that it does not try (nor 
 even attract) the eye at a few paces' distance. Curious 
 markings of the natural wood seem to break up the 
 plain surface, and these streaks and spots fall into 
 designs of ruined temples, scrolls, and birds with surpris- 
 ing effect only when you are quite close to them. But 
 all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 wood inlayings,with more and more vulgar and attractive 
 patterns, were common in France, and in the later 
 eighteenth century began to creep across the Channel 
 into the houses of the English middle classes, only 
 because the condition of the classes improved, and a 
 larger number of people were able to buy tables and 
 cabinets. The finest marqueterie collected by Anna- 
 
42 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 maniacs belongs to the Louis Seize period, and is signed 
 with foreign names. Chippendale copied it. 
 
 Brass and ormolu scroll-edges attached to all parts 
 of furniture, came into vogue in France and Italy about 
 temp. Louis XIV. The designs lasted into Anne's 
 reign as they have lasted into Victoria's. But this kind 
 of elaborate furniture was too costly to become common 
 for a long time, about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, when the designs were already deteriorating, 
 and they can never properly be said to belong to English 
 as much as to French art. I shall show later how the 
 excessively ornate style grew out of the homelier by the 
 natural process of increasing luxury and skill, and what 
 the decadence under the * Grand Monarque ' became 
 through gradual vitiation of the eye. 
 
 What people now call * Queen Anne ' fashions with a 
 charming indifference to the trammels of dates, are the 
 fashions of the three Georges, Marie Antoinette (under 
 that queen French furniture and decoration whilst still 
 sumptuous became refined and moderate), and especially 
 everything which came in during the Empire (Napo- 
 leon I.). Now as Anne died in 17 14 and Napoleon re- 
 signed his crown in 18 15, there are just 100 years of 
 perhaps the most remarkable changes and developments 
 in domestic sentiments, and hence art, which ever 
 occurred in a century, all named after Anne, whose tastes, 
 strictly speaking, belonged to her father's generation. 
 If people would but let poor Anne rest in her grave ! 
 The confusion her ghost has created is ludicrous. 
 Only the other day I was shown a French mirror 
 (Louis XIV.) by some really cultivated folks as * Queen 
 Anne— "Empire," you know — genuine Chippendale!' 
 
CHIPPENDALE. 43 
 
 Chippendale the elder was a cabinet-maker who 
 flourished about the middle of the last century, long 
 after Anne's reign. He was no creator, like Boule, but 
 he was a capital workman. His joiner's work was ex- 
 cellent, his use of glue and veneer properly small. He 
 was the author of many of the most elaborate Louis XV. 
 patterns in England : frames, tables, commodes, pede- 
 stals, all of them ingenious, all of them adapted from the 
 French, and contradicting all sense of purpose in 
 frames, tables, commodes and pedestals : not a straight 
 line anywhere, not a moment's rest for the eye, all 
 wriggling curves like bewitched vegetation, giving birth 
 in unexpected places to human heads, beasts and birds. 
 Nothing so like a bad dream ever caught the fretful 
 and sickly popular fancy. His books of designs were 
 published between 1752 and 1762. 
 
 He also adapted his workshop to the prevailing 
 taste when it turned pseudo-Greek, Dutch, and pseudo- 
 Chinese, and manufactured many good, and as many base 
 and bad, articles of furniture. His meretricious simula- 
 tions of bronze stands, (in wood, the impossible curves 
 strengthened by internal wires,) were turned out among 
 his bureaux and chairs, really well and durably con- 
 structed, with mere servility to the customer's purse, not 
 with any artistic independence of principle. Chippen- 
 dale was a clevci- tradesman ; he is overrated by blind 
 enthusiasts till one almost fancies he was a shopkeeping 
 divinity. We hear twice as much of him as we do of 
 
44 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 Gibbons, who was an artist, not a carpenter. But he 
 would have been thought nothing of in a country of real 
 artistic discrimination like France and Italy. 
 
 Furniture and dress naturally echo each other in 
 fashion. And we cannot too firmly assert (for the bene- 
 fit of accurate minds) that as the Renascence waned, 
 the new fashions in England aimed at novelty and sur- 
 prise as did contemporary modes in France, without the 
 inspiration which centred in the reign of Louis XIV., 
 or the skill and fancy which ran riot under Louis XV. 
 Those new fashions which were not again directly 
 classic, were striking, ' loud,' even garish. When the 
 leather hangings were torn and tarnished, they came 
 to be replaced by papers of stronger and stronger 
 patterns, with no great improvement in quality. In 
 many old Georgian houses we can study the flaunting 
 peacocks and impossible flowers which disported them- 
 selves alike on walls and hoop-v/ide sacques. There 
 is an interesting specimen of this wall-paper at Ashley 
 Park, against which the dim, faded old Georgian mar- 
 queterie disappears. For the birds and scrolls on the 
 marqiieterie are small and by comparison quiet in tint. 
 Those on the walls are life size — poorly coloured, ill 
 drawn, garish and vulgar, but ' Queen Anne.' 
 
 OSuccn Stnnc Coi^tumc^* 
 
 The ephemeral * rages ' for certain periods and styles 
 to which the fashionable world has ever been subject 
 may be variously accounted for. Often they seem to be 
 JDorn of air, and changed by a breath with no tangible 
 
QUEEN ANNE COSTUMES. 45 
 
 raison d'etre. The present rage for 'Queen Anne' 
 objects of every description is exceedingly odd — the 
 looseness with which people use the term is more so. 
 
 As plate earlier than Anne became scarce, it was 
 natural enough for ' silvermaniacs ' to take refuge in 
 Queen Anne spoons and saltcellars, and from this the 
 step to contemporary tables and chairs was easily made, 
 and the transition from these in the costumes in har- 
 mony with them would seem equally simple ; but in all 
 this the artistic gain is more than doubtful. 
 
 The vague space of time now bearing Anne's name — 
 as a rule, much longer and much later than her life, for 
 it certainly stretches from one end of the eighteenth 
 century to the other — was marked by an absence of the 
 artistic feeHng so complete and so conscious, that scarcely 
 any attempt was made to vary the few inoffensive forms 
 which satisfied the public. Straight lines, the skeleton 
 of the classicism of the seventeenth century, were so pre- 
 valent, that Hogarth protested by cutting on his palette 
 * the line of beauty ' — a curve. All was formal, stiff, and, 
 on the whole, ugly. 
 
 When people say 'Anne' they generally mean 
 ' George,' which is hard on Anne, who, coming to the 
 throne late in life, and adorning it but briefly, ought 
 fairly, if she claims anything, to claim the entire period 
 from, say, her marriage in 1683 (two years before Charles 
 11. died), to her own death in 1714 ; a period less blank 
 and hopeless in beauty than that immediately succeeding, 
 which was ruled by the two first kings of the House of 
 Hanover. Anne was the last of the Stuart dynasty, and, 
 by reason both of the brevity of her sway and her own 
 
46 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 unostentatious disposition, never had sovereign less in- 
 fluence upon the aesthetic tendencies of her age. 
 
 In dress, in furniture, in plate, in architecture, in 
 nearly every department of art, though all pseudo-classic, 
 Charles II.'s time stands high. The period which may 
 be said to have begun with George III., boasting some 
 reforms in dress, Chippendale's goods, and Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, had also much to please an artist's eye. The 
 period between the two involved a reaction against the 
 corrupt luxury of the court, and made itself felt as to 
 furniture, in; straight lines and discomfort — the fashions 
 imported from Holland : as to dress, in whalebone, buck- 
 ram, and un-Adeldiness, a direct contradiction to the 
 beauteous laisser aller which had outrun itself shortly 
 before. Perhaps the fashionable falsities were a sort of 
 protest against too much candour. How artistically 
 hideous the reaction was, a very little thought makes 
 clear. Let us see what the fashions during Anne's life 
 actually were. Born in 1664, Anne may have seen the 
 undulating negligence of satin- and pearl-clad beauties 
 glide about her cradle ; may have worn some Lely-fashion 
 herself before her father reigned. At nineteen (when she 
 married) she may have sported the new ' Fontange,' or 
 commode ironically so called. She may have rejoiced in 
 a ' paire of lockes and curls ' wired out on end. She 
 probably decked her pleasant freiindlich face with the 
 stars and the black coach and horses which are seen 
 in ^11 their grace and expressiveness in engravings of 
 the period. This is the more likely, as the mass of 
 patches was no new fashion in 1683, but had been thirty 
 years in vogue already, and was still the scorn of sati- 
 
QUEEN ANNE COSTUMES. 
 
 Al 
 
 rists. Bulwer in his 'Artificial Changeling,' 1650, first 
 alludes to this. ' It is well,' he says, * if one black patch 
 will serve to make their faces remarkable, for some fill 
 their visages full of them, varied into all manner of 
 shapes and figures ; ' some of which I have illustrated in 
 'The Art of Beauty ' (figs. 6^, and 80); while the author 
 of 'God's Voice against Pride and Apparel,' in 1683 
 (the year of Anne's marriage), declares that the black 
 patches remind him of plague 
 spots, 'and methinks the 
 mourning coach and horses all 
 in black, and plying on their 
 foreheads, stands ready har- 
 nessed to whirl them to Ache- 
 ron.' Anne probably squeezed 
 her waist into a V form (as in 
 fig. 3), and walked out in the 
 clumsy garb buried in furbelows 
 \vhich we may admire in many 
 old prints, or even sported the 
 masculine coat, waistcoat, and 
 walking-cane held about 1700 
 to be the ' height of taste,' and Fig. 
 slung at her side a light rapier, 
 and tucked her cocked hat under her arm, like other 
 ladies. 
 
 At any rate, these were the vagaries of fashion in 
 Anne's youth. At its quietest, the costume of ordinary 
 mortals was terribly stiff, heavy, and inconvenient ; not 
 to say unclean, considering the mass of powder scattered 
 in the air by the men's periwigs alone. Anne's retiring 
 
 3. — From an old wood-cut, 
 circa 1690. 
 
48 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 nature and complete subservience to the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, who was too much given to the state 
 intrigue to trouble herself with costume, may have 
 inclined her personally to the least obtrusive forms then 
 fashionable ; but it must also have led her not to dis- 
 regard the ' mode.' 
 
 To those who, possessing early eighteenth century 
 furniture, are properly desirous of dressing in harmony 
 with it, I may suggest the kind of attire belonging to 
 their favourite period, by quoting advertisements of 
 losses in the reign of Anne. Here is one : ' A black 
 silk petticoat, with a red and white calico border ; cherry- 
 coloured stays, trimmed with blue and silver ; a red and 
 dove-coloured damask gown, flowered with large trees ; 
 a yellow satin apron trimmed with white Persian, and 
 mushn head cloths with crowsfoot edging ; double ruffles 
 with fine edging, a black silk furbelowed scarf, and 
 spotted hood.' (From the 'Post Boy,' November 15, 
 1709.) 
 
 Here is another costume, advertised for in 1712 : * A 
 green silk knit waistcoat, with gold and silver flowers 
 all over it, and about fourteen yards of gold and silver 
 thick lace on it' (no mean quantum for one waist- 
 coat !), ' and a petticoat of rich strong flowered satin, red 
 and white, all in great flowers or leaves, and scarlet 
 flowers with black specks brocaded in, raised high like 
 velvet or shag.' 
 
 If the result is somewhat vulgar in its tasteless 
 display of inappropriate colours and immoderate orna- 
 ments, it will not be my fault but the fault of Queen 
 Anne. Thus and thus Queen Anne was robed, and 
 
QUEEN ANNE COSTUMES. 49 
 
 the men were as many-coloured and as refulgent as the 
 ladies. 
 
 The chief feature, however, of woman's dress, during 
 the whole space of Anne's life, was the singular in- 
 delicacy, which may be studied in the pictures and the 
 satires contemporaneous by those who wish to copy the 
 costume. Scarlet shag flowers and scores of yards of 
 gold braid will be powerless to revive the times of Anne 
 without this feature. The whole bust must be unflinch- 
 ingly exposed as it was when Richard Buxton published 
 his book, ' A just and seasonable Reprehension,* and 
 when another divine prayed, ' Lord, hast Thou any 
 mantoes for ladies, made after Thine own fashion, which 
 shall cover all their naked shoulders, and breasts, and 
 necks, and adorn them all over } — where are they 1 ' 
 Anne lived through two periods of the commode^ that 
 terrific edifice of gummed lace shooting up from the 
 head crestwise, of which Addison, in the character of the 
 * Spectator/ wrote in the year 1 7 1 1 : < I remember several 
 ladies that were very near seven feet high that at present 
 want some inches of five ; ' and which sprouted shortly 
 after higher than ever, like lopped trees that gain new 
 vigour to sprout by lopping. And this Queen presided 
 over the introduction of the great hoop petticoat which 
 Hogarth a little later caricatured or did not caricature 
 (see page 157) ; as also that ugly modern patten with a 
 ring beneath the sole, so much the reverse of an im- 
 provement upon the ancient clog. She died in 17 14. 
 
 The head-dresses then worn were, for the most part, 
 almost as large as could be grappled with by the 
 strength of the spine. The wigs of the men floated to 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY, 
 
 the waist, and were so powdered that their coats were 
 ' as white as a miller's, their faces besmeared with snuff.' 
 The ladies wore cushions and powder as well as large 
 disfiguring patches, surmounted by heavy caps, with 
 broad lappets spread over the shoulders and formally 
 pinned in place. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 M 
 
 HOSE sated and out of patience with orna- 
 ment, whether mismanaged or simply super- 
 abundant, have been known to fly to simph- 
 city and plain surfaces for repose. Owen Jones 
 so sought refuge from a jaded appetite for colour and form. 
 A fashion for plainness and simplicity in decoration is 
 convenient in more ways than one. It is convenient to 
 the new-made virtuoso^ who likes it because it may 
 imply that he could have done the contrary if he had 
 chosen ; convenient to those born without taste, for it 
 saves them fiascos ; convenient to the impecunious, for it 
 saves them money ; convenient to decorators who have 
 crept into notice by good luck, not merit, like the clever 
 doctor in Grimm's fairy tale, for it saves them trouble. 
 
 Hence the running popularity of the so-called * Queen 
 Anne ' furniture and scheme of decoration, now provided 
 by every upholsterer. 
 
 But alas ! it is possible to be sated with simplicity, 
 not to say discomfort. Already we are beginning to 
 
52 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 rebel against the plain square patch of wall painted 
 grey, or drab, or some of those nameless earth-tints 
 which the ' aesthetic ' are vowed to. We know that the 
 key-note of all these * Queen Anne * rooms is quiet and 
 mortally * severe.' The chairs are few, hard, square and 
 heavy, and covered with dingy velvets laboriously made 
 to look poor and imperfect in web and recalling in colour 
 mud — mildew — ironmould — nothing clean or healthy. 
 We know that there is not to be a low or easy chair in 
 any room. We know that the windows must be small, 
 with poor little oblong panes, because windows bore a 
 tax during the whole eighteenth century. We know 
 we must expect only small bevelled mirrors in mean 
 little frames — or convex ones which make our faces seem 
 bloated with toothache or hollow with atrophy — our 
 figures spent and wasted, as with a sore disease. All 
 this we know — the papers on the walls, the colours in 
 the carpet. The * inescapable ' blue china, the one or two 
 autotypes, photographs, or etchings alone permitted us ; 
 the bare, comfortless bed-room furniture ; the austere 
 dining-room furniture — the whole/^r<??/<:>^^ protest against 
 * shaped ' and blazoned vulgarity ; we know it is aesthe- 
 tic, and let us be aesthetic or we are nothing. 
 
 But is it pleasurable .-^ is it beautiful.'* is it 'becom- 
 
 All these fashionable rooms resemble each other. 
 The Queen-Anne-mad decorators (some conspicuously) 
 have but one idea and drive it to death. One hears 
 
COLOURLESS LIVERIES. 53 
 
 that Mr. Brown or the Misses Smith have decorated So 
 and So's house. We know without ever entering it what 
 that house is Hke. That house is a bore. There is not 
 one original thought in it, from its inconvenient entrance 
 to its last dark and aesthetic cranny. We know every 
 chair, every tint, every stencil, every brass knob, every 
 bit of carefully discoloured and fatiguingly broidered 
 napery — every wretched hard ' Sheraton ' sofa and 
 skewer-legged table — almost every orthodox work of 
 art on those deadly-lively walls. For the most part, 
 these houses reflect no inmate's character, no natural 
 need and requirement — they contain no thought, no sweet 
 little surprise — no touch of genius, nor even of ability. 
 
 Yet they are ' aesthetic' Much labour and lucre are 
 spent on making them so, and the inhabitants are duly 
 ' worked up ' to their walls, with a garb and a language 
 of their own. After all, what does aesthetic mean .-* I 
 once met an aesthetic artist who abhorred sunlight — he 
 said it was * crude.' So he only painted for two hours a 
 day, after sunset. If aesthetic means 'discriminating,' 
 we only see that the aesthetic discriminate between 
 vulgar comfort and select misery : if it means ' eccentric,' 
 popularity is surely bringing the seeds of death ! unless 
 the eccentricity be of speech, and then we bow, baffled, 
 before the ' inescapable and lordly ' * niceness,' which 
 results in ' distinctly inevitable ' obscurity. A recent 
 writer in the ' Contemporary Review ' explained with 
 some humour the condensed farfetchedness which in 
 China constitutes 'good literary style,' but he did not 
 say whether the aesthetic practice of obscure speech is 
 traceable to aesthetic worship of Nankeen pots and plates. 
 
54 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER BEAUTY. 
 
 But though our unregenerate hearts may sigh for relief 
 and something neither blue-green nor green-blue, we 
 must not be unjust. These rooms are so convenient, 
 after all ! They are less offensive than the old red and 
 gold business. You can move easily among the sparse 
 urniture. The little joints and inlaid spots are very 
 * nice ' and the little emasculated legs vibrate sympa- 
 thetically at a touch, so slight are they — poor little naked, 
 
 Fig. 4.— New Queen Anne table. 
 
 shivering things ! There is something weakly and femi- 
 nine about this style, which goes to the heart, surely. 
 Yet the inoffensiveness, unwarmed by some character, 
 some chic, is in itself sometimes an offence. The heart 
 sinks a little as the eye ranges from right to left vainly 
 seeking something which does not weary it, but the 
 monotony is too oppressive and it lights at length upon 
 some natural object, some shrub or flower which Queen 
 
NATURE'S PROTEST. 55 
 
 Anne has not tampered with in its artless, obstinately 
 characteristic growth and colour. 
 
 Nature is unmoved by our crazes and our fashions. 
 Nature only has courage to be herself, to assert her own 
 individuality, to follow her own way, and never to be a 
 bore, in spite of dynasties. The cactus or azalea which 
 clothes the hillsides of Turkey or Algiers with pink or 
 scarlet flame, the rose-garden in our own England, the 
 golden common alight with furze in bloom, the apple- 
 orchard and the buttercup-field, rebuke us for our folly. 
 Colour and light and sunshine and shadow, all were 
 made for our pleasure, and the dull lines of decay, suit- 
 able in their place, ought not to be our main surround- 
 ings. Dirt may be valuable to depress some forced or 
 unnatural effect : but dirt is not the only thing that is 
 * nice.' Colour is not in itself objectionable, but only 
 our ignorant use of it. Let us not give up wholesome 
 brightness nor wholesome pleasure, even under Round- 
 head rule : for (as we earlier showed) when the natural 
 balance is destroyed mischief ensues. 
 
 Let us press not only shadow but sunshine — not 
 only straight lines but curves — not only sympathies but 
 contrasts, into our service where we want them : and be 
 charged with no burdens of * oughts ' and * musts ' which 
 Nature herself contradicts. 
 
,j8etonti S^ooft 
 
 A Retrospect of Rooms 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 €arlp aSnglisI) f utntturc* 
 
 HAT does the upholsterer mean by ' Early 
 English ' ? He sticks it into every advertise- 
 ment ; he attaches it to all objects, bookcases, 
 coalscuttles, lace and duplex lamps ; to all 
 periods, but especially the decade and a half ruled over by 
 Queen Anne, and that other decade and a half, a century 
 later, governed by Napoleon I. Modern oak settles, 
 carved by machinery ; mahogany and other chairs made 
 about 1835 ; everything that looks ecclesiastical ; and all 
 ugly colours — are now called * Early English.' For in- 
 stance, a ladder chair for library use, plain oak, is called 
 ' superior ' ; the same thing defaced by a bit of machine 
 'carving,' of course unpainted, but heavily varnished, 
 becomes ' Early English,' though in old England paint 
 was everywhere and varnish not invented ; a wall 
 painted with an even tint of mud-colour — anything 
 coloured dirty grey or drab — is therefore ' Early 
 English ; ' and as upholsterers, not content with this 
 abuse of terms, are now sending out advertisements 
 
6o A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS, 
 
 stuffed with antiquarian lore worthy of Punch, let us 
 examine the four or five distinct periods of English 
 history in which domestic art took a definite form, and 
 not gibber about superior fourteenth century table forks 
 and twelfth century point lace — which I have actually 
 seen advertised. 
 
 The 'Early English' period is, or was, supposed pro- 
 perly to cover Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman times in 
 this country. On the question of furniture we can hardly 
 divide the two. The Mediaeval period may be placed 
 about 1 200- 1 500; the Renascence, 1 500-1600, though 
 the loudness of its echo did not fail for fully a hundred 
 years more. The Modern time must be defined as 
 extending from 1700 to 1880, but for clearness' sake we 
 will make a distinction between the Modern time (say 
 up to 1850) and the present day. 
 
 €l^e leaning of jfucniture. 
 
 In its natural and general sense, furniture (Fr. 
 mobilier) means movables — property easily transported 
 from place to place, as distinguished from a house and 
 lands. On the habits and wants of a class depend the 
 quantity and quality of the furniture ; hence the folly of 
 making up ideal objects and christening them after 
 certain periods, without some knowledge of what was 
 then invented. 
 
 It has been pointed out that the first articles which 
 began to furnish and make home-Hke the stronghold of 
 the settler were hutches or chests to contain small goods 
 — clothes, money, linen, or whatever stores he possessed 
 
THE MEANING OF FURNITURE. 6i 
 
 — or convey them in case of flight or removal, for in 
 primeval times there were neither shops nor banks, nor 
 Pickford's vans. Such chests, being precious and 
 durable, must have received decoration from very early 
 times — in the very dawn of civilisation. In England 
 chests with painted scenes on a gold ground date from 
 about the eleventh century. Leathern chests bound 
 with iron hasps, and painted, also have a remote 
 pedigree. In the twelfth century we seem to perceive a 
 greater regard for elegance of form : wood turned by 
 the lathe came into use, and the chests came to be dis- 
 tinguished by special names according to their size and 
 function, as bahut, hutch (with varieties huceau, hucheau, 
 huchel, archcy and buffet), bouge, coffer, coffret. The 
 technical sense in which we speak of ' a rabbit hutch ' 
 and the * Coffers of the State,' the ' Military Chest,' and 
 the * Chest at Chatham,' is a curious relic of the old habit 
 of guarding valuables of all kinds. 
 
 The first requisite in ancient furniture was strength. 
 Therefore the joints, hinges, and locks were made power- 
 ful enough to resist attacks, and with increasing skill in 
 attack came increasing ingenuity in defence. How a 
 lock can develop under the double pressure of necessity 
 and the artistic sense we may see in such a museum as 
 that of the late M. Boucher de Perthes at Abbeville. 
 
 How beauty waited on utility, and was inseparable 
 from it, in old English work of any importance (as good 
 art always is), nearly every museum of antiquities and 
 every old cathedral can prove. The delicacy of the 
 free-hand carving, the variety in ideas and in treatment, 
 and the real mechanical excellence, are often wondrous. 
 
62 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 and a grave reproach to our own unconscientious work- 
 men. 
 7 The mighty, well-seasoned oak safe, carved by the 
 rude Leightons and Wattses of early England in designs 
 which seemed to add new strength, not to weaken the 
 tough fibre, is still admirable, still worthy. The carved 
 geometric patterns, even when not supplemented by 
 complicated iron mounts, represented bars crossed and 
 re-crossed to redouble force. The mailed knights in 
 Gothic arches, which we often see carved around old 
 hutches, seemed to form a doughty outer barricade, and 
 not adornment only. Such a choice of ornaments has 
 been shown by Ow^en Jones to be the result, perhaps 
 unconscious, of a fine sense of propriety in every race, 
 however savage, which possesses any art at all. The 
 paddles of the Tahiti or New Zealand islander, and the 
 doorposts of his hut, are as eminent an example of 
 jtiatural good taste as many works of advanced civilisa- 
 tion. 
 
 As public security increased, people amassed more 
 possessions, and cared more for them, i Like dress, 
 furniture is a kind of progressive chronicle '} the art 
 applied to it blossomed out with every pause, following 
 each step onward. After tools and weapons, the hutch, 
 bedstead, bench, and chair (a backed bench accommodat- 
 ing several persons — the ' quality 'whence an old church 
 ' pew,' pulpit, professor's chair, and domestic seat) were 
 the first decorated objects in furniture. The walls, the 
 dafs, last of all the ceiling, were next furnished with 
 decoration, which could be speedily suppHed or removed, 
 such as tapestry, canopies, and mats under the feet, 
 
THE MEANING OF FURNITURE. 63 
 
 and this decoration took very much the place of our 
 Hterature, and our pictures. Asgrim is described in the 
 * Njalssaga ' as ordering the board to be arranged and 
 the tapestries hung up when he sees Flosi and his band 
 approaching, to whom he chooses to be hospitable. 
 
 Along with the walls, in * places of worship ' held 
 secure, such as the House of God and the house of a 
 great lord, the windows were decorated as a matter of 
 course, being part of the wall. Songs of love, legends 
 of piety, lessons of wisdom, told with the wholesome 
 naivete of a child, spoke to the heart from every avail- 
 able surface throughout the fresh, eager morning of art. 
 
 % f ourteentij Ccnturp iUoom, 
 
 They loved colour, the English people, though they 
 were not particular about having it quite clean —which 
 is no doubt an acquired taste ; * I'appetit vient en 
 mangeant.' In the fourteenth century a good deal of 
 luxury was common in * worthy ' houses. Christine of 
 Pisa has sung the splendours of royal residences : ' ies 
 aornemens des sales, chambres d'etranges et riches 
 bordeures a giosses perles d'oret soye a ouvrages divers : 
 le vaisellement d'or et d'argent, et autres nobles estore- 
 mens, n'etait se merveilles non.' The cupboard, once as 
 simple as the table, a plank on trestles, had become 
 stationary, and sprouted more shelves, carven and painted 
 in the rich Gothic tracery to harmonise with the gay 
 colours of the hangings and dresses. Etiquette began 
 to order the chamber and ' al thynge cleanlye aboute ' 
 it — this meant further art-development. * Cupboord 
 
64 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 cloth, with basyn, ewer, candle light, and towell,' dishes 
 of pewter or silver (there was no china), cups, and knives 
 — these were the minor furniture which the artists made 
 beautiful whenever they had the chance : in fact, all 
 these things glowed and breathed with such pleasant 
 thoughts and histories as we frame in pictures and 
 suspend on walls, and improved furniture was accom- 
 panied by mended manners. The bed, in Edward Ill's 
 time, had become ' bien et richement encourtine,' sur- 
 rounded by gold-bright carpets * sur quoy on marchait ' 
 — fabulous luxury ! — at least on those occasions of 
 festive ostentation when ladies of position ' received,' 
 after the birth of a child. * Et Dieu s^et les autres super- 
 fluz despens des festes, baigneries, de diverses assem- 
 blees, selon les usaiges de Paris a accouchees,' says 
 Christine ; and this gives us some notion of the advance 
 in comfort, if not culture, among the upper classes when 
 leisure and safety waited on their passionate love of 
 carving and colour, on which society was as dependent 
 for ideas and pleasure then as it now is on books. 
 Hence the richness of subjects in old work, the allusive 
 pictures in which ideas were condensed almost con- 
 fusingly at times, because they delighted every class of 
 a non-reading public. 
 
 The dafs, then, furnished with ' a chayere ' or bench 
 of honour to accommodate the most important person 
 or persons present, was the main feature of a mediaeval 
 room. All the household glory centred on the daYs. 
 The best hangingfs were hung above and behind it, 
 precisely like Her Majesty's throne. Below, benches 
 accommodated the ;;/^2Vn>, both strangers and household. 
 
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ROOM. 65 
 
 If a carpet adorned the dais, the rest of the room was 
 strewed with straw. The benches were cushioned when 
 necessary ; and when the * board,' furnished only with 
 the cloth, the precious saltcellar, and the * sotelte ' at 
 each course : and the * side-board,' and perhaps the 
 ' credence ' for the taster rich with lace-like carving, were 
 set, all the furniture of the time deemed necessary to 
 luxury is enumerated. A gay, rude scene it was, with 
 Oriental broideries bought from passing chapmen, fres- 
 coes, and tapestries home-made with loving skill, dazzling 
 plate, and jewel-laden garments, all a little tarnished by 
 the need of constant vigilance 
 
 Se aucune chose y verras 
 Que soit deshonete ou vilaine. 
 
 Dirty indeed, if not malodorous! The 'little hounds' 
 growled over the bigger bones thrown beneath the board, 
 the lesser ones, fish bones, &c., being left upon the cloth 
 or removed on the sodden ' trenchers ' of hard bread. 
 The hawks brought by guests sat hooded on the perch 
 at one end of the room, and under foot the muffled 
 sounds of horses stamping in the stable beneath bore a 
 fitful accompaniment to the mournful jingle of the 
 minstrel's citole. Dinner over, and the board lifted, the 
 noble company, or such as were neither excited nor 
 stupid from the meal, danced, men and ladies holding 
 each other by the finger, or sang, or one amongst them 
 ' most felyngly speketh of love.' The story of Aucassin 
 and Nicolette is related, with a solemn refrain now and 
 then, like a Gregorian chant ; whilst the maidens ply 
 the ceaseless distafi* which hinders no jest or tender sigh. 
 
 F 
 
66 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 IN ear the window, blazoned with the story of False 
 Arcyte, hangs a caged * crow ' (raven) twittering to the 
 setting sun, while a young knave pushes past the worsted 
 arras shielding the door, and lowers the candle-beam by 
 its pulley from the carved and painted rafters. Presently 
 the * storied walls ' are lighted only by the flaring torches 
 stuck in brackets and the great yellow candles, and on 
 the table-dormant the chess-boards of malachite and 
 crystal, of gold and ivory, are set for the eager players. 
 This sobers all ; it is well if * check ' and * mate,' spoken 
 by bearded or by rosy lips, lead to no mischief as the 
 night wears on, and the white moon sends a beam through 
 the rich panes across the murky atmosphere. 
 V If this be Early England, how absurd it becomes to 
 name thus objects unknown and made by processes in- 
 conceivable to her handicraftsmen, and possessing none 
 of the qualities which make Early English works precious 
 -^simplicity and earnestness of idea and execution. 
 Mediaeval work is naive like a child's. No doubt, to 
 prefer a child s work to a man's is a matter of opinion. 
 To forge childish work is as ridiculous as it is impos- 
 sible ; but this is what modern traders do when they 
 foist on the obtuse public imitations of ancient work 
 under ancient names. 
 
 €l)c SDctoclopmcnt of %tu 
 
 Of course, in inferior houses life was still pretty 
 rough ; but, in taking the history of furniture as a 
 chronicle of progress, we naturally turn to the castles of 
 the pioneers of luxury — the rich. About this time the 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ART, 67 
 
 increased demand of a growing population for furniture 
 is suggested by the sub-divisions in the names of artisans. 
 At first the artist, sculptor, carpenter, were one man ; 
 now we hear of carpenters, huchiers or coffer makers, 
 menuisiers or joiners, chessboard-makers, and wheel- 
 wrights (Mahier, a wheelwright, made in 141 5 a wheeled 
 chair in walnut wood for the Queen Isabeau de Baviere) 
 — all probably distinct from the ymaigier, or regular 
 sculptor, or the portreyour who contributed quaint 
 Gothic paintings to the cathedral porch or niche or 
 the monkish genius who carved or illuminated in his 
 quiet cell for money for the Lord's sake. 
 
 Then probably it was the ambition of rich folks to 
 possess the works of specialists like Petrot (1360) and 
 Lucas (1496), the chess-board makers, Mahier the wheel- 
 wright, and many more, as we love to have a picture by 
 Birket Foster or Landseer — something to point out to 
 visitors, to chat about if not to worship. We hear of 
 Giuliano du Maiano and his nephew Benedetto, 'sculptors 
 and joiners,' devising novelties, inventing inlaid work 
 and new kinds of marqueterie — a development which 
 speaks volumes for the change in social conditions. 
 
 It was not until the perils and vicissitudes of feudal 
 conditions were at an end that native talent had a fair 
 chance to perfect itself, wondrously as it had survived 
 discouragement, like a flower uprising in the midst of 
 frost and vicious influences. 
 
 li There is very little doubt that originally carving 
 was simply used as a foundation for painting ; perhaps 
 because the art of painted shading had not yet become 
 as effective in variegated colour as natural shadows cast 
 
68 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 by raised figures. As the coloured shadows and inter- 
 mediate tints were more appreciated, the reHef of the 
 carved ornament was certainly heightened, and the 
 details more elaborated. Thus we can understand 
 sculpture being more popular than painting, which could 
 not yet produce so vivid an effect ; and we may believe 
 that painted sculpture offered all that roundness and 
 chiaroscuro which flat colouring lacked till almost the 
 period of Albert Durer and Holbein, r 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IjJoontttic, 
 
 HE Renascence substituted the simple force of 
 uncoloured relief for the artificial brilliancy 
 of ^old and colour — a taste which we may 
 regard as more refined and chaste if we for- 
 get that the Greeks coloured their reliefs as highly as 
 ever did mediaeval artists ; and the new admiration of 
 bare wood and stone may have been partly owing to 
 the fact that classic wood and stone were found without 
 colour because it had worn off during its long burial. 
 
 However that may have been, oak began to give 
 *vay to woods more delicate in fibre and colour, which 
 ivere softer to carve, or took a higher polish, or could be 
 contrasted one with another with new elegance of effect. 
 These woods, carved, engraved, inlaid, &c., were the 
 passion- of the Renascence, as they had been in imperial 
 Rome, until popular taste tired of the absence of colour 
 in furniture, or more probably felt it as an artistic flaw 
 in the brilliant ensemble of gilded walls, ceilings, and 
 begemmed garments. 
 
70 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 The varying character of the furniture emanating 
 from Italy, France, Germany, &c., is a subject too large 
 to attempt an exhaustive treatment of here. France, 
 the adjoming country to Italy, was the first to introduce 
 north of the Alps the revival of classic types, and to 
 France may be said generally to belong light and re- 
 fined composition ; to Germany a more redundant and 
 sturdy style ; while insular England, always a little 
 tardy in accepting new views, brought the warmest 
 appreciation and earnestness to excuse her delay and 
 her ruder imitations. 
 
 Spain, where the Renascence took early root, made 
 good use of her great wealth at first ; but, like every 
 other country whither the exotic, classicism, has been 
 forcibly transplanted, the decadence soon set in, in the 
 shape of extravagances of style and ornament even 
 more fantastic than we find in Henri IV. architecture or 
 Elizabethan costume. When Saracenic art began to in- 
 fluence the art of Spain, in the later Renascence, many 
 curious hybrids were produced. We get many pieces of 
 extreme beauty in which the barbaric element has its 
 charm, such as the chestnut-wood coffers and secretaires 
 bound with metal work and inlaid with ivory, this 
 again stained or painted to resemble gems — extremely 
 picturesque and gorgeous, with playful Renascence 
 hints and a more refined excellence of design than the 
 ponderous oak reliefs of England before Mary Tudor's 
 time, painted red and blue. 
 
GOTHIC AND RENASCENCE WORK. /r 
 
 Such terms as 'purity of taste,' 'sound perception,' 
 &c., suggest that opinion on art, like digestion, may be 
 modified by habit and culture, and as we know that in 
 art, as in food, ' likes and dislikes ' depend on the as- 
 similative power, it is clearly unreasonable to expect 
 everyone to agree. No two people see the same thing 
 quite alike : the lens of the eye itself changes with years, 
 becoming less sensitive to certain colours : certain sides 
 of beauty, as of truth, appeal to certain minds, and the 
 cut-and-dried credo we are taught as to schools and rules 
 is therefore sometimes a serious hindrance to our con- 
 fessed enjoyments as it has been to many new develop- 
 ments of genius. Every code of law s becomes obsolete 
 in time. 
 
 ^ It ought to be admitted that taste is free : then none 
 of us would be afraid to be happy, and buds of originality 
 would break the sheath of precedent. 
 
 Some persons enjoy nearly all the art of the Re- 
 nascence, whilst others enjoy very little of it, caring chiefly 
 for the Gothic, and both have just reasons, for the fitness 
 of a school lies less in its theories than in the emotions 
 it is able to wake in the spectator. Inspired works are 
 to be found in all schools ; a face or a flower carved or 
 painted with such vital force of emotion that it comes to 
 life as we look at it, high and pathetic thoughts which 
 reach and stir us, even (sometimes) through the most 
 imperfect expression, because the spirit is stronger than 
 the letter. ^ 
 
72 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 In the Dresden Gallery, how often we find one man 
 stricken dumb before the Sistine Madonna, and blind to 
 
 Fici. 5. — Fl'jreniint Figure in terra-colta, fifteenth century 
 
GOTHIC AND RENASCENCE WORK. jz 
 
 the Madonna of Holbein, whilst his neighbour sees 
 nought in the eyes of Raphael's Child nor Mother save 
 the stare of peasants, but is startled, awed, choked by 
 the gesture of Holbein's Babe, too young to know that 
 He is blessing men, or to direct his own divine impulses. 
 Who shall say which mind is wise or foolish for being 
 complexioned this way or that ? Like a closed chamber, 
 the heart has its resonant note, and taste (which means 
 culture of feeling) should be educated, not treated like 
 the * comprachicots ' that Victor Hugo romances about. 
 I must confess to often enjoying early art more than 
 advanced art when simplicity has given place to self- 
 consciousness ; and I prefer Gothic in all stages to pure 
 classic in England, where the classic is always out of its 
 element, whether in architecture or domestic art, whether 
 simple or what is called grotesque. The great names in 
 the Renascence are balanced by many mediaeval names, 
 little, if at all, less great, considering the conditions 
 under which they worked — artists whose knowledge of 
 design, nay, of anatomy, seems as complete cLwd facile diS, 
 any to be found in classic or in Renascence art. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, when Gothic art had reached 
 its highest development of elastic loveliness, sympathique, 
 variable, free, with no laws rigid enough to pinion the 
 artist's individuality, relics still remain in wood and stone 
 and clay to attest the real eminence of the art standard, 
 not only magnificent towers and flower-wreathed arches, 
 but bits of statuary in wood and stone and terra-cotta, 
 such as may be studied in the Cluny (fig. 5 is an in- 
 stance), wherein the mature treatment is worthy of the 
 later, or even the older, days. 
 
74 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS 
 
 In Italy, when the Renascence cannot be said to 
 hav^e begun, though it was quickening into life, in the 
 fourteenth century, we have the works of Andrea Pisano, 
 Antonio Veniziano, and the Gaddis,in bronze, marble, and 
 fresco, and presently Jacopo della Quercia, Signorelli, 
 Brunelleschi, Dello the furniture maker and decorator, 
 Luca della Robbia, Donatello, the Canozzi, and a mul- 
 titude of geniuses who dared to apply themselves simul- 
 taneously to architecture, sculpture, painting, decorating, 
 and goldsmith's work, and felt it no shame to be able to 
 master more than one branch of art. In England, 
 though she was considerably behind Italy, we have 
 many scarcely remembered names : William of Wykeham 
 directing the building of Windsor Castle, Winchester 
 Cathedral, and New College, Oxford ; John of St. 
 Omer, Torregiano, Toto, Trevigi, William the Floren- 
 tine, foreign settlers teaching many pupils ; Torell the 
 goldsmith, who worked in metals, from Queen Eleanor's 
 chased tomb in Westminster Abbey down to bell- 
 founding, and the obscure artist, William Austin, of 
 London, of whom Flaxman, speaking of Richard Beau- 
 champs' monument in St. Mary's Church, Warwick, writes, 
 'The figures are so natural and graceful, the architecture 
 so rich and delicate, that they are excelled by nothing 
 done in Italy of the same kind at the sam.e time, al- 
 though Donatello and Ghiberti were living when this 
 tomb was executed, in the year 1439.' 
 
 Mutilated fragments of beautiful sculpture, full of 
 feeling and skill, are yet visible in the Lady Chapel of 
 Ely Cathedral in the statuettes carved under the 
 Episcopate of Bishop Gray, 1331 to 1349, by men who 
 
GOTHIC AND RENASCENCE WORK. 75 
 
 studied in Italy under Guarini the younger. Most 
 delicate tarsia and inlaying like Benedetto da Maiano's, 
 embroidery like Paolo da Verona's, inlaid work for 
 banners like Botticelli's, jewellery like Francia's, before 
 Francia died of amazement at Raphael's greatness (it 
 is said), vindicate the excellence of what were once 
 laughed at as Gothic ' Congestions,' by the arrogant 
 Renascence masters. But when art had attained this 
 point she had nothing more to learn, nothing more to 
 struggle and blunder after ; the goal was won, and 
 henceforth Art became a toy rather than a religion, 
 and sought rather to magnify man than a higher thing. 
 In architecture, the Florid Gothic tore fancy to tatters 
 for a brief spell, and now, when skill and appreciation 
 were both ripe for a new object, waifs from the buried 
 old world struck the art-lovers with delight. The 
 grandeur of simplicity (when simplicity is grand) was 
 refreshingly manifest. Thus came the reaction. 
 
 It is only when the journey has ceased to be a 
 struggle that we can afford to turn and look back at the 
 road we have traversed, and at the far-off scenery 
 behind. This leisure to rest a little marked the trans- 
 ition from the wild exuberance of Gothic art to the 
 refined vagaries and Pagan self-sufficiency of the 
 Renascence, as of one who quits the open fields for a 
 gorgeous and well-kempt garden. It was as though the 
 morning's work was ended with the morning's freshness, 
 and the playtime of afternoon was at hand. 
 
 The playtime began very happily, and full of enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
76 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 We may say that in Elizabeth's time the decorative 
 arts had reached their apogee. The luxury of great 
 houses was unsurpassed, with porphyry chimneypieces, 
 and silver firedogs designed by Cellini ; painted windows 
 from Germany or Flanders, ceilings and cornices a mass 
 of colour and rich carving, the walls alight with Cordo- 
 van leather of surpassing magnificence, gold, silver, and 
 colour, or tapestry from Genoa, Fontainebleau, Arras. 
 The tables were loaded with Venetian glass, Limoges 
 enamels, and fine linen ; the cupboard ' with superb 
 plate, and bronze as beautiful ; then there were the boldly 
 coloured earthenware of Italy, and embroideries on 
 every chair and bench, whether of filigree carving or 
 gauffered delicate leather — embroideries designed by 
 artists of calibre such as Giuliano d'Agnolo, Vasari, 
 Giulio Romano, and worked amid the leisurely concen- 
 tration of convents. 
 
 An anonymous author quoted by Mr. Waring wrote 
 to Catherine de' Medici in 158/ anent the excessive 
 magnificence of luxury : * It is only about thirty or forty 
 years ago that this excessive and splendid manner of 
 building has come into France ; till then our fathers 
 were content with a good compact house, a ' pavilion ' 
 or a round tower, a lower court for domestic purposes, 
 and other rpoms necessary to lodge themselves and 
 their families, without making superb buildings, great 
 
 ' This word is used for the buffet, or side- table, even by Evelyn, when 
 speaking of Charles II. 's dining hall. 
 
A TUDOR ROOM. 77 
 
 umasses of houses, pavilions, courts, back-courts, yards, 
 galleries, halls, porticoes, staircases, and other things. 
 They did not think so much of the geometrical propor- 
 tions and architecture of the exterior, which in many 
 buildings has destroyed internal convenience. ... In 
 short, they knew nothing of these antique fashions in 
 architecture, which cause so much money to be spent, 
 and which most frequently, in order to make a fine out- 
 side, render the interior ugly. They did not know what 
 it was to have marble or porphyry for their chimney- 
 pieces nor at the doors of their houses, nor to gild 
 ridges, girders, and joists. They did not make fine 
 galleries adorned with paintings and rich pictures ; they 
 did not spend such sums as they do now in the pur- 
 chase of one painting, nor buy so much precious and 
 costly furniture to fit up the house. . . .' lachimo, in 
 * Cymbeline,' alludes to the splendid firedogs or 
 andirons : 
 
 Her andirons 
 (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids 
 Of silver — 
 
 as elaborate as sixteenth-century genius could make 
 them ; and silver framed the mirrors on the wall, and 
 mounted the ivory cabinets, the ebony or richly painted 
 spinet, with its keys of precious stones, the inlaid and be- 
 gemmed tables, the enamelled or embossed bellows set 
 with * a large pearl' or the 'Dauphin's arms,' the lan- 
 terns made of delicate bronze plates lighted with rock 
 crystals. 
 
 Massinger, writing early in 1600, describes the 
 
78 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 luxury used by accoiichees, and fixes the date of various 
 forms of furnishing : 
 
 I well remember it, as you had been 
 
 An absolute princess, since they have no more, 
 
 Three several chambers hung, the first with arras 
 
 And that for waiters ; the second crimson satin 
 
 For the meaner sort of guests ; the third of scarlet 
 
 Of the rich Tyrian die : a canopy 
 
 To cover the brat's cradle ; you in state 
 
 Like Pompey's Julia. 
 
 Again, he speaks of a rich bedchamber : 
 
 The silver bathing tub, the cambric rubbers, 
 The embroidered quilt, the bed of gossamer 
 And damask roses. 
 
 Comfort as well as grandeur was then thoroughly 
 well understood — the beds of embroidered velvet suited 
 well the velvet nightgown of the maiden Queen ; the 
 open fireplace cast its heat across a * fringed rug ' on the 
 hearth ; the heavy chairs were softly cushioned ; and 
 rich canopies and curtains protected from draughts of 
 door or blazoned window the still more blazoned and 
 jewel-laden fair ones in ruff and farthingale. 
 
 There is no scene more elaborately rich than such a 
 chamber as Elizabeth may have sate in, watching the 
 dances of the pageantry of gods and goddesses that 
 loyalty had prepared for her diversion ; for all that 
 genius, skill, wealth, knowledge, and love of ease could 
 do had then been done. There is an interesting relic of 
 contemporary, nay, earlier work, a commode once be- 
 longing to Bishop Ridley, martyred under Mary, now in 
 the possession of Cotsford Dick, Esq. The workman- 
 
A TUDOR ROOM. 79 
 
 ship, and the contrasting colours of the woods it is made 
 of, are equally beautiful. Such a commode Shakespeare 
 may have leaned on in the chambers of the great in 
 London where he walked, and spoke, and caught his 
 shrewdest thoughts ; though the rude provincial cham- 
 bers, crooked, dark, low pitched, wherein he was bred 
 up or wooed his Anne, did not boast of inlaid slabs or 
 bronzes, nor doors that a girl could pass through without 
 stooping. 
 
 We have not yet found the period in Early England 
 when colour was repugnant ; for up to the Renascence, 
 if not throughout it, brilliancy of effect within doors was 
 held so far from inconsistent with the grey weather out- 
 side, that no effort or cost was neglected to enhance it, 
 as a kind of compensation or apology. The gayest and 
 richest costume, and colouring as bright and ubiquitous 
 as that which adorns the Alhambra, were cherished 
 wherever they could be obtained within doors. Without 
 doors, of course, the rain soon reduced all colours to one. 
 
 There was a time — brief, happily — when a reaction 
 against colour occurred ; but this was hardly an English 
 reaction ; it took place about 1620. But we may as 
 well realise clearly that, whatever be the charms of 
 dingy hues and uninteresting ornaments, curved or 
 angular, they are by no means * Early English,' or 
 indeed Eng-lish at all. 
 
 The Renascence was a glorious branching forth of 
 new thoughts, and new energy. The distinction between 
 
So A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 beauty and ugliness /^r se only then began to be 
 thoroughly appreciated, and the admiration of physical 
 beauty seemed to burst into Hfe like a newly found 
 faculty. But the Renascence had its seamy side. 
 
 In Mediaeval art the * moral,' or subject was para- 
 mount, in Renascence art the impression on the eye was 
 paramount, and ideas were subjugated to sensations, so 
 that painting and sculpture were reduced — or raised — 
 to the level of the sister-art, music, wherein, not ideas 
 but emotions only, are conveyed and appealed to. 
 
 Art no longer sought to preach, to instruct, to elevate, 
 in this or that department ; she was no longer the 
 spiritual guide, genial, homely, earnest, but a soft 
 minister to pleasure and excitement. The artist himself 
 was no longer a humble workman in an apron — he had 
 become a gentleman. The sacred stories which still 
 remained popular along with the pagan ones, were so 
 chiefly because they were such capital ' subjects.' The 
 dying or dead Christ was a magnificent chance for 
 elaborate anatomical study and perspective ; the Holy and 
 pure Madonna, or Susannah, lent a first-rate excuse for 
 exhibiting the fair rounded forms of a beautiful woman, 
 and if in her new guise she did not look so very pure, 
 she earned Phryne's own pardon — she was so handsome. 
 For buyers who did not care to envelop their admira- 
 tion for beauty in the odour of sanctity the boldest 
 Pagan subjects were always ready. Venus and Cupid, 
 at all ages and under all circumstances, nymphs pursued 
 by Satyrs, Leda, Danae, even portraits of well known 
 dames completely disrobed, such as Titian's * Vanity,' or 
 robed so as to increase the shock, came to be fashion- 
 
RENASCENCE 'TASTE: 8i 
 
 able, and still remain for the instruction of the young, in 
 the National Gallery and other museums. The lower 
 departments of art, such as furniture, jewellery, millinery 
 (then under the sway of the best artists),^ mimicked the 
 higher, of course, and every clock, cabinet, lute, chair, 
 bedstead, helmet and earring bristled with similar 
 pleasing images. There can never have been a time 
 when the popular taste was so wholly sensuous since the 
 day when Praxiteles first ventured to> exhibit an un- 
 draped female form and was forgiven«by public opinion. 
 ^ All this was completely different from Mediaeval 
 naivete, behind which there was always a ' moral,' satiri- 
 cal or mournful, to be deciphered ; and to my mind the 
 Mediaeval mood was the noblest, despite all the super- 
 stition and simplicity swept away and scorned by 
 Renascence unbelief./ However, there are so many 
 learned persons to dilate on the glorious history of this 
 stupendous movement that I may be excused from laud- 
 ing it further, and may point out moreover that the 
 term Renascence art is a very wide one. Great as was 
 much of it, and important as was the change which began 
 here under Henry VHI., much also of the art of the new 
 school was as bad as art can be. The architecture of the 
 transition or Tudor time was often picturesque, but 
 fantastic and ridiculous. Habit could not part with the 
 Gothic element, though it had fallen into discredit as 
 the blossom of Popery, so it was jumbled with the classic 
 in the oddest medley. Grecian porches were clapped on 
 to Gothic facades, or a classic quadrangle was reached 
 
 ' For instance, Michael Angelo designed the cost ime of the Pope's 
 Swiss Guard, and ugly enough it is, with its Renascence inconsistencies. 
 
 G 
 
Si A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 by a Gothic tower : galleries climbed above galleries, 
 much like Arthur's fabled palace at Camelot. 
 
 Skelton describes the quaint picturesque richness of 
 Tudor erections, \\ 
 
 Building royallie 
 
 Their mansions curioublie 
 
 With turrets and with toures 
 
 With halles and with boures 
 
 Stretching to the starres ; 
 
 With glasse windowes and barres : 
 
 Hanging about their walles 
 
 Clothes of gold and palles, 
 
 Arras of rich array 
 
 Fresh as flowres in May. 
 
 And I have already quoted the contemporary complaints 
 against the novel splendour which came in fashion, in 
 ' A Tudor Room.' 
 
 Sir Anthony Brown raised these strange and gorge- 
 ous piles in England when Henry emulated Francis I. in 
 encouraging art in every branch, both by inviting foreign 
 artists and employing native ones to decorate his splendid 
 walls, his dinner-tables, wives, and horses with precious 
 metals and sumptuous colours. Henry was probably a 
 man of taste, for he could simultaneously admire the 
 Gothic architecture of Sir Richard Lea, the Tudor 
 mansions of his barons, and the foreign innovations of 
 Holbein and John of Padua. 
 
 Inigo Jones himself had to compound with the con- 
 servative English tastes, and mix Gothic with his Greek 
 for some time after he became eminent : and one cannot 
 help wishing that the Gothic could have assimilated 
 some of the tiew lights without dying in the process, so 
 
RENASCENCE 'TASTE: 
 
 83 
 
 that England might have retained her own pecuHar 
 style of native art. But religious prejudice gave the 
 coup de grace, and the classic exotic strengthened its 
 roots all over England, at first full of vigour and beau- 
 tiful, presently decaying through its own radical unfitness 
 for our climate, and want of understanding on the part 
 
 Fig. 6. — Lamp-stand, Italian, sixteenth century: full of anatomical impossibilities. 
 
 of artists who tried to improve upon the classics. The 
 scientific and much-tried Wren was the last who reared 
 fine classic structures in England. Nothing can be 
 weaker, baser, more corrupt than the Henri Quatre 
 architecture : and a great mass of the art applied to 
 
84 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 Pjc, 7 —Knife case, dated 1564 : an insunce of the bathos of art. 
 

86 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 Vw,. 8. —Sixteenth century cabinet : an instance of the worship of wrecl^ 
 
THE WORSHIP OF WRECK, 87 
 
 domestic purposes was worse than weak, in its deter- 
 mined subversion of purpose, and straining after false 
 effects ; it was ignobly grotesque. I have sketched a 
 knife-case (1564) and a lamp-stand, from one of the 
 South Kensington Handbooks, where the misuse of the 
 fashionable anatomical knowledge in the attempt to be 
 novel produces an effect on the mind as unpleasant as 
 any 'Two-headed Nightingale.' And this was what 
 the Renascence began to do for domestic ornament.^^ 
 
 Under this degraded class must be noted that 
 singular tendency which we seem to trace, and which 
 may be named 
 
 €f)c IBor^ljijp of JBrccft, 
 
 — as false a motive as the love of disease and disgust into 
 which it developed— the reaction- from the love of beauty. 
 
 I may instance some of the furniture, however fine in 
 detail, which recalled tombs, like the funereal ornaments 
 which ladies decked themselves with; copies from sar- 
 cophagi adapted to tureens and flowerstands, architec- 
 tural cabinets like dolls' churches, surmounted by that 
 strange long- popular ornament, which can mean nothing 
 but the broken pediment of a Greek temple — though 
 this can scarcely have been generally understood, since 
 the lines of the side-angles do not always correspond 
 with those of the centre ones. 
 
 Such a value set on actual deformity, such admiration 
 for not the beauty wrecked but the wreck itself, must be 
 degraded and evil, the bathos of discrimination or 'taste.' 
 
 But on this pivot turn many works of eminent 
 
88 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 seventeenth century artists, viz., public buildings, secre- 
 taires and cabinets (their minute replicas), chests, 
 jewellery, &c., because all the world was mad about 
 ancient Rome and Greece, whose demolished greatness 
 was just coming to light. Discrimination seemed 
 moribund if not defunct. Anything would do to play at 
 being classic with, just as nowadays anything will do to 
 p!ay at being Queen Anne with. What else could be 
 expected of people who parodied in their very dresses of 
 velvet and lace (as I shall show) the hero's iron corslets 
 and shoulder-pieces, and foisted the girt-up chitonia of 
 marble goddesses on a farthingale and stomacher } 
 
 When the passion for antiquities thus developed into 
 the worship of wreck — and when the worship of wreck 
 was pushed a little farther by the craving for excitement, 
 the result was so dismal that it is a moral in itself The 
 jaded appeti-tes, tired of pleasure, demanded a new shock, 
 and whilst some of the pioneers, like Conser. atives, strove 
 to confiaethe sprouting fashions exclusively to classic 
 precedent, others, like wild Radicals, ran forward and 
 devised a^chool of ghastly ornament to produce the last 
 weary titillation. 
 
 <©l)a^tlp #ntamcut* 
 
 The passion for bringing monumental ideas into every 
 domestic detail affected colour with form naturally. It 
 was greatly encouraged by Louis XIII., under whom 
 they sculptured everything— the caskets, the mantel- 
 shelves, the doors, the very trees in the garden — into 
 columns, arches, or geometric figures, the elements of 
 
GHASTLY ORNAMENT. 89 
 
 architecture ; and their ' ever-veering fancy,' swift as 
 Ettarre's, turned to the sharp contrast of ebony with 
 white metal or ivory as a recoil from the bright colours 
 in furniture that had begun to wrestle with the dazzling 
 walls. Everything began to recall the coffin-lid. And 
 as for pictures, the grim penance of Mary of Egypt (un- 
 natural union of a frame formed for love and joy with 
 wilful wretchedness), the flaying of Marsyas, the dissect- 
 ing table, and like subjects, were set on the walls to raise 
 the spirits. 
 
 So sepulchral ebony heralded in the morbid attraction 
 for horrors, developing perhaps from the general senti- 
 mentalism, such as the Worship of Wreck. Burial and 
 exhumation being fixed ideas in the mind of society, 
 death and destruction were subjects to be played with 
 and made pretty. 
 
 They did not make them pretty, though skulls were 
 introduced into the pictures of the most seductive 
 women : though the courts adopted funereal trinkets, and 
 the merriest ladies pursued pleasure with death's-heads 
 and cross-bones embroidered on their dresses, people 
 sniffed essences from skull pomanders, consulted skull 
 watches, and wore crossbone rings— liked the semblance 
 of decay everywhere, and cultivated a charming chair de 
 poitle even at the dinner-table ; objects which w^ere 
 perhaps intended to remind people that they ought to 
 mend their ways, but which only preached the doctrine, 
 ' Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' 
 
 To this period belong the nasty little ivory corpses 
 with worms protruding, such as we find in every curiosity 
 shop. To this period also belong the disagreeable monu- 
 
90 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 ments in Westminster Abbey whereon skeleton Deaths 
 wrestle and box for the moribund. 
 
 Of course all contemporary art was not morbid or 
 disgusting ; and even if we put out of court those many 
 immortal names which made the early Renascence a 
 living movement — Diirer, Holbein, Leonardo, Michael 
 Angelo and the rest — the average designers show a 
 wondrously high standard of ability and sense of grace 
 and humour ; indeed the. Renascence grotesque could 
 have hardly become so popular had it not been that the 
 knowledge of proportion, notably of the animal frame, 
 •was to a great extent common property. 
 
 Many were the elegant pieces of furniture now to be 
 seen in museums, such as the Cluny,^ and private collec- 
 tions, whereon the tiny pediments, friezes, and engaged 
 columns (for all mimicked architectural structure) were 
 covered with mythological and other scenes carved with 
 incredible delicacy or etched with marvellous spirit and 
 freedom ; though the accurate proportions only increased 
 the doll's-house look of them. Many were the works on 
 which the grotesque union of animal limbs with foliage 
 or shells was clever and decorative without being dis- 
 agreeable, as in figs. 28 and 29, pp. 109, iii. 
 
 The fitful vagaries of domestic decoration and array, 
 in dead-colour and mock horror, did not hinder the 
 Renascence from being an epoch of supreme skill in 
 colouring; while in many cases where taste seems 
 entirely at fault, as in the above-named cabinets, the 
 construction is exquisite, the treatment fascinating by 
 mere littleness, like a baby's hand, and we waste time 
 
 • E.g., Nos. 601, 603, 594 & 592 Cluny Museum, described on p. 168. 
 
GHASTLY ORNAMENT. 
 
 91 
 
 Fig. 9. Cabinet showing architectural fashions in furniture. 
 
&- 
 
 
 .^«:#^' 
 
BLACK AND WHITE IN ITS PLACE. 93 
 
 while scoffing (as we were meant to waste it) in investi- 
 gating the ever-novel vagaries about the sides. As we 
 pore into the tiny portals we think of the hapless 
 Princess in Mme. D'Aulnoy's fairy-tale who was be- 
 friended by little pagodins — which at any moment may 
 step forth and speak to us ! Perhaps that imaginative 
 but not moral lady derived her idea from the art which 
 accompanied her luxurious life. 
 
 2Macft anti J©ljitc in it$ ^lacc. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of the elaborate ebony work 
 in the seventeenth century, we must confess that black and 
 white in its place certainly adds a touch of elegance to a 
 richly coloured room, like an unexpected turn of speech 
 which pleases the ear. It gives a moment's relief and 
 rest amid the storm of colour, for the small bas-reliefs 
 are not visible till you are close to them, and then the 
 carvings are a pleasant surprise ; the same is true of 
 the ivory panels. The finest specimens are mounted in 
 silver, the less costly ones in pewter or white metal, with 
 bone in place of ivory. 
 
 They became popular enough to be produced in 
 blackened deal for buyers who would not pay for ebony, 
 and such degenerate copies are still quite common in 
 Italy, some of the cheapest bearing etchings on bone, full 
 of talent, which I would be glad to believe any English 
 workman could supply. 
 
 Conditions may no doubt render dead black, or black 
 and white, quaint and pleasing, as on the mighty sides 
 of Florence Cathedral, gay, moving life around, and a 
 
94 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 purple sky overhead : so in a shrine of gold and crimson 
 and endless dancing patterns. But per se black andl 
 white are lugubrious and dull, and when over-done, as 
 they certainly were at one time, are most coffin-like and 
 grievous. 
 
 This gloomy development of pagan taste ended in 
 a reaction ; of course, healthy opinion reasserted itself, 
 Florentine mosaics revived, the ebony sepulchres were 
 brightened up with gilding and tortoiseshell, into lumi- 
 nous colour — Rubens himself did not disdain to furnish 
 designs for such cabinets, if report saith true. 
 
 Ruskin, mourning over the death of the noble Gothic?" 
 ^period, speaks strongly about this want of colour. ' The» 
 winter which succeeded was colourless as it was cold ; 
 and although the Venetian painters struggled long 
 against its influence, the numbness of the architecture 
 prevailed over them at last, and the exteriors of all the 
 latter palaces were built only in barren stone.' — * Stones; 
 of Venice,' iii. 17. 
 
 iSena^cence ^Influence on 2Dre^^» 
 
 In a series of papers published in the ^ Queen ' ^ in 
 the autumn of 1879, 1 traced the origin, rise, and progress 
 of costume, and showed how it was influenced by the 
 spirit of the time. Fashion, in all its varieties, springs 
 from a basis of good sense, rises to extravagant pitch, 
 and then falls into an ugly decadence leading to a violent 
 reaction. 
 
 This basis of good sense is generally the * becoming ' 
 
 * See Queen, Nov. 6, 1879 ; In and Out of Fashion. 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS, 
 
 95; 
 
 (the fitting, the required) forced up from that much dis- 
 cussed primal instinct to emphasize one's own indi- 
 viduality which certainly exists, rooted beneath the 
 instinct of imitation. Furniture and dress follow a like 
 course ; which may be represented by a curving line, the 
 line of life, as of beauty, and the ups and downs are deter- 
 
 FiG. lO, — Line of beauty. 
 
 mined by the inexorable laws of (i) vitiation of the eye, 
 and (2) the need of due relief 
 
 Naturally, a movement so strong and universal as the 
 
 Fig. II. — Imitation Roman, 
 
 Fig. 12. — Imitation Greek. 
 
 Renascence of art could not fail to have a marked 
 influence on costume as it had on domestic decoration, 
 education, and manners ; but I never saw its extra- 
 ordinary result in English dress observed or explained 
 
96 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 before my paper appeared in the ' Art Journal ' of May 
 1880. 
 
 It does not seem to be generally understood that the 
 two mcst grotesque fashions which ever caricatured us 
 were the result of trying to fit the classic dress to 
 England. The figure of Queen Elizabeth, or Imitation 
 Roman (King's Library, British Museum, reproduced 
 in my * Art of Beauty.' p. 42), a mere clothes-prop wherein 
 every line of the human frame was contradicted, or 
 the far less grotesque form seen in fig. ii, shows 
 us one classic fit in extremis. The Imitation Greek 
 (fig. 12, time of the First Empire), in her puny miserable 
 array, suffering as painfully from too little clothing as 
 her ancestress had suffered from too much, shows us the 
 other. Both represent the last and worst stage of the 
 fashion just before reaction. 
 
 The Renascence broke upon Italy first, then England, 
 at a time when the costume was especially stiff" and 
 artificial, and occupied very great attention, being held a 
 genuine element in the perfection of the individual ;' and 
 it is curious enough to observe the way in which the 
 Renascence was mirrored in such walking mounds of 
 silk and slashes as figs. 11 and 15 (from Fairholt's 
 * Costume in England '), and how little it reformed the 
 dress in either country. As the antique sculptures were 
 unearthed, and Greek influence or Roman art projected 
 itself through Roman influence upon Art in England, we 
 perceive an abortive attempt to imitate the ancient 
 Roman habiliments. The dresses were no intelligent 
 translation of the classic into an English form, as was 
 
 ' See note, p. 16. 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS. 97 
 
 much of the architecture and furniture of the period, but 
 a blind copy, as a child might copy an unknown 
 alphabet in the twilight. It became the 'mode' to be 
 portrayed as a Latin warrior — e.g. the statue of James 
 II. in Whitehall Gardens — as at another epoch it was 
 thought advisable to be portrayed as a Greek athlete — 
 e.g. the statue of the Duke of Wellington opposite 
 Apsley House. The tailor mixed up indiscriminately 
 what was Roman and what was Greek. Anything dug 
 up would do to play at being classic with. The heavy 
 English brocades or ' broched satins,' such as Henry VIII. 
 loved, were too precious to be sacrificed, so they were 
 ' adapted.' High heels — dear to women the world over ! 
 — were invented, a raised sole of cork similar to the old 
 Greek KarrvfJia (not a perilous block, 
 as in modern shoes, at one end of 
 the sole, but a wedge-shaped sole that 
 supported the foot while raising it ; 
 clearly visible in the above-named 
 portrait of Elizabeth) ; and as the 
 sandal was inadmissible in England, 
 the upper part of the shoe was trimmed fig. 13.— Henry viii. hat. 
 something like it ! The ruff was a sweet novelty, not 
 exactly classic, but it could be * worked in ' with a little 
 ingenuity ; so they worked it in, and most absurd the 
 medley was. 
 
 Henry VIII. presents the first signs of the change. 
 The scaly corslet of the Latin warrior, of which Henry's 
 own broad doublet was a careful copy, and the bunched - 
 up skirts of marble goddesses, were grafted stupidly on 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 stomacher and farthingale. We may see the popular 
 version of the classic fold (koXttos) clearly in fig. 1 1. The 
 very halo of saints, or the protective plate of statues 
 mistaken for a halo, seems to have been at times aimed 
 
 Fig. 14.— From early tapestry in the possession of the Rev. R. H. Haweis. 
 
 at in hat (fig. 13) or pickardil (fig. 11). The double 
 girdle, with robe drawn through it, was apparently not 
 understood, and the raison (THre of every portion of 
 classic attire — real utility, was unobserved ; but the ful- 
 ness at the hips adapted itself comfortably to the drum- 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS. 99 
 
 farthingale in which the fashionable ladies strutted, think- 
 ing themselves very classic-looking, no doubt, as they 
 chirped in Greek and Latin and viewed the mythologic 
 pageants that Elizabeth loved. The early tapestry here 
 engraved from a piece in my possession forms a curious 
 link between Gothic and Renascence times, but unfor- 
 tunately the details, clear in the original, have been 
 destroyed in the engraving. It probably represents the 
 Marriage of the Virgin ; and the figures, robed in the 
 fashionable costume, are clearly striving to be mistaken 
 for ancient Romans. The bride's dress proves the 
 misconception of the classic double girdle. She wears 
 two girdles upon the hips to bear up the weight of her 
 skirt, with a close bodice, having its own (a third) waist, 
 above ; a mantle in w^hich the broad collar can only be 
 intended to simulate folds, if it means anything, and held 
 up by the bride's-maid in the mediaeval manner. She 
 wears small tentative ruffs at wrist and neck ; her 
 maids are dressed in a kind of Holbein costume, not 
 so ultra-fashionable as their privileged mistress. The 
 plaits of fair hair are rather mediaeval, rising up from 
 the ear. One of the most amusing details is the re- 
 cognition of the Greek hair-knot over the brow. These 
 royalties are determined to have some such lump, and 
 have carefully fabricated in it some other material : in 
 the bridegroom's case it is affixed to his turban, his crown 
 shining above ; in the bride's, it looks somewhat like a 
 small- tooth comb. The mock-sandals are very clear; 
 and observe the buskins ! Titianesque sleeves go oddly 
 enough with the clinging tunic of Greece and Rome, 
 and the leaf-shaped ' dagges ' (purely mediaeval) fall over 
 
loo A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 the soldierly corslet which resembles fig. i8, page 102. 
 The bridegroom's mantle classic in front, Gothic behind. 
 ThiC Bishop, neither Pagan, Jew, nor Catholic in garb, 
 gives them the blessing used alike by Pope and Jewish 
 high-priest, with two fingers. Compare the long plaited 
 beards of the chief personages with the short and simple 
 beards of the followers, Roman 
 soldiers ; the Gothic * table dor- 
 mant,' the little hound gnawing 
 the rejected bones, and the general 
 absence of perspective, with the 
 advanced Renascence costumes. 
 The simple roast fowl with larded 
 bacon lie on a lordly silver dish, 
 and the loving-cup goes round in 
 the bridal party's honour — we will 
 trust the latter have had or will 
 afterwards get something to eat. 
 But Renascence influence on 
 
 Fig. 15. — Trunk-hose, with 
 
 short waist and tabs derived drcss wcnt farther than this. Men 
 
 fiom the classic. 
 
 quadrupled their apparent muscle 
 by branstuffed trunk-hose (fig. 15), cut into long slashes 
 which recalled the warrior's plated protection, as in fig. 18, 
 till their outline emulated, then excelled, the grotesquely 
 developed figures which gesticulate on Greco-Etruscan 
 pottery (fig. 16). The very lace was forced to be 
 architectural, the heavy Spanish rose-point growing more 
 raised and more solid as it seemed to recall a marble 
 basso-relievo. Strangely enough, this was the decadence 
 of a mode founded on art-research and enthusiasm for 
 the grand antique. 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS. loi 
 
 To the same Greco-Roman excavations we trace the 
 origin of the stomacher itself, the shot-bellied doublet, 
 taken from the metal corslet with the magnified peak 
 weighted with shot, and tabs. The tabs seen in Hollar's 
 prints of middle-class women, square-shaped around the 
 
 Fig. i6. — Etruscan figure, from a vase. 
 
 waist, but with a single round tab in front (fig. 21), long 
 puzzled me. The sqiiai^e tabs are clearly traceable to 
 the early Greek armour, belt and all ; in fact, the whole 
 bodice was not unlike fig. 19, when the stomacher gave 
 way to the very short waist, itself drawn from the high- 
 girt chiton. The first indication of the cape or scarf^ 
 
102 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 called the ' falling whisk,' seemed to echo the shoulder 
 pieces (fig. 17), which in later Greek took a stififer form 
 (fig. 18), but the round tab in the centre, like the round 
 stomacher, can, I think, only be attributed to some vague 
 
 Fig. 
 
 Fig. 18. 
 Early Greek figures. 
 
 Fig. 19. 
 
 remembrance of the conventional drawing of heroic 
 muscles, called rectus ?ind obllqmis extern us (fig. 21). 
 
 In fact, there is hardly any detail of costume 
 belonging to the classics, which we cannot see echoed in 
 England between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
 The small shawl-like himation {afjL'Tr£-)(6vLov) had its 
 counterpart in the floating scarf so often seen in 
 Renascence pictures — at times foolishly combined with 
 a stiff bodice, as in ' Titian's Daughter ' raising the 
 casket above her head, and the Magdalene in Rubens's 
 * Descent from the Cross ' — and a similar scarf came in 
 vogue in Empire times. The slashed shoe of Henry VIII. 
 and the high shoe of Cromwell were both copied from 
 the classic, as I showed in my ' Pedigree of Shoes,' in 
 the ' Art Journal.' ' Sandals were simulated by trim- 
 ming, as in the nineteenth century they were simulated 
 
 • 'The Esthetics of Dress,' Art Joimiai, April, May, and July, 1880. 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS. 103 
 
 by emasculated ribbons ; while the hair went through 
 various metamorphoses, in which one classic fashion 
 succeeded another. The browband, with side-curls or 
 
 Fig. 20.— Pease-cod bellied doublet, from Bertelli, 
 
 with the 'bull-front,' a very common Roman hair- 
 fashion, which always comes to the fore during a classic 
 fit, was one of the Stuart modes. Our different renderings 
 of the high Greek knot in Elizabethan and in Napoleonic 
 times, is clearly shown in figs. 11 and 12, page 95. But 
 
io4 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 as old Rome herself modified old Greek decorations 
 according to her own passion for ornate self-display, so 
 
 Fig. 21. — Figure of Hercules, showing 
 the muscles which may have originated 
 the round tab. 
 
 Fig. 22. — Tabs : from a print by Hollar. 
 
 the costumes of Elizabethan pseudo-classicism developed 
 in the direction of bulk ; while those of the Empire, 
 
 Fig. 23.— Renascence version of a classic Fig. 24.— Empire version of the same, 
 
 fashion. 
 
 rather Spartan than Roman, developed in the contrary 
 direction — nothingness. 
 
 Very different versions, too, of that prettier old Greek 
 hair-fashion visible on some Syracusan coins — the knot, 
 with curls beside the face — may be compared in figs. 22 
 
RENASCENCE INFLUENCE ON DRESS. 
 
 105 
 
 and 23 ; the one seventeenth century, the other early 
 nineteenth century rendering. The same may be said 
 
 Fig. 25. — A classic fashion (from Roman 
 bust;. 
 
 Fig. 26. 
 
 rgth century rendering of 
 same. 
 
 of figs. 25 and 26, by-the-by : the first being true classic 
 and the last the decadence of its copy, about 1855. 
 
 And these two heads may be held symbolical of the 
 inferior treatment of all matters artistic, which seems to 
 distinguish ' Empire ' from ' Stuart ' classic furniture. 
 
Bp( M ^Si^P^g^/f 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 ^t^S^^^J^jffl 
 
 ^ 
 
 &'A^ '^ttSSfii^^^^^i 
 
 f^^as^S&ai^. 
 
 §^ 
 
 3al^^^^S<-^^^^^JB 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 €f)c ^Srotcj^quc anti i!tapf)ael armament. 
 
 HAVE before hinted that individual opinion 
 ought to be respected, and I may hope for 
 the indulgence of a few when I say that the 
 grotesqueness of much classic art, notably 
 that which was so popular during the Renascence, 
 makes it unpleasant and unbecoming in rooms intended 
 for daily use. This is especially visible upon the walls, 
 for which many forms of art, charming elsewhere, are 
 unsuited. Walls, though they may be bright, should 
 never be obtrusive. They are a background, not a pic- 
 ture ; they should contribute rest to the eye, because 
 they are constantly on a level with it, and we cannot 
 escape their influence. The grotesque ^ is an element 
 which is interesting when it comes unexpectedly and 
 naturally, like caprices in a sweet nature, or trials in life 
 which can be conquered and got over ; but a life (or a 
 
 ' This word is said by some to Ire derived from the excavations or 
 * grottoes' at Rome, in which paintings were found of a character remark- 
 able enough to coin a term for. 
 
GROTESQUE AND RAPHAEL ORNAMENT. 107 
 
 First 
 face. 
 
 Third 
 face. 
 
 friend) entirely made up of trials and caprices would 
 be intolerably vexing, and too much of grotesque art is 
 intolerable anywhere, but especially 
 in a room one much inhabits, and 
 wherein one should always find 
 solace, calm, and delight. The in- 
 congruities even in classic ornament, 
 such as what we call Pompeiian, 
 clever as that is, and cleverly as Re- 
 nascence artists (nay, Raphael him- 
 self) caught up the same trick and 
 manner, are to me tiring and unsatis- 
 factory, like an uneasy dream, even 
 when inspired by the hand whose 
 supreme skill in this fashion, novel 
 in his day, gave it for all time his 
 name. The merely fanciful scroll- 
 work, and the endive ornaments (an 
 advance upon the acanthus) deliver- 
 ing themselves in unexpected places 
 of chubby boys or grimacing heads, 
 birds or nondescript dragons, or form- 
 ing faces by their own curves even 
 when beasts and birds are not in- 
 troduced, as in fig. 27, are distinctly 
 objectionable, I think, except in 
 small quantities. The present cut, 
 from a painted pilaster in a well- 
 known church, is suggestive of fully 
 six grotesque faces, and originally, I 
 am persuaded that this suggestive- 
 
 y 
 
 Sixth 
 face. 
 
 Fici. 27. — ' Raphael 
 
io8 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 ness was intentional. Much of the so-called * Raphael 
 ornament ' on Italian pottery, friezes, &c., is wonderfully 
 clever, good in colour, and admirable in its precision, 
 ingenuity, and neat adaptation to the shapes of the 
 objects it covers. Still, a little of it goes a long way, 
 and I should as little like to live in a room so decorated, 
 even by Raphael, as I should in the gay rooms at 
 Pompeii, so small that one could never get away from 
 the clever little walls. 
 
 The horrible creations miscalled ' Raphael,' which 
 come into vogue by fits every few years — impossible 
 conglomerations of boys, ribbons, swans, butterflies, and 
 boneless dragons, mixed up without regard to relative 
 proportions and weights, on curtains, gowns, chintzes, 
 tea-cups, panels, tiles, even bonnet strings — are still less 
 .adapted to sitting-rooms than the prototypes. Sten- 
 cilling and freehand arabesques are best suited to long 
 corridors and passages, where the images are quickly 
 passed and forgotten after the momentary impression. 
 At the same time, since houses ought to reflect their 
 owners' taste, if people like this kind of thing they should 
 be allowed to have it ; and we may fairly allow that, 
 when good of its kind, it has a certain charm in certain 
 places. Some people like it for its oddity ; some for its 
 endless variety of lines and tints ; others like it for its 
 associations with bright Italian days and brighter names. 
 The studio of Mr. Alma Tadema, painted by himself, is 
 perhaps the best example in England of modern Pom- 
 peiian art. The celebrated corridors in the Vatican at 
 Rome, painted under Raphael's immediate supervision, 
 are probably the finest known instance of the Renascence 
 adoption of this kind of ornament. 
 
GROTESQUE AND RAPHAEL ORNAMENT. 109 
 
 Fig. 28. -Raphael ornament from the Loggia at the Vatican. 
 
GROTESQUE AND RAPHAEL ORNAMENT, iir 
 
 Fig. 29. — Raphael ornament from the Loggia at the Vatican. 
 
A POMP EUAN ROOM. 113 
 
 To those who are attracted to this stylq I will give a 
 few hints for the decoration of rooms. 
 
 In the best examples of Pompeiian walls, there is 
 a gradation of colour from the ceiling downwards, though 
 this is not by any means a fixed law. The gradation 
 downwards from light to deep colour is pleasing, because 
 fo\mded upon the natural law of gravity, such as we 
 might study in a flask of cloudy wine, where the deepest 
 colour would sink and leave a clear pale hue above it. 
 The dado may be black, with red pilasters and frieze, 
 and panels of yellow, white, or blue, on which a small 
 figure of girl or goddess may dance or feed her goat. 
 Above may be a broad band of white or yellow, with 
 decorations upon it in all colours, and really beyond the 
 reach of strict criticism in their capricious independence 
 of art rules — gay, showy, sometimes almost vulgar, could 
 the word be applied to things so attenuated, graceful, and 
 ingenious, and showing such perfect knowledge of pro- 
 portional areas. 
 
 No one should attempt the decoration of a Pompeiian 
 room without experience, or the advice of experienced 
 artists and decorators used to freehand painting ; for 
 the whole and sole charm depends upon the painter's 
 facile mode of striking off the arabesques, inventing as 
 he goes, not copying on one side of a pattern the reversed 
 lines of the other. When it is anything short of first-rate, 
 and without the interest attaching to antiquity, Pom- 
 peiian art is nothing but fantastic and vulgar. 
 
 I 
 
I [4 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 The common proportions for the decorations are a 
 dado about one-sixth of the height of the wall, on which 
 broad pilasters half as wide as the dado divide the wall 
 into three or more panels. The frieze which unites the 
 pilasters varies in width, but it is often one-fourth the 
 height of the wall from the top. Owen Jones bears out 
 my views in saying that * the upper space is frequently 
 white, and is always subjected to a much less severe treat- 
 ment than the parts below' (remember the above -suggested 
 law of gravity), * generally representing the open air, and 
 upon the ground are painted those fantastic architectural 
 buildings which excited the ire of Vitruvius.' 
 
 Colours which do not contrast strongly, such as 
 yellow and red, are divided by shading, an natiirel, and 
 sometimes the inherent Italian love of spectral illusion 
 made the pilasters and friezes of the old world quite 
 deceptive, as in South Italy it still tries to make the 
 walls external and internal ; we have all seen false vistas 
 containing ladies sighing on balconies, windows through 
 which peep sly maidens, and scenes with fountains and 
 woods depicted where by no possibility such things 
 could really be. To this style we Britons should be 
 more lenient if we remembered that the school was doubt- 
 less founded on the love of air, flowers, and outdoor 
 amusements which the Italians have ever nursed to 
 this extent, that when it was too hot to go forth, the 
 ever-shady garden was to be had within, even in the 
 very bedroom. 
 
 In the Roman house of Germanicus, of which the 
 wreck remains within the palace of Tiberius, his son, 
 by whose filial piety it was preserved, we have the finest 
 
A POMPEIIAN ROOM. 115 
 
 known examples of the so-called * Pompeiian ornament' 
 — a name which sounds particularly absurd applied to 
 Rome where it probably flourished best ; we ought to 
 give up the name Pompeiian now for Greco-Roman^ as the 
 school was probably Greek, and every one knows this 
 decoration was not confined to the fashionable watering- 
 place near Naples, though Greek workmen may have 
 worked there, as they did in Rome. 
 
 It is likely that Roman decoration both within and 
 without the house surpassed the Greek in magnificence, 
 if not in purity of taste; and that when the Romans 
 faced their brick and stucco buildirrgs-with marble, and 
 preferred elaborate mosaic to 'the Greek coloured-plaster 
 floors, they also improved upon the Greek walls and 
 ceilings. 
 
 Let us rebuild the rooms in. the house of Germanicus 
 from its present relics. How charming they are, in spite 
 of all the art-canons which forbid naturalistic decora- 
 tions ! Deception has clearly been aimed at in the 
 painted pilasters that stand all round the room, and 
 pretend to uphold the roof ; also in the framework cf a 
 verandah which seems beyond them, supporting rich 
 festoons of flowers and fresh cool fruit, tied with ribbons. 
 The perspective is admirable : the verandah seems closed 
 with silk or linen panels. The pilasters — whose round- 
 ness cheats the eye, and extends the apparent area of 
 the room as a modern mirror does — run up into delicately 
 worked capitals ; the ceiling is covered with exquisite 
 stucco reliefs, such as Plato speaks of in Greece, white 
 or nearly white. The dado represents a tempting seat, 
 like a broad window-sill ; it is about two feet high, sup- 
 
i6 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 posing the height of the wall eleven, and is broken by 
 the bases of the columns, painted like projecting dragons. 
 The central frieze unites these slender columns by a 
 broad neutral- tinted band a foot and a half deep, on 
 which comic freehand sketches of the life of the time 
 are painted in brownish colour. The spaces above this 
 frieze, between the columns, might represent the open 
 sky — a common habit — save that grotesque scrolls such 
 as Raphael loved break up the light colour with wavy 
 lines. 
 
 Fig. 30. — l-'iieze ot painted wall, m the House of Germanicus, Palaces of the Caesars. 
 
 In another room (fig. 3 1) the simulation of aerial per- 
 spectives is carried still farther. Apparent openings in 
 the walls guarded by half-open shutters (of course glass 
 windows did not exist) discover various domestic scenes : 
 there, in what may seem an upper bedroom, slaves prepare 
 the basins for ablutions ; or lovers murmur in their 
 bower ; or, strangest of all, glimpses of ruined temples 
 and basilicas flatter the Roman sense of power. Why else 
 were ruins painted on these royal panels 1 These ancient 
 
A POMPEIIAN ROOM. 
 
 117 
 
 paintings of still more ancient demolitions remind us 
 curiously of Renascence carvings, and Empire sketches, 
 and models, of ruined Rome, proving how history re- 
 peats itself, and human nature too. There again, we, 
 catch sight of an apparently neigaboumng house (noL 
 
 Fig. 31. — Painted wall, from the House of Gennanicus, Palaces of the Cai^ai- 
 
 at all unlike some of Cubitt's !) on the leads whereof 
 women and children are airing themselves. 
 
 The painting is advanced enough technically to 
 make the old story of Zeuxis deceiving the birds and 
 
iltJ A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 Parrhasius deceiving Zeuxis quite believable. This sort of 
 illusory painting has been dear to Italians from time 
 immemorial, and they got it from much-vaunted Greece. 
 
 In this ancient dwelling nothing is so astonishing as 
 the likeness of its decorations to those of modern native 
 work ; and British justice must admit that the ancient 
 Roman work is no better than good modern Roman 
 work of the kind , pace sapient enthusiasts. Admirable 
 as was some of it, much was bad ; probably prices 
 varied, like talent ; and we find figures carelessly 
 coloured and out of drawing, though every touch of the 
 brush and the composition itself prove that the art of 
 painting was as advanced as the art of sculpture ; that is 
 to say, it could deceive the eye, and skill can go no 
 farther than that. In Pompeii and at Rome both, the 
 bad and good mural painting alike show the alert 
 precision of the accustomed hand. 
 
 Yes, the rooms with all their faults are charming. 
 The panels with their false openings, thorough-shining, 
 .captivate us, and the mythic sea-scenes, wherein mer- 
 maids ride almost audibly through the waves, seem for 
 a moment natural enough viewed through a well- painted 
 arch. And the doorways, also arched and lined with 
 stucco bas-reliefs like the ceiling (relics of such stucco 
 are close at hand), are pretty, furnished, in the mind's 
 eye, by rich hangings of broidery such as the Phrygian 
 women made, and which came to be prized under the 
 name oi fhrygionicB. 
 
 In yonder corner we seem to see a fine candelabrum 
 of bronze, such as the Naples Museum preserves, now 
 green with burial, or ^biack with rust, then bright as 
 
A POMPEIIAN ROOM. 
 
 19 
 

 
 eZ.^f 
 
A POMP EUAN ROOM. 121 
 
 gold. There, was a superb tripod of Corinthian or 
 Sicyonian workmanship, with copper coa'pan that 
 Tiberius as a boy may have been warned off, many a 
 time. Few are the draperies, which might interfere with 
 the soft passage of the welcome breeze in Rome's sultry 
 clime, but there a small soft carpet lies before a tortoise- 
 shell couch with ivory feet like wolves' or bulls', and 
 parti-coloured cushions. The room is full of a soft 
 bloom of many colours ; gold, glass, and precious stones 
 glimmer from shelf and bench. Now passes by a hand- 
 some slave bearing one of those shapely silver basins 
 with an ewer, holding the golden wine and costly 
 unguents to be poured upon the feet of honoured guests ; 
 on his arm hang the chaplets which will be offered 
 to the diners when the shadow of the gnomoii marks 
 the hour of coena. Here on a table of maplewood 
 and bronze stand golden cups among roses whose 
 pink petals strew the pavement beneath. Through 
 yonder door come the sounds of clattering dishes and 
 the ring of silver vessels which slaves are polishing, 
 singing and whistling the while, as what Italian would 
 not } Further away, the tones of a flute, of a fountain, 
 and of a boy's laughter echo through the quiet midday 
 city, and the irrepressible sun creeps along the glowing 
 wall, making the pictured openings, and false verandah, 
 roof and frame, beyond the shrewdly-shaded columns, 
 more deceptive still. 
 
 Thus we can be sure that against these bright walls, 
 bright with the purest colours the Greek had (but not 
 pure by our standard of mechanical distillation, other- 
 wise blues, greens, and ) ellows could never have borne 
 
122 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 such violent juxtaposition), stood in Rome and Pompeii 
 wondrous benches and chairs, cushioned with colours 
 to correspond with the walls. The general form of these 
 was chiefly simple, after Greek precedent, but the deco- 
 ration applied in bronze repousse work, inlaid woods, and 
 mother-of-pearl, was most elaborate and entertaining. 
 
 Chairs of Greek form are suitable, therefore, to a 
 modern Pompeiian room, veneered or carved in wood 
 and mounted v* ith bronze claws, and here Mr. Chippen- 
 dale comes in useful ; small tables of marble and precious 
 woods, inlaid with mosaics similar to the antique which 
 afterwards inspired Boule ; small stools, and vases and 
 tazze of precious stone, and bronze or gilt statuettes of 
 purest model. The lamps, lustres, and candlesticks 
 ought to be in harmony with the well-known classic 
 forms — serpents, goats, bulls ; the couches should exhibit 
 rams' heads supporting festoons of flowers, caryatides, 
 Corinthian columns, and rich broideries. The floor, 
 however, presents a more restful colouring ; mosaics of 
 beautiful design in marbles (whose fine colour bore no 
 proportion to the paint on walls glowing in Italian sun- 
 light) might be replaced in England by coloured matting 
 and rugs of quiet tone. In a very brightly variegated 
 room, full of minute details, some part — floor, ceiling, 
 or hangings— must be of a quiet or self-colour, otherwise 
 the effect will be distressingly lacking in repose for the 
 hunted eye. In the old Pompeiian rooms repose was 
 found in the white mass of festive garments, or in 
 the dark mass of shadow cast by a brilliant sun on 
 various parts of the rooms. Had it not been so, the 
 artistic sense would have felt and revolted against the 
 
A POMPEIIAN ROOM, 
 
 123 
 
 'burden ' of too much broken colour. A fair space of one 
 tint, or a quiet tone in mixture, is indispensable some- 
 where. 
 
 iloman #ntamcnt 
 
 What is called Roman ornament, so dear to the 
 sixteenth century architects, is far nobler, broader in 
 conception than Pompeiian, because the acanthus leaf is 
 in itself so splendid a subject, whether suggested as in 
 Greece, or copied closely as in Rome. The free use of 
 the acanthus (though sprouting impossible Loves and birds 
 and beasts) and adherence to natural forms give the 
 curves and folds new and remarkable interest. The 
 frieze of the Roman Temple at Brescia almost converts 
 us by its naturalistic grace, just enough conventionalised. 
 But Roman ornament is almost always over-elaborate ; 
 and when the faults of the style are magnified and 
 stereotyped by machine carving and exact measure- 
 ments, we find that the acanthus is a very cheap way of 
 producing an effect. 
 
 Perhaps the vile stone capitals seen in every cheap 
 new church, and the viler attempts at vegetation in 
 plaster which are turned out by the thousand and fixed 
 on our ceilings by the mile, have made many of us unjust 
 to the fathers of the school. Still, the best of it \Sy tiring, 
 through its perpetual suggestions of broken ideas which 
 elude us as we try to grasp them ; and in certain states 
 oi health or brain excitement the branching stems would 
 curl and uncurl, the boys nod and gesticulate, the name- 
 less beasts snap and jut their tongues with a horrible 
 monotony of movement. 
 
124 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 <6rotc^quc <©aft Carbing* 
 
 Many people imagine that the merit of old oak is its 
 ugliness, and that if you clap a grinning lion's head upon 
 the corner of your table, or a griffin upon a garden seat, 
 you will render it more valuable — in fact, * Early 
 English.' But the popular lion's head hails from 
 imperial Rome, where it had a real significance. Used 
 as we use it, however, it is for the most part neither 
 valuable nor pleasing. There is an incongruity in 
 placing such an object among the hyper-refined luxuries 
 of an English drawing-room, which has no associations 
 with the arena, and no delight in beast-fights. It is 
 foolish, therefore ignoble. And the ' ignoble grotesque ' 
 which Mr. Ruskin has so often and so vehemently con- 
 demned is the outcome of affected taste and false feeling, 
 whilst influencing in no wholesome degree, if at all, the 
 moods and ideas of those to whom it pretends to be an 
 aesthetic aid. 
 
 Where the mediaeval artist placed it, as a gargoyl or 
 bracket outside the cathedral, the grotesque figure had a 
 meaning and a beautiful one. It was the image of evil 
 and of folly which our better moods might cast out. Or 
 it indicated the amusing and pardonable side of human 
 weakness not all bad. Only when the religious sense in 
 art was confused or crushed by pagan ideas (which in 
 their native places had had some significance), did the 
 hideous masks of beasts or demons begin to haunt our 
 walls, our chairs, our beds, our very backs, plates, 
 pots, trinkets, in thoughtless and meaningless profusion. 
 
GROTESQUE OAK CARVING, 125 
 
 And when such masks and beasts come to be manu- 
 factured hastily and by steam, not only without any 
 strength of imagery, but without the most rudimentary 
 anatomical knowledge, the result is ugly without being 
 instructive, or even amusing. So vegetation that ends 
 in beasts, beasts that end in vegetation, are a class of 
 ornamentation which requires genius to make it grace- 
 ful and handwork to make it interesting ; and at its 
 best — when good enough, that is, not to annoy the 
 eye — it should be sufficiently diminutive not to attract 
 it. 
 
 €f)c ^BtDte^que a^ a 25ac&grount!» 
 
 Handwork, small, clever, elaborate, is so costly in 
 this country that it may be called unattainable. Amateur 
 industry, working for love's sake, may provide it ; pro- 
 fessionals, ?toji credo. Those who cannot afford it, and 
 cannot do it, may be glad to hear that Raphael ornament 
 or Pompeiian ornament, whether in paint, carved oak, 
 or stucco, does not make a room ' becoming.' It is the 
 very worst background to the majority of human faces 
 and costumes. The broad folds of Roman dress near 
 Roman walls might have * told ' against it, but much 
 is tolerable in a sunny clime which is not so without 
 sunshine. In placid England, where we have few 
 shadows because we are so much in the shade, a simpler 
 yet richer and broader treatment of our walls and 
 pieces of furniture is more effective and more con- 
 sistent than any form of grotesque art, which is quite at 
 variance with modern modes of thought. Pictures 
 
12.6 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 cannot be hung upon it, pots do not tell against it ; 
 massive bronzes do, but neither books nor flowers. It 
 is sure to be over-exciting or else sepulchral. 
 
 A foul dragon or grim mask implies an ugly thought ; 
 an ugly thought suggests disease, cruelty, or ill-humour. 
 What originated the ruling principle of Chinese art it is 
 difficult to surmise ; for it bristles with hideous objects, 
 from which no place is sacred, like threats of danger at 
 every turn. But, as we cannot omit an allusion to the 
 Chinese in our remarks on grotesque art, however rare now 
 is Chinese decoration on a large scale in this country, we 
 may add that, what with their vivid colouring and their 
 restless, often ungraceful forms, Chinese decorative 
 products form as bad a background for English faces in 
 English rooms as is possible to conceive. We have not 
 the tropical sunlight needed to create broad and massive 
 shadows, which in their native land (as we showed anent 
 Pompeiian decoration) no doubt counterbalance the 
 brilliant colours and intricate designs ; and English 
 costume is quite incongruous with the quaintness of the 
 style. Ruskin says, in comparing English grotesque with 
 Chinese grotesque (the intentionally horrid), * Our English 
 masks are only stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by ex- 
 aggeration of feature or of defect of feature. But the 
 Japanese masks (like the frequent monsters of Japanese 
 art) were inventively frightful, like fearful dreams ; and 
 whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling 
 them to invent such, appears to me not only to deserve 
 the word " demoniacal," as the only word expressive of 
 its character, but to be logically capable of no other 
 definition.' Something, however, must be allowed for 
 
THE GROTESQUE AS A BACKGROUND. 127 
 
 the surprisingness of a non-habitual type of face and 
 gesture. 
 
 I ought, however, to add, to avoid misconception, 
 that in its place Chinese art is worthy of humble study. 
 As colourists the ' Celestials,' when left to their old 
 traditions and unspoilt by modern commerce, are unsur- 
 passed in vigour and quaint harmony, though they 
 seldom arrive at the beauty often found in Japanese 
 art. 
 
 To return to England. The transformation visible 
 in English tastes and habits, when the first force of the 
 Renascence had spent itself, was most extraordinary. 
 The stride forward had been tremendous. The new 
 school of grotesque had rooted its-^lf in our soil (just as 
 the birds and the flies of the old world introduced in the 
 new colonies have exterminated indigenous forms) ; 
 certain masks, caryatides, wreaths, &c., settled into 
 * standard English patterns,' which have never since lost 
 their popularity ; and the love and observation of beauty 
 per se seemed, as we have said, to be a newly added 
 faculty. Everything was sacrificed to the impression on 
 the eye, and ideas were prized only as they ministered 
 to the feelings, whether of admiration, or horror, or com- 
 passion, or other sentiments. In this way it seems to me 
 that the art of the Renascence was wholly sensual. 
 
 Refinements received from France and Italy in- 
 creased, no doubt, the general average of domestic 
 comfort, decorum, and luxury here ; but many super- 
 
128 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS, 
 
 fluities both in dress and decoration were dropped 
 quietly, as good sense, forks, and the stern rule of the 
 Protector supervened. Jewelled incrustations, and masses 
 of precious metal went out of fashion with the overgrown 
 ruff and trunkhose, and a certain sobriety of colouring 
 with better thrift characterised goodly houses inhabited 
 by reasonable people. 
 
 It is as amusing as it is interesting now to trace in 
 Evelyn's invaluable Diary the orthodox opinions of 
 Wren's enlightened friends on the subject of that old 
 English art which we still call Gothic, as Evelyn first 
 did, in spite of the protest of many antiquaries. Pos- 
 sessed by the flame and glamour of the Renascence, 
 Royalist and Puritan united in forgetting that the new 
 school was Pagan, and without meaning or fitness in 
 our climate and for our faith ; whilst the older school 
 was so exclusively Christian and English that the term 
 * Efiglish Gothic ' has had to be coined to distinguish it 
 from Normanand Saxon art. Nothing which was not 
 classic then satisfied ' people of taste ' : ' The ancient 
 Greek and Roman architecture,' says Evelyn, * answers 
 all the perfections required in a faultless and accom- 
 plished building : such as for so many ages were so 
 renowned and reputed by the universal suffrages of the 
 civilised world, and would doubtless have still subsisted, 
 and made good their claim, had not the Goths and 
 Vandals subverted and demolished them, introducing in 
 their stead a certain fantastical and licentious manner of 
 building, which we have since called Modem or Gothic ; 
 congestions ' (what an exquisitely disdainful word for 
 the glorious creations of thought and fancy, free as a 
 
A GRAVER MOOD. 
 
 129 
 
 bird, which fourteenth-century genius reared !) ' of heavy, 
 dark, melancholy, and monkish piles, without any just 
 proportion, use, or beauty.' 
 
 The Gothic cathedrals of York, Lincoln, Salisbury, 
 Winchester, and many more in France, England, and 
 Germany, can afford to bear even kindly Evelyn's 
 opprobrium. 
 
 311 Cljatlc^ tfjc fitn iSoom. 
 
 The calmer style of Charles 
 I.'s day, when the national mood 
 was revolving slowly from mag- 
 nificence to severity, a mood 
 which culminated in Puritanism 
 but which was not wholly Puri- 
 tanic, has for me a very distinct 
 charm. It is a healthy protest. 
 A room of that period may con- 
 tain all the best points of the 
 Renascence without having 
 wholly lost its real old English 
 character. The refined lady of 
 birth in buckram and satin, with 
 her soft hair frizzed over the ears 
 and knotted behind, her lace- 
 edged apron, and cuffs guarded 
 by muslin over-alls ^ that she 
 cleansed herself, moved with 
 
 Fig. 33, 
 
 -English lady, after Hollar 
 1640. 
 
 • An instance is seen in the portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria belong- 
 ing to Mr. Alfred Morrison. 
 
130 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 a quiet housewifely grace through doors built with all 
 orthodox pediments and broken arches after the manner 
 of Inigo Jones. Her cottage-headed windows had 
 roomy seats capitally panelled ; her mantelpiece was 
 chiselled by the hand of Old Stone : her casements were 
 latticed with lozenge-shaped panes of glass not over 
 clear. All the bolts and hinges were worthy, honest, 
 solid, unmistakable, and hence often arrived at beauty — if 
 by beauty we mean what gives pleasure, and if all feel- 
 ing of reliance and satisfaction is pleasurable. Her 
 polished floors shone with 'elbow grease' like her sturdy 
 furniture ; her English-made tapestry (designed by 
 Rubens), from the Mortlake works so warmly supported 
 by Charles, was in places overhung by a few pictures, 
 her portrait, no doubt, by Dobson, if not Van Dyck — we 
 can see it now, and her whole character in her pleasant 
 face — or a landscape by Caspar Poussin. 
 
 The broad, well-built room is full of sunshine, which 
 lights up its darkish colouring, greenish hangings, and 
 luminous reflections. 
 
 See, the dining-room boasts a ceiling decorated in 
 grotesque by De Cleyn ; ^ the table is laid for a merry 
 party ; the wide fire-place is alight with wood embers 
 reddening the tall fire-dogs ; yonder cupboard full of 
 china is half open ; basin and ewer await the guests in the 
 farther corner of the room : the draped table is already 
 surrounded by square-backed, square-seated chairs, and 
 garnished with tall greenish glasses and silver-handled 
 forks and pointed knives ; their leather case is visible on 
 the sideboard. The salt-cellar still holds its old place in 
 
 ' There i5 such a ceiling at Holland House. 
 
A CHARLES THE EIRST ROOM. i3r 
 
 the centre of the table. It \s irpoiisse gold. Against the 
 tapestry representing Alexander's Victory stand two 
 ' long settles, with a carpet ' (couches, or flat sofas). 
 How clean the rooms are kept compared with the 'olden 
 time,' now that carpets are so common, and so comfort- 
 able too ! The silver trenchers and bowls shine with 
 labour, the big glasses shine and the flagons, down to 
 the ' black jack ' of cuir boitilli and the heavy greybeard 
 beside the master's chair ; and the sides of the room, 
 and the faces of the guests glance back from a score of 
 surfaces in their own colours. The napery is white, well 
 cared for, and abundant. The blue and white pots on 
 the shelf hold a few new pipes for the men, already fond 
 of the new- imported weed ! and now the weighted brass 
 clock, engraved with the fashionable sunflower and 
 scrolls, strikes loud on its clear-toned bell. 
 
 From hence opens her sleeping apartment, a goodly 
 room too with its grave matronly air, its casements 
 and wainscots, its vast oak bed (a little hearse-like 
 now we think) dark with beeswaxing, having a heavy 
 canopy carved inside and out with the conventional 
 lozenge, sunflower, and Greek ' key pattern,' without any 
 addition of paint once so popular ; carved and glossy 
 twisted posts and the head rich with Renascence columns 
 and lion heads, amongst which its date is traceable in 
 well-wrought letters. High-backed chairs stand beside 
 also a foot-stool, a table, and the linen press from which 
 the snow-white linen is removed to the lavender-scented 
 drawers in the locked chest. Yonder a fine carved 
 hanging press contains her cloaks and gowns, a cabinet 
 holds her trinkets and smaller clothing, hood, muff, and 
 
132 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 riding-whip, clogs and long gloves. In one corner we 
 see the rod with which her maiden smooths the wide ex- 
 panse of counterpane day by day. Here hangs a convex 
 mirror wherein all the room is diminished with one coup 
 d'ceil; but on her table a silver-mounted mirror stands, 
 which belonged to her mother and was very costly and 
 precious ; likewise the pomander of silver, efficacious for 
 all sickness. 
 
 The upper part of the wall and the ceiling have been 
 whitewashed. A small portrait by Holbein of her 
 grandfather is set in the chimney-piece in ebony. Here 
 lie the Caxton Bible, and the prayer-book bound in 
 tortoiseshell with silver clasps, well used during those 
 sad days of forbidden services and vigilant spydom 
 when Royalist and Roundhead were bitterest and cruel- 
 lest in the cause of charity and Christ's mercy. 
 
 There are the heavy brass candlesticks in fine re- 
 pousse metal, holding the home-made beeswax candle- 
 sticks stuck on their spikes — too costly these to burn 
 recklessly. Tabitha and Abigail dare not leave a speck 
 or spot on this or that. Against the wall hard by the 
 graven Venice mirror, hang pens, brushes, scissors, some 
 tucked in straps, some hung on nails, a carcanet of beads, 
 and the hour-glass. 
 
 The broidery-frame for crewel-work (or ' crool ' she 
 called it) of which curtains and counterpanes themselves 
 are neatly made by her, must not be forgotten, nor the 
 lute and inlaid spinet she thrums Palestrina's new 
 music on. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 €()c mfter.<«BIoto; 
 
 UT as sooa as colour came to the fore again the 
 Renascence was said to be in decline, and 
 indeed if the Renascence means the corpse 
 of old Rome stuck up on end, and not the 
 schools which grew out of pseudo-classicism, the orange 
 had already been squeezed very dry. 
 
 Now the literal copies of injured antiques began to 
 give way to the genius which adapted classical principles 
 and ideas to modern needs, and many sixteenth-century 
 works are undoubtedly as fine in their way as classic 
 gems themselves — cabinets, tables, buffets, and plenty of 
 minor ornaments. 
 
 Tired of architectural moxdels, the public cried for the 
 double effect of stone or wood with colour, and panels 
 of carved marble, agate, precious stones of all kinds and 
 goldsmith's work were once more applied to grounds of 
 different materials. Woods not pronounced enough in 
 natural tone were stained by drugs. The elaborate 
 ornament outside the coffer or cabinet was carried inside, 
 
I3-^ A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 as though the over-indulged eye was impatient of even a 
 drawer's bottom undecorated. 
 
 To the Renascence we owe at least one curse, stucco, 
 which perhaps hailed from old Greece, where the brick 
 houses were plastered with it inside and outside : and it 
 came to be applied to innumerable purposes when the 
 delighted workman saw how great could be the effect 
 with how very little labour. Gleefully he moulded in 
 relief every frame, console, casket he could get hold of, 
 and painted and gilded the delicate patterns which arose 
 in a few hours where carved oak would have challenged 
 his brawny wrists for months. Most of the large pieces 
 in thfs material have naturally perished, but small coffers 
 and frames, a few consoles and tables, still exist as 
 monuments to his delight. 
 
 Even while we condemn the school we must own 
 that many of the surviving works in stucco that looks 
 like wood, as well as wood that looks like stucco, are 
 beautiful in their way. The 'consoles' (what a name 
 for a table beneath a mirror, ye victims of a crumpled 
 roseleaf !) were multiform, full of fancy. The table, such 
 as that on p. 290, is certainly handsome, even elegant, 
 however we may quarrel with the little gasping supports 
 too like slaves distressed by a senseless burden, and 
 women's busts which vanish into wreaths and scrolls in 
 no pleasing fashion. We like and hate these things at 
 once— the school is faulty, but the performance is 
 superb. 
 
BOULE AND HIS WORK. 135 
 
 2&ouIc anti l)t^ J©otft* 
 
 Afterwards Boule came along, with his splendid con- 
 ceptions of colour and permanent material ; and aided 
 by the munificence of Louis XIV., he brought in a wholly 
 new kind of manufacture in p.etra dura and dazzling 
 woods, overlaid with tortoiseshell and ivory, inlaid with 
 metal, brass or silver, stained by heat or acids, further 
 engraved by the burin, and finally mounted in chased 
 brass or ormolu. This kind of w^ork is peculiarly 
 French, and it did not reach England for long after. 
 
 Fine specimens are preserved by Sir Richard 
 Wallace, and in the Louvre, &c., which we should admire 
 more had we not been exhausted by the vulgar ill-made 
 copies of ' Louis XIV.' timepieces which bespatter every 
 clockmaker's shop and insolently bear the great king's 
 name. All the seventeenth century furniture ' goes ' with 
 ' Raphael ornament ' in walls, hangings, or pilasters, for 
 all the art of that century was founded more or less 
 directly upon the exhumations of imperial Rome ; and 
 the most elaborate carvings in brass and ormolu had a 
 dim relation to the beautiful bronze mounts which may 
 be studied in the Naples Museum. 
 
 Much of it was gaudy and meretricious in effect — 
 much of it was sufficiently so to be absolutely vulgar, 
 like most modern copies of it. Ebony false or true, be- 
 gemmed with lapis, carnelian, silver and malachite — or 
 their parodies — generally has a frivolous look compared 
 with the solid, honest, unpretentious (yet how masterly!) 
 decoration of the older secretaires and hutches. And 
 
136 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 yet the irreproachable skill and spirited talent lavished 
 on these costly works of doubtful taste in the decline of 
 the Renascence about the reign of Louis XIV. sometimes 
 force one to admire what one cannot altogether approve. 
 Dangerous precedent ! The laborious marquetry in 
 woods which hardly bore the sunlight ; * trophies ' of 
 musical instruments, or rustic implements, or amorous 
 emblems decked with gay ribbons ; the clever chasings 
 in ormolu which crept about the fantastic tables and bulg- 
 ing commodes that seldom confessed their real purpose 
 — like their owners ; the satin-wood wardrobes sprinkled 
 with minute inlaying or painted by Angelica Kauffmann 
 — all these things savour of time misspent. The * tro- 
 phies ' must sometimes have warped and come up — they 
 always faded ; \hQ plaques of tortoisesheil, or porcelain, 
 or Chinese lacquer must have suffered accidental blows 
 with dumb perpetual unforgiveness ; they were not 
 framed as furniture should be, to meet the stress of time, 
 to be equal to all emergencies, and endure a chance blow 
 with equanimity. This kind of jewellery- work is better 
 suited to ladies' ornaments, work-boxes,^ tea-trays and 
 book-covers, than to garde-robes and secretaires which 
 must not only hold secrets but protect them. Still it 
 was by no means inconsistent with the levity and luxury 
 of the courts where it attained its highest popularity, for 
 I have laid down as an axiom that the true art of a 
 period reflects the character of the period as a home 
 should reflect the individual character of the owner. 
 
 Louis XIV., however, and the artists whom he drew 
 about him, were genuine Art-Protestants, with a definite 
 ideal of science as minister to pleasure. The king en- 
 
BOULE AND HIS WORK. 137 
 
 couraged the highest talent to develop and beautify the 
 /smallest details. He had ' views,' and he spared no cost 
 nor pains to carry them out. He was triumphantly suc- 
 cessful, as I hope to presently show ; at least in the mise 
 en sdne for a ' garden ' of girls. 
 
 Of all known styles of decoration, that called Louis 
 XIV. is perhaps, at its best, the most elegant and the 
 most scientific, though it occurs in a downward career, 
 like the most gorgeous sparkle of the rocket. It is 
 voluptuous without being inane, and graceful without 
 visible affectation (unlike what followed). 
 
 It is the style of all others which least bears unintel- 
 ligent adoption, and which it is easiest to vulgarise ; its 
 scheme is far more subtle than it seems ; hence the 
 atrocious parody which the notiveau-riche loves, and 
 which the nineteenth- century Queen Anne was born to 
 reform — by destruction. 
 
 Think of the delicate chairs which we still collect at 
 sales of old fallen French houses, with their beaded 
 ornament, as though some jewelled necklet were laid 
 along the gentle curves, and their slight but firmly-set legs, 
 fluted up such a graceful ascent as that of a jet of water 
 from feet of small acanthus leaves. Then the wreath of 
 small leaves and berries which is conventionalised into 
 so graceful an ornament, dropping through the ring 
 formed by flowers, that itself forms an open point or 
 handle on the arch of the back — how pretty is each idea 
 brought into play ! and around the cushion which re- 
 
138 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 ceives our shoulders a folded riband seems to run, itself 
 bound down by crossing smaller ribands. How well- 
 made are these chairs, though spring-seats were unknown! 
 How well-seasoned was the wood, whose joints have 
 never gaped ! The arm-chairs have a luxurious cushion, 
 kept from slipping by a stuffed ridge or support around 
 the seat. The arms are padded just where our elbows 
 require it, not in a huge shapeless lump like a Christ- 
 mas pudding dropped incontinently there (as in every 
 modern stuffed arm-chair), but a slight pad, thin enough 
 to obey the mild curve of the embrace the chair seems 
 to suggest. None of the ' solicitous wrigglings ' of to- 
 day's device, e.specially of modern ' Louis XIV.' — hideous 
 monsters, full of coarse, false mouldings and forgotten 
 raisons d'etre — but a quiet, tempting beckon, with a smile, 
 * 1 love you ; come and let me make you comfortable, 
 and wreathe you with the wee-est, delicatest flowers in 
 the world ! ' 
 
 Moliere surely noticed the peculiar attitude of these 
 chairs when he made one of his Pi^ecieiises Ridicules say, 
 ' Monsieur, ne soyez pas inexorable a ce fauteuil qui vous 
 tend les bras il y a un quart d'heure, contentez un peu 
 I'envie qu'il a de vous embrasser ! ' 
 
 With sofas and chairs of such dainty description, 
 wanting little save the scent to be crystallised banks of 
 flowers, each one of them : — hand-carved, painted, gilt, 
 and further graced with pale silk, or fine Gobelin, intrinsi- 
 cally works of art — the brilliant saloons of the Grand 
 Moiiarqiie, * Dieti donm'! were ranged. 
 
 On the floors of shining parquetry redoubling the 
 faint curves and angles above, lay silkei) mats and carpets 
 
:A LOUIS QUATORZE ROOM. 139 
 
 of rare web. On the ceilings paintings by the first 
 masters contended for chief prize with beams deHcately 
 carved and gilt by artists nearly as great, that formed 
 their frames — such ceilings as we see in Versailles, or in 
 Venetian palaces. On the walls were tapestries defying 
 paint ; or if not tapestries, velvets and satins of noble 
 design, parted in panels delicately moulded and gilt, and 
 Parterre's and Watteau's pictures ; or again, the Spanish 
 stamped and wrought leathers with grounds of gold or 
 silver toned down by pellucid varnish and enriched by 
 flowers and arabesques in colour which pages of ' black 
 and white' cannot do justice to. We hear of 'gauffered 
 hides,' 'gold and silver on an orange ground, with the 
 queen's cipher' — of orange mountings, gilded or silvered, 
 on a violet ground — blue, sea-green, red and gold, black 
 and silver for mourning hangings ; and historic scenes, 
 or religious, portraits, animals, and armadas were thus 
 illuminated. When the raised leathers came in, stamped 
 in high relief, birds and foliage stood forth alive with 
 colour, glorious. 
 
 €]^c oBatticn in tljc l^ou^e* 
 
 Never was such encouragement given to floral orna- 
 mentation. Gaston, Due d'Orleans, established hot- 
 houses in the Luxembourg, and at Blois a true botanic 
 garden, for the sole purpose of supplying the needle with 
 sweet tints and forms. With a strange craving for nature 
 in that vortex of art, the garden was brought indoors in 
 a thousand ways. Flowers were rather interpreted than 
 copied from nature, as is fit and right ; they sprouted ir> 
 
I40 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 raised groups both on the garments of the courtly people, 
 the sofas they lolled on and the walls they whispered by. 
 The best artists were employed to paint, carve, broider, 
 inlay, and engrave the rare flowers as they opened in 
 due season, and to design from them the beautifully 
 conventionalised wreaths which covered the sumptuous 
 leathern walls, and which remain to us, here and there, 
 the best result of this flower-worship : the finest of all 
 'backgrounds' for the supreme decoration of a room, 
 humanity. I shall presently show that the scheme of a 
 Louis XIV. room did not ignore the living folk. 
 
 As if gold and colour in profusion did not fully carry 
 out the royal conceptions of brightness^ mirrors were 
 used for totally novel effects. Some of us don't like 
 mirrors. Would-be teachers sneer at plate glass, and 
 recommend us to cut them into little bits, or cover them 
 with shelves for books and blue pots. Louis XIV. knew 
 the value of glass. Lucas de Nehou, director of the glass 
 factory near Cherbourg, received royal orders to excel the 
 fine Venetian work, and he obeyed. That England al- 
 ready did so, we hear from Evel}n (1672), who saw at 
 Greenwich ' glasse blown of finer mettal than that of 
 Murano at Venice ; ' and at Lambeth ' huge vases of 
 mettal as cleare, ponderous, and thick as chrystal, also 
 looking-glasses far larger and better than any that come 
 from Venice ; ' and Bishop Sprat, in his 'History of the 
 Royal Society,' speaks of * English Glasse, finer and more 
 serviceable for microscopes and telescopes,' than any foreign 
 glass. This was a little in advance of France. 
 
 Presently the mirrors were enlarged, and superadded 
 to by sections of glass, and glass inlayings, forming 
 
THE GARDEN IN THE HOUSE, 141 
 
 borders, pediments, pendants, attached by golden 
 branches and hidden seams and delicate floral ara- 
 besques. I shall elsewhere speak of the paintings on 
 mirrors. 
 
 Such luminous points of white light refreshed the eye 
 amidst the storm of colour as a changing fountain does 
 in some richly clad, glowing garden. They took, in 
 fact, precisely that place in the scheme of colour. They 
 reflected at unexpected angles the delicate wainscots, 
 the lovely hangings, the tortoiseshell and silver cabinets, 
 the voluptuous pictures, the slabs of porphyry and 
 Florentine mosaic which covered the consoles, the whole 
 wealth of gilded wood, bronze, and chasings, velvet coats, 
 broidered trains, and women, most lovely of all. 
 
 Colour. 
 
 Here was wealth of ideas, carried out with true 
 artistic discrimination : no sparsely-furnished cells, refuge 
 of paucity of thought — bare cold green or grey apart- 
 ments without so much as a glass to reflect and double 
 a pretty face if anything so pleasing gets in by accident. 
 All the resources of wealth were pressed into the service 
 of pleasure and refinement — more here, less there, as 
 they were wanted, and all shone out in rooms of excellent 
 construction and architecture giving upon views such as 
 we all remember at Fontainebleau and Versailles. 
 
 What a rebuke to our fear of colour and brightness ! 
 like a loud sweet song which drowns the tentative minor 
 of an ^olian harp. And the ghostly figures in our 
 mind's eye, that wander through those vast luxurious 
 
142 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 saloons, were matches in brightness and softness and 
 vivacity. A man in a modern evening dress sitting on 
 an old Louis XIV. chair is an ungainly object, the harsh 
 dull fabric and graceless lines ill befit so dainty a couch : 
 
 Doublet, about 1646, time of Louis Quatorze. 
 
 a woman in a stuff gown and a plaid shawl looks 
 equally horrible. But people the glittering rooms with 
 rainbow dames and damoiseaux, in coats of amaranth 
 velvet, or yellow and silver, with muffs and swords, and 
 fluttering canions of riband d,x\d,point d'Aiejtgofi oi {dXvy 
 
COLOUR. T43 
 
 lightness, trains of silk * covered with more than a thou- 
 sand yards of ribbon,' says Mme. D'Aulnoy, snow-white 
 arms, bright eyes made brighter by patch and mask — 
 and I. think we get the most dazzling picture of civilised 
 skill and knowledge of effect, based on Nature herself, 
 that can be found in the world's history— not excepting 
 old Rome. 
 
 But the decline of taste which Louis XIV. had been 
 able to stem, or at least make pretty, with the aid of 
 men of immense ability, progressed with double speed 
 when the king grew old, and the court inconceivably 
 corrupt, and Boule's successors ministered to the vitiated 
 eye. 
 
 It is remarkable to look through the innumerable 
 * Gayetes ' of Le Pautre, engraved about the middle of 
 the seventeenth century, and see how no possible depart- 
 ment of decoration was left unconsidered by the almost 
 feverish industry of the artists so warmly encouraged. 
 Le Pautre was but one of a host : he was pupil of Adam 
 Phillippon, joiner and cabinet-maker and also designer : 
 and he has left designs for buildings of all kinds, 
 decorations without and within, of every sort ; great 
 vases in which invention seems at times delirious but 
 always clever ; carriages, alcoves, pulpits, trophies, 
 mirrors, splendid ceilings ; beds like shrines, and tents, 
 and fonts ; ornate galleys worthy of Cleopatra herself ; 
 suggestions for all kinds of workmen ; gardens, fountains 
 — he could not leave the very grass-plats alone, but 
 must cover them with curious arabesques to be carried 
 out in colour, vegetable or mineral. This elaborate 
 completeness of conception gave no doubt a totally 
 
144 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 novel and constantly adaptable interest to constructions 
 of all sorts, and we can understand how many enthusiasts 
 may have thought they were cultivating the beautiful 
 when they were only making artificiality a science. 
 
 % ^cicntiftc 25acftgtounti* 
 
 Now, a word about the crowning grace in a decorated 
 room — the living inmates. 
 
 The scheme of colour perfected under Louis XIV. 
 was most ingenious and unlike any previously attained 
 by art. In a room completely furnished and inhabited, 
 the human figures must have provided the exact colo- 
 phon or foreground which human figures should do ; 
 brilliant in dress and ornaments, alive with French 
 vivacity of gesture. Brilliant as was the background of 
 walls and furniture, the high polish which then became 
 the fashion must have softened all the edges of coloured 
 wood or dark, and broken up the plane surfaces them- 
 selves by the reflections of passing objects ; thus in 
 certain lights, the most strongly-tinted furniture must 
 have receded and faded into an indefinite glow, like a 
 nebulous atmosphere of colour about the main figures, 
 themselves alone opaque. Sharp points of colour such 
 as sunlit edges of brass mounts or gilt cupids would light 
 up here and there the nebulous glow created, and form 
 a background as soft and forgetful of hard lines as any 
 Carlo Dolci picture— as any courtly, selfish life. In fact, 
 it had the very texture of a picture, and many of these 
 disjointed brazen mounts were but as last touches of a 
 skilful brush, enunciating the corners and projecting 
 
A SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND. 145 
 
 parts of curves, and they differed on this side and that, 
 as do freehand touches. "The chief difference between 
 painting before and after the Renascence, is the practised 
 softness of edges. Again, the broad shadows practised 
 by Renascence painters, and the bold contrasts of Hght 
 and shade, were attained by the curves in polished 
 surfaces of furniture. It is impossible to believe that 
 French culture should have been unconscious of such 
 physical effects and their importance. It was all cal- 
 
 FiG. 35.— SnufY-box, Louis Quinze ornament. 
 
 culated elaborately, and daintily carried out ; and such 
 bewildering effects of cross-reflections and broken colour 
 may be examined in any room with polished floor and 
 polished furniture, plenty of mirrors and a richly coloured 
 ceiling.'^ How opposed to the hard — yes, and Jionest — 
 effect in a mediaeval room before varnish was invented ! 
 an effect which is traceable in mediaeval pictures which 
 Renascence admirers find so ' hard.' 
 
 Not that the value of ' broken colour ' has not been 
 understood, and doubtless sought, in all the finest schools 
 
 L 
 
[46 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 of art; marqueterie of every kind, and enamels, like 
 raised or incised carving, all attain the effect of broken 
 colour by one means or another ; for unbroken colour 
 is always bad colour. Oriental colour, even when plain, is 
 always unequal, for the same reason — the sensitive eye 
 demands it. But on consideration, the motive of high 
 polish in seventeenth-century decoration (which however 
 has never, to my knowledge, been pointed out before) 
 will be found to be the softened and indefinite effect 
 producible ; the clearer delineation of figures in the fore- 
 ground, by reflections caused by them, which throvV 
 them forward, while throwing the background in arrear. 
 In painting a picture, these calculations always enter 
 in J and the idea is worthy of French wit. ,, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 €^t SDecIine (loui^ (©uiiije)* 
 
 UST contemporary with our Queen Anne were 
 the fashions in dress and furniture which by 
 the natural process vulgarised the French 
 king's grand conceptions; when skill and 
 knowledge of effect had arrived at a point when they 
 could go no farther, and thus began to decay. Hence 
 our strict Jacobean habits merged into those which 
 gradually came over the Channel and were much the 
 reverse of strict ; and the curiousy and most ungainly, 
 medley of Puritan starch and French levity repre- 
 sented in English costume, I have described briefly 
 under * Queen Anne Dress.' 
 
 The floral decoration which we particularly connect 
 with Louis XIV.'s time — an airy, easy adaptation of 
 garden images to every purpose— was carried presently 
 to a vexing extreme. Under Louis XV. there was no 
 end to the eccentricities of the endive foliage and the 
 anthemion. In the hands of the first masters, endive 
 like acanthus could be moderate and therefore graceful ; 
 
148 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 but when freedom of handling was degraded into licence, 
 every pupil exaggerating (which means diminishing) the 
 charms made popular by his master, what was the 
 result ?n 
 
 A caricature. Not a line was allowed to be straight ; 
 forms were more and more disguised to suit the fretful 
 appetite for novelty, and to create perspectives for the 
 
 Fig. 36. — Clock, Louis Quinze ornament. 
 
 eye. The chiffonier and cabinet bulged, squatted, 
 shrank, in curves so unexpected and unnatural that they 
 seemed positively to wriggle. These caprices weakened 
 the construction, and drawers which had not a straight 
 line anywhere left cavities of waste space that had to be 
 concealed or excused by additional useless ornament. 
 
THE DECLINE {LOUIS XV.) 149 
 
 All meaning was sacrificed to effect, as in the clock here 
 reproduced — pretty at first sight, but on examination' 
 ridiculous. Parallel sides were no longer tolerated, and 
 the furniture became tiresome in its silly straining after- 
 false effects. The panels looked moist and clammy with 
 deceptive grapes and cherries in Florentine pietra dura, 
 which jutted forth from the ground. The mirror-frames 
 whirled in meaningless curves, slight relief changed to 
 immoderate projections that wearied the eye with shadows 
 and lights ; the strange beasts and faces that peeped from 
 every leaf or tendril meant no longer rich fancy, but 
 delirium. 
 
 The best of a straight line is that you cannot vul- 
 garise it. It may be ever so uninteresting, it cannot 
 sin in itself But a curved line may be vulgarised ad 
 libitum ; there is no end to the contortions it may be 
 driven to, and it sickens us by its antics while the 
 straight line is simply forgotten. 
 
 Similarly, colour was abused in this reign by the 
 same process of vitiation of the eye and craving for 
 novelty. Tortoiseshell was stained blue and green and 
 red before it took its place among the costly incrusta- 
 tions. The Gobelin tapestry became so brilliantly 
 naturalistic that the hangings and portieres formed a 
 breach in the wall contrary to all propriety in art, and 
 emblems and trophies were confusingly mixed up with 
 visions of farmyard life or mythical scenes. Painting 
 was added to the crowded feud between needle-work, 
 jewel-work, and marqueterie, and even Cafifieri's clever 
 puncheon hardly redeemed the florid vulgarity of 
 cabinets, clocks, tables, wherein every effect being 
 
15© A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 claimed at once, no really powerful efifect was gained 
 anywhere. 
 
 Presently a reaction seized the frantic ornament, and 
 under Madame de Pompadour, who, with all her crimes, 
 was a capital patroness of art, the endive was pruned, 
 the festoons of flowers and fruit reduced to some sort of 
 discipline, the colours of marqueterie and their designs 
 modified, or at least a choice was offered by the trade, 
 between tenderness and violence. >y 
 
 In England, where the luxury of Paris was mimicked 
 under Charles II., we learn from Evelyn's description of 
 the dressing-room of Madlle. Querouaille, Duchess of 
 Portsmouth, what wealth had long commanded. * That 
 which engaged my curiosity,' he says, 'was the rich and 
 splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice 
 or thrice pulled down and rebuilt to satisfie her prodigal 
 and expensive pleasures, whilst her Majesty's does not 
 exceede some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and accom- 
 modation. Here I saw the new fabriq of French tapissry, 
 for designe, tendernesse of worke.and incomparable imita- 
 tion of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever 
 beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germain's, and 
 other palaces of the French king with huntings, figures, 
 and landskips, exotiq fowls, and all to the life rarely 
 don. 
 
 ' Then for Japan cabinets, screenes, pendule clocks, 
 great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney- 
 furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, &c., all of massive 
 silver, and out of number, besides some of Her Majesty's 
 best paintings.' 
 
LACQUER AND PORCELAIN. 151 
 
 Jlacquct anti porcelain* 
 
 Evelyn's allusion to INIr. Bohun who used Japan 
 screens for wainscoting has been quoted : and about 
 that time, in Paris at least, the new discovery, Japan 
 lacquer, began to elbow aside the elaborate Boule mar- 
 quetry with its rather oppressive glow. Collectors vied 
 with each other in securing pieces for their cabinets, 
 makers in devising new uses for the pieces. It was 
 quiet, yet luminous, and quite novel. Among Boule's 
 own works rare specimens of Oriental lacquer had 
 already crept in, a very Gamelyn of furniture, one day 
 to rise up and drive all before it. But the specimens 
 were very few on account of the difficulties in reaching the 
 Oriental markets. Presently it occurred to some one to 
 panel ebony with small plaques of precious lacquer, and 
 then the rage for lacquer became so hot that, regardless 
 of cost, delay, destruction, China, Japan, India and 
 Persia were ransacked for boxes, screens, trays, any- 
 thing which could be broken up and ' adapted.' 
 
 Under Louis XV. the passion reached its height, for 
 the pressure had been so great that incessant efforts had 
 at last resulted in an ingenious substitute for gum lac. 
 The family Martin (originally coach builders) had made 
 themselves immortal by their imitation, the vernis 
 Martin. Now everything was driven into the new groove, 
 and here commenced the inundation of snuff-boxes, book- 
 covers, carriage-panels, in fact everything that could be 
 lacquered, made of papier-mdch^ stuck with mother-of- 
 pearl chips, from which we so long have suffered. 
 
152 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 Her Majesty the Queen, and various collectors such 
 as Baron Gustave de Rothschild, possess fine specimens 
 of vernis Martin. By-the-bye, Mr. Waring in his valu- 
 able book on ' Decorative Art,' speaks of this materidl 
 as though it were the man's name. None of the 
 Martins were christened 'Vernis.' Much of this manu- 
 facture was very perfect, and very brilliant. The black 
 with raised gold ornaments was first copied : then the 
 red lacquers were counterfeited ; afterwards gaily illu- 
 minated panels were made by Le Sieur Simon Etienne 
 Martin the younger, who obtained the exclusive right, by 
 a decree of Council on February 19, 1744, of manu- 
 facturing during twenty years lacquer work of every 
 possible kind. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour encouraged the manufacture 
 of vernis Martin, The Dauphin employed one of the 
 Martins for seven years in lacquering his apartments at 
 Versailles : and the sums of money paid by the French 
 Royal Family for their works was truly vast. 
 
 There is no doubt that in certain circles there was a 
 perfect frenzy for everything Oriental 150 years ago, as 
 there is to some extent now. Whether the extraordinary 
 popularity of the 'Arabian Nights' may be considered 
 the cause, or the effect, or whether they had anything to 
 do with it at all, I know not ; but it is noteworthy that 
 they were first translated from the Arabic in 1704 — into 
 French, of course, then English, and Moorish goods were 
 as highly prized as everything else that came from the 
 East. 
 
 The crowds of inagots which nodded on every shelf 
 with their restless mock-gaiety, so that no room was 
 
LACQUER AND PORCELAIN. 
 
 153 
 
 Fig. 37. — Lacquer cabinet. 
 

LACQUER AND PORCELAIN. 155 
 
 complete without inagots, were kept in countenance by 
 the Indian and Japan lacquer beneath and above them. 
 And when fine ladies had filled their houses with such 
 productions there remained but one step from intelligent 
 appreciation to folly. For a time nothing was tolerated 
 that was not Oriental. 
 
 <©ricntali^m in fflrc^^- 
 
 As I have ever said, people's dwellings and their cloth- 
 ing follow a like bent, much as cynics sneer at the thought 
 of ' dressing up to one's furniture ; ' and as all outward 
 decoration is symbolical of the inner man, so clothing, 
 and furniture which is a kind of clothing, are highly 
 significant. Naturally, therefore, the inhabitants of these 
 orientalised rooms began to make themselves as similar 
 as possible to the background they prized, as the flat- 
 fish forces itself to resemble the sea bottom, though for 
 a different reason. Ladies wore nothing but Indian 
 muslins and chintzes, nainsook, and nankeen. In fact 
 such was the demand, to the detriment of English trade 
 it was thought, that in 1700 an Act of Parliament had 
 been passed to prohibit their introduction ; but Acts of 
 Parliament cannot cure 'the madness of the people,' 
 and we all know what a mighty and organised trade 
 was smuggling in the last century. These Asiatic goods 
 soon had to be made at home to supply the market, 
 hence calico-printing, in imitation of Indian cottons, 
 was invented in 1764, British musHn in 1774. The ever- 
 popular ' shawl pattern ' was of course derived from 
 India ; turbans became common, with the true upstart 
 
i^6 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 plume, however absurd in England, and were worn even 
 at dinner with a shawl swathed round the waist. Shawls 
 became a passion with fair collectors : to put on a shawl 
 well was a science, and a * shawl-dance,' in which the 
 eccentric Madame de Kriidener among others excelled, 
 became as much the rage as private theatricals have 
 since been. Madame de Stael said of it : ' Never have 
 grace and beauty produced a more extraordinary effect 
 
 Fig. 38. — Ornament upon Benares brass vase. 
 
 on a numerous assembly. This foreign dance has a charm 
 of which nothing that we have seen can give a fair idea : it 
 is a thoroughly Asiatic mixture of indolence and vivacity, 
 of sadness and mirth.' In this dramatic dance of course 
 an Indian shawl played an important part in the attitudes 
 of the dancer, who strove to give her figure ' the antique 
 cast ' as well as the oriental. 
 
 But all the developments of the prevailing fashion 
 were not so graceful as this. Sir Joshua Reynolds shows 
 
ORIENTALISM IN DRESS, 
 
 157 
 
 us that some ladies went so far as to adopt the Turkish 
 tunic and trousers, and the gayest Eastern silks were 
 obtained and copied. The dancing girl in swaying 
 arched-out skirts (a common Indian pattern, Benares 
 brass is full of such figures) actually came to life in the 
 ridiculous Georgian hoop, caught up indecently enough 
 on either side. I have seen Chelsea figures so costumed, 
 exhibiting the brief under-petticoat quite candidly 
 
 Fig. 39.— Georgian hoop, derived from Oriental source (1750), 
 
 to a side view^ and it is inscrutable what people found 
 beautiful in that. Meanwhile architecture itself followed 
 the bent, and under Sir William Chambers, Chinese 
 gardens, pagodas, and Turkish bowers punished the mild 
 English lawns. Chambers published a 'Dissertation on 
 Oriental Gardening,' and George IV. greatly encouraged 
 the grotesque productions of this architect. The 
 Pavilion at Brighton remains an example. 
 
 To help supply the eager market the Dutch Delft 
 
158 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 factories poured forth shoals of mock nankeen china, 
 hawthorn and mayflowerpots, services of Chinese device 
 such as * willow pattern,' copied from the Celestials down 
 to the very marks. Old Lowestoft and Leeds com- 
 menced forging Oriental ware with wondrous fidelity. 
 Every cupboard, every clock, was plaistered with poor 
 copies of Oriental scrolls, pagodas, and patchy colour- 
 ing. Pug dogs were largely imported from Asia and 
 reproduced in pottery as they died. Monkeys and 
 parrots became fashionable, being Indian ; so did Negro 
 servants, yclept Cyrus, Pompey, and Mahomet ; and idle 
 ladies employed themselves in smearing vases with a 
 kind of paste in raised patterns, simulating more or less 
 correctly Oriental enamels. Astonishing monsters, pink 
 cats, green dogs, red lions, such as Minton now copies, 
 date from this time, and gave their names to many inns 
 and streets. 
 
 This rage may be dated in France a little before this 
 country took it up, for we are always a little behind- 
 hand in appreciation and in encouragement of manufac- 
 tures — but when we once begin we do it thoroughly. 
 
 It was the dregs of that blind admiration for Oriental 
 colouring with no understanding of its principles, which 
 clothed Englishwomen in such horrible mixtures at the 
 beginning of the present century, a fault which French- 
 women with their better natural taste, and complexions 
 which repudiate garish hues, were unlikely to fall into. 
 Hence England soon won an unenviable celebrity for 
 never knowing ' how to dress,' that is, never studying 
 how to combine forms and tints ; but our women were 
 then thoroughly tired of the grave fashions of the imitation 
 
A LOUIS SEIZE ROOM. 159 
 
 Greeks, and strove to fit the severe tone of thought to 
 enjoyable colours which their clear skins made possible 
 — hence such toilettes as we may quote from a book 
 fifty or sixty years old. ' What do we see first ? a fancy- 
 straw bonnet, lined and trimmed with rose colour, an 
 orange shawl, and a lilac muslin dress. The next wears 
 a blue bonnet, lilac visitCj and a pink dress. Now we 
 follow a lady in a cool green muslin dress, a white 
 shawl chequered with peach-blossom and green, the 
 bonnet peach blossom. Here, our companion exclaimed, 
 is an exception to your rule ; it is impossible that two 
 colours could be better contrasted or harmonised. Stay, 
 we replied, let us see the lady's face, and ascertain 
 whether the same harmony is preserved throughout the 
 costume. We accordingly quickened our paces, passed 
 the lady, looked in her face, and saw — bright amber- 
 coloured bows inside her lilac bonnet and broad strings 
 of yellow ribbons with a red stripe ! ' 
 
 Meanwhile, taste was changing in Paris, and we will 
 cross the Channel to examine the new development of 
 art. 
 
 % Houi^ <^ci3e iSoom. 
 
 The prevailing fashion under Marie Antoinette was 
 refinement, avant tout, and if at times this redeemed 
 style was open to the charge of affectation or insipidity, 
 we must not be too censorious considering what preceded 
 and what followed it. 
 
 After the lacquer craze, came the craze for porce- 
 lain. Louis Quinze had patriotically founded and 
 
i6o 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 made fashionable the porcelain manufactory of France, 
 and even in his time porcelain had been put to novel 
 use, but it was in the succeeding reign that the rage 
 for it culminated, when the manufacture was in per- 
 fection and taste had overleapt the point of good 
 sense. 
 
 Fig. 40.— Costume, time of Louis Seize (from a caricature, circ. 1786, entitled ' Modern 
 elegance.') 
 
 Sevres p/agiies and Wedgwood cameos were the new 
 ' gems ' promoted to great honour ; they were inserted 
 in tables and cabinets, mounted in the most delicately 
 chiselled brass or even gold, Hke personal ornaments, 
 
A LOUIS SEIZE ROOM. i6i 
 
 which last actually existed, and sat on every belle's 
 fingers or white throat. 
 
 The Sevres plaques were a little in advance of the 
 Wedgwood, which were difficult to procure out of England 
 before 1790. Choice wavered between the glaze of the 
 one and the morbidezza of the other. The tender 
 Wedgwood colouring is delicate, but very cold ; the 
 Sevres is delicate without coldness, but it is too often 
 inane. A whole drawing-room, however, furnished in 
 Sevres china — tables, chandeliers, vases, statuettes — and 
 Sevres colouring, presents a singularly elegant ensemble^ 
 which harmonises very sweetly with the grace of a 
 refined and pretty presiding genius. 
 
 Figure to yourself, reader, such a room, shortly after 
 the invention of the soft-paste porcelain ; such a room as 
 one of the boudoirs at Fontainebleau or Versailles, with 
 its fine proportions, tall doors opening in the middle, 
 white marble mantelpieces, and windows giving on care- 
 fully tended views. The room is an artificial garden. 
 Every shelf that can bear a pot is laden with vases, 
 whereon the rose Pompadour^ the bleu turquoise and 
 bleu de roiy the pale green called vert pomme, the soft 
 jonquille dSi^ the 03il de perdrix io\\(yN one another hke 
 notes of a song written in opal tints of fruit and flower 
 and bird. 
 
 Whole beds of flowers, made of porcelain (a special 
 feature of the time), modelled and coloured, and — last 
 extravagance ! — perfumed au naturel, seem to grow and 
 bloom on this side and that. Flowers of ormolu enclose 
 calices for candles, and mirrors double the bouquets. 
 Bronze stems, supporting foliage and dew-drops of rock 
 
 M 
 
1 62 
 
 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 crystal, form the chandeliers and girandoles which the 
 utmost care and deftness can hardly keep clean. Here 
 is a table of the new ' mahogany ' wood, that might be 
 the queen's own, around yNhioh plaques of fragile porcelain 
 are set amid bas-reliefs of metal of the utmost fineness. 
 The legs (can we call them by so coarse a name "i) are 
 
 Fig. 41.— Table, time of Louis Seize. 
 
 slight but elegantly proportioned, the small feet check 
 with concentric rings the slim spirals just stout enough 
 to bear the weight of the top — Japan lacquer framed in 
 lace-like bronze, all too delicate to burden with anything 
 heavier than a Sevres snuff-box — or one Sevres teacup 
 — and the gently curving tray beneath, enclosing the 
 
A LOUIS SEIZE ROOM. 163 
 
 golden semblance of a wicker basket. The classic 
 element is present in the dainty bas-reliefs and the well- 
 chased busts at the corners ; but the result is not classic, 
 it is only playing amorously at classicism. How 
 different is this cleverness from the earlier French trans- 
 lations from the grand antique ! how much more trivial 
 than the robust science of the sixteenth century ! Here 
 is a clock, of course porcelain and gold, with the tenderest 
 green and pink playing into each other; a Corinthian 
 pillar supports an urn wreathed with roses, and two 
 delicately modelled nudities support both. Everybody 
 is debilitated, and requires support, but it should be 
 polite, not obtrusive — in fact the hands need not touch, 
 as long as they are ready. There hangs a picture of the 
 Watteau school, pastoral, insipid, with its gentle in- 
 sinuation ; latet anguis in herbd, however well-kempt 
 the turf. An escritoire shows us a silver inkstand of the 
 inevitable pattern, festoons of flowers and ribbons, but 
 calm, not whirling like those in Louis XV.'s time. The 
 escritoire wears similar ornaments, and its ormolu 
 caryatides are works of firstrate skill. Here is a tazza, ^ 
 the basin painted outside in broad rays of bleu de roi 
 and turquoise, inside with loves of surpassing grace that 
 float on clouds and wreaths of roses, charmingly tinted ; 
 the whole mounted in minutely chiselled ormolu, de- 
 scribing a garland of tiny grapes and blossoms, sustained 
 by boys with fishes' tails, half syrens, half cupids, 
 modelled with ability and knowledge which would shame 
 our silversmiths. 
 
 The frames of the porcelain-trimmed chairs and 
 
 ' In the author's possession. 
 M 2 
 
i64 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 sofas are no longer gold as in the previous reign. White 
 paint, varnished and relieved by faint lines of lilac or 
 blue in the delicate mouldings, echo, like the faint coloured 
 carpet and silken walls, the colours of the china that 
 encases everything, and for which the furniture has 
 become a mere mount. All things revolve around this 
 mock simple fashion, the dainty flutings, amorous 
 trophies, and draped urns recalling the antique, piece, 
 meal. Truly, here is lavishness and fastidiousness in 
 excelsis ; truly, * good taste ' is in its glory — but it is a 
 glory of clay. In all this, says a clever French writer, 
 ' we read a polished gallantry, and see the last smile of 
 that society about to disappear in storm and bloodshed.' 
 Some suppose that the cabinets, and vases of scented 
 flowers were wholly made and completed in the Sevres 
 manufactory when a special staff of experienced work- 
 men were retained to prepare them for royal presents. 
 A visit to Sevres to see the process of making even a 
 small vase with the fine snow-white clay will give us 
 some idea of the costliness of a fashion which covered, 
 not only the court beauties but the chairs they sat on, 
 with porcelain pictures painted by acknowledged artists 
 in the severely protected royal manufactory : — nay, 
 their very carriages were incrusted with them. There 
 was some reason then for agonies of fear for the 
 panels, such as some ladies suffer in a new glossy 
 carriage. Mme. Dubarry mentions the equipage of 
 Mme. Beaupre : — 'Nous la vimes paraitre dans une 
 voiture dont les panneaux etaient en porcelaine ornee 
 de peintures ddlicieuses, les encadrements en cuivre 
 surdore.' The subjects of the paintings were endless ; 
 
A LOUIS SEIZE ROOM. 165 
 
 some mythological, some from ' Don Quixote ' and La 
 Fontaine's fables : ' Temptation of St. Anthony,' ' Le 
 Triomphe de la Beaute,' ' La Baigneuse aux roseaux,' 
 and such like, the names of the artists being quoted. 
 
 In England the ' mode ' was less extravagant, and 
 ever-cheapening marqueterie ultimately became far more 
 common than painted white wood ; but such was the taste 
 which linked Louis Quinze exuberance with the Empire 
 asceticism, and which accompanied the mock-pastoral 
 fashions of milkmaid-hats and aprons, golden crooks, 
 Corydons and Chloes, which did not only exist in Mme. 
 D'Aulnoy's stories, but were seen in society. The faint 
 colouring of porcelain entered into dress, which bore 
 the same stamp of would-be simplicity and innocence. 
 Baby patterns, lilac dotted muslins, thin faint silks 
 and nainsooks marked the inevitable reaction from the 
 previous brilliance and heat of colour, and heralded in 
 the pseudo-classic parodies : but the change had as j-et 
 no moral significance — vice had become decent per- 
 haps, but was not yet virtue. 
 
 There is grace in the idealism of this time, like an 
 elegant drama, which made as though the art-reforma- 
 tion signified cleansed conditions ; but we are not taken 
 in by it, whether the eighteenth-century people were 
 or were not. They * made believe very much,' like 
 Dickens's Marchioness — so much that they may have 
 come to mistake the shadow for the substance, and really 
 forgot that whilst they were mincing about rooms gay as 
 
i66 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 a garden with flowers more fragile than their prototypes, 
 whilst they were sleeping like Mme. Recamier in beds 
 hung with the rarest Point d'Alencon, and so tired of 
 idleness that dolls had to be made and guests stripped 
 to furnish gold lace for their craze for untwisting^ — 
 whilst one-half of France was lapped in useless luxury, 
 the other half was starving. 
 
 The shepherds and shepherdesses in delicate rainbow 
 garb meant no real simplicity and rural innocence : 
 affectation is most corrupt and self-conscious when it 
 begins to simulate purity with such, strenuous efforts. 
 The sweet Greuze heads which smiled down on the 
 shepherds implied no fact of human experience, hardly 
 even an attainable ideal, but a cynical admission that 
 childhood itself was not what it seemed. It matters not : 
 let us eat and drink, to-morrow we die, was the moral of 
 it all. Why else, how else, could Greuze have painted 
 La Cniche Cassce} Never was a face more sweet, more 
 mystic, but Greuze preached no ideal state, no appeal to 
 worth, to love or to pity, but wrought in a mood which 
 strikes an English mind like a sick fancy, none the 
 healthier for being a pretty one, at any rate peculiarly 
 French : the ' pearl ' in the fish. 
 
 ' Untwisting — 'the fashionable 'rage,' during which ladies scarcely 
 stirred without two. little work-bags, one filled with gold fringes, tasstls, 
 or any golden trumpery they could obtain, the other to contain the gold 
 they unravelled, which they sold to the Jews. ' The Due de Coigny one 
 night appeared in a new and most expensive coat ; suddenly a lady in the 
 company remarked that its gold bindings would be excellent for untwisting. 
 In an instant he was surrounded ; m short, in a few moments the coat was 
 stripped of its lace, its galloons, its tassels, its ixv!\g^^.''—Illtaninated Book 
 of A^eedlework, p. 388. 
 
A WHITED SEPULCHRE. 167 
 
 The earthquake which should have come in Louis 
 Quinze's time, overwhelmed Louis Seize and Marie 
 Antoinette. It is difficult to read of the miseries of the 
 downtrodden peasants without feeling that even the 
 bloody Revolution was a divine retribution for offences 
 that blackened earth : it is difficult to read of the meanness 
 of cruelty which tortured the Royal Family in their mis- 
 fortunes without indignantly realising that the blow fell 
 on the wrong people. Debarred from pen and ink, 
 toilet necessaries, even the scissors and knitting needles 
 which might have beguiled the weary prison hours, the 
 Capets were crowned martyrs by their sufferings. * At 
 this time the king's coat became ragged, and as the 
 Princess Elizabeth his sister was mending it, as she had 
 no scissors the king observed that she had to bite off the 
 thread with her teeth. " What a reverse ! " said the 
 king, looking tenderly upon her ; "you were in want of 
 nothing at your pretty house at Montreuil." " Ah ! 
 brother," she replied, " can I feel regret of any kind while 
 I share your misfortunes } " ' 
 
 jat^arquctcric* 
 
 I cannot close my survey of this luxurious period 
 without a few words on the marqueterie which was 
 brought to such perfection after Louis Quatorze, and 
 which is now so often the favourite pursuit of collectors. 
 This kind of furniture is obstinately called ' Queen Anne,' 
 like most other things nowadays ; and people are mostly 
 surprised when told that their very elegant drawing- and 
 bed-rooms are ' Louis Seize.' 
 
i68 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 Strong as is my preference for Gothic, or very early 
 Renascence furniture and decoration, because of its 
 robuster excellence, I must own that in the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries furniture reached its acme ; 
 never before were rich fancy, unsurpassed skill of hand, 
 and knowledge of effect pressed so lavishly into the service 
 of beds, cabinets and wall-coverings, as I showed in * a 
 Louis Quatorze Room.' Furniture cannot go farther 
 than certain exquisite ebony constructions in the Cluny 
 Museum at Paris, carved from one end to the other, 
 mounted in silver, set with precious stones, and tiny 
 bas-reliefs still more precious. Nay, furniture ought not 
 to go so far, since such ornamentation unfits it for its 
 purpose, and makes it like di genre picture, merely a toy, 
 not meant to be handled . 
 
 Nos. 6oi, 603, 594^ and 592 in the above museum 
 are examples of what cabinets can be, and should not 
 be. They are the very hetcercB of furniture. The detail 
 is exquisite, the ensemble seen from afar disappointing, 
 from the darkness of the wood ; as for their utility, it 
 must always have been nil, like that of the ' white ele- 
 phants ' of old. 
 
 * Ebony cabinet (seventeenth century), No. 594, Cluny Museum ; about 
 5i feet high, projecting from the wall about 2 feet. Designs such as 
 Benvenuto Cellini's fill the tiny panels on the face, all in low relief ; the 
 frieze however is adorned with ebony figures, completely raised from the 
 ground, like dolls fastened to it. Architectural ornaments occur at the 
 sides of the cabinet, such as Corinthian columns with gilt capitals. Ivory 
 reliefs are inserted in places ; and in the lower part Limoges enamel 
 pictures are set at each end, suggesting the query, must not this cabinet 
 have been mounted on a pedestal, to bring these delicate enamels level with 
 the eye? It has been impaired by the additions made to it by P\iivret, to 
 which noted ebcniste Lord Nelson sent it from Spain to be put in order. 
 
\^ 
 
 MARQUETERIE. 169 
 
 A- 
 
 But good marqueterie has a reasonable, smooth 
 surface ; and suppHes a proper decorative background, 
 like tapestry, Spanish leather, carved oak (not blackened), 
 or any other material which has the self-tint mottled 
 or variegated by one means or another, and thus offers 
 a considerable space of soft, quiet ' broken colour ' when 
 viewed from a distance ; not a plain single tint. It is 
 this shrewd mingling of many colours into a sofc bloomy 
 whole, which renders fine Oriental decorative work at 
 once so interesting and so ' becoming ' to whatever is 
 brought near it. All true decorators have felt this. 
 Boule felt it, and hence devised the ingenious combina- 
 tion of tortoiseshell and other substances which we all 
 know as common in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. The designers of the fine Spanish leather and 
 the best kind of tapestry felt it ; whilst those who made 
 such wall-coverings so brilliant as to aim at deception, 
 at a later time, missed the secret of good decorative 
 work. Morris felt it when he designed his well-known 
 pomegranate paper. Marqueterie such as the old piece 
 spoken of at page 41 is admirable; and eighteenth 
 century marqueterie is often very good now, because 
 its once brilliant hues have faded, so as to represent 
 nearly the real unstained woods which at first were used 
 before taste had become vitiated. It presents a broad 
 surface of broken brownish colour, which is a capital 
 background when not injured by extravagance of 
 form. 
 
 The fortunate possessors of Louis Quatorze marque- 
 terie, or pieces by Riesener, David Roentgen, and other 
 well-known makers French and German, have it in their 
 
I70 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 power to arrange very beautiful rooms, whether planned 
 after the dainty elegance of the Louis Seize time, or 
 after the somewhat broader and richer manner of an 
 earlier date, provided these good people do not destroy 
 the soft chequered colour of the furniture by pallid walls 
 which they fondly call ' Queen Anne,' or contradict the 
 voluptuous curves inseparable from the fashions of the 
 three Louis's, by the strict angles of 'Empire' objects, 
 which, however neatly fluted, polished or inlaid, have a 
 character pronounced enough to be quite out of har- 
 mony with works of any other period. 
 
 5Ctti^t^ tu{)0 €manctpatctii %tt. 
 
 Louis Ouatorze appears to have been the first to 
 recognise in a substantial manner the fact that if we want 
 firstrate art in our carpets, furniture, plate, &c., we must 
 employ firstrate artists, and make it worth their while 
 to give thoughtful study to such a branch of design. 
 Thus the names of that great king's art-attaches have 
 come honourably down to us alongside Italian names 
 such as Benvenuto Cellini's : among them are Lebrun ; 
 Mignard ; Andre-Charles Boule, ' ciseleur et doreur du 
 roi,' who carried out their conception and created a 
 school ; Claude Ballin the goldsmith ; Philippe Poitou, 
 who imitated Boule, and injured his model with the 
 best intentions, when the king was growing old. 
 
 Many honourable names teinp. Louis Quinze, en- 
 couraged by royal bounty, are familiar. Meissonier, who 
 carried endive and rocailles to the last exaggeration ; 
 
ARTISTS WHO EMANCIPATED ART. 171 
 
 Caffieri, sprung from a race of distinguished sculptors 
 and a sculptor himself, whose bronze work adorns 
 furniture in the possession of Sir Richard Wallace and 
 Baron G. de Rothschild; his rival, Crescent, Martincourt 
 and his more famous pupil Gouthiere, chaser and gilder 
 to Louis Seize, and GsXliQn, fondeur-ciseleur, who made 
 iron railings and regal timepieces ; and many more, who, 
 like Quentin Matsys, raised the baser metals to the rank 
 of gems by their exquisite delicacy of treatment and 
 knowledge of design ; again, Clodion, who worked in 
 terra-cotta ; P.enaud, who modelled snuff-boxes ; down 
 to David, whose influence on the first quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century was marked enough. 
 
 We have been chiefly referring to French art because 
 France is the immediate source of most of our fashions, 
 and in France far more substantial patronage was 
 afforded by royalty to the pr-oduction of art for domestic 
 use. Italy, still wealthier in great designers than France, 
 has had no great direct effect on English art, because her 
 influence has for the most part filtered through France, 
 our nearest neighbour. Cellini, Primaticcio, and others, 
 resided in France, warmly encouraged by royalty, and 
 no doubt lent an Italian breadth and grandeur to the 
 French Renascence school. Elizabeth, taking example 
 by her father and Francis I., and subsequently Charles I., 
 supported art by inviting over Flemish and Italian 
 artists and encouraging the buds of native talent ; but 
 English artists of real calibre have seldom devoted 
 their talents to anything so base as the home surround- 
 ings, though they be royal. Since th^ R-enascence fairly 
 
172 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 set in, artists have not poached on the architects' manor, 
 while architects have left furniture to artisans — not all- 
 round men like mediaeval artisans — and the home has 
 been left out in the cold as a ' No man's land.' Grin- 
 ling Gibbons is the sole example of an indigenous growth 
 of talent, fairly successful in founding a school of carvers, 
 and fairly paid ; as will be clear on comparing English 
 with the carefully kept German, French, Flemish, or 
 Italian lists of accomplished and talented art-workmen. 
 
 Flaxman worked for Wedgwood, and Wedgwood 
 was ' potter to Her Majesty the Queen,' and could afford 
 to run up the Duchess of Portland's bids for the Bar- 
 berini vase to i,ooo guineas; but Flaxman was not 
 recognised by royalty in the business, and it is curious 
 to compare the payments of Josiah Wedgwood to John 
 Flaxman — for bas-reliefs of the Muses and Apollo, 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, &c., \os, 6d. apiece ; portrait 
 busts from i6s. to 42.$'. and the like — with the lavish 
 payments in the reign of Louis XIV. by the Duke of 
 Orleans for the mere subjects for art-designers — flower- 
 paintings by Robert, 100 livres each, and afterwards re- 
 bought for the Crown. 
 
 My list of art-designers in England will show that in 
 the eighteenth century we had a few names of note who 
 may rank as decorators, but the list is sadly meagre. 
 Our architects were eminent ; they decorated our streets, 
 nevertheless we cannot compare London with Rome and 
 Florence, where the greatest artists spent glorious efforts 
 on the outside and inside of the costly palazzi. Bacon 
 modelled for Lambeth ware, while Flaxman designed 
 
ARTISTS WHO EMANCIPATED ART. 
 
 173 
 
 for Wedgwood. Kent made our gardens beautiful, which 
 for long they had not been : Thomas Frye and his 
 daughters painted Bow china. But we can quote no 
 names of paper-designers or silk-designers for the de- 
 coration of rooms, no furniture-designers of real genius 
 and creative ability. We have never had any. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ^.i6^cutio:=€la^^ici^m» 
 
 NDER the bitter i^egiine of Revolutionary 
 times luxury was not only gracefully abne- 
 gated for a little while — it was forgotten. 
 They changed all that. There was to be no 
 more affectation, no more stilted refinement, no more 
 jesting beneath mock decorum. Nobody was better than 
 anybody else, and they should not have more ; everything 
 was forced into a severe, uncompromising mould. Stiff- 
 backed reformers said they did not want easy chairs, so 
 they took them away from those who did. They said 
 love of dress was wicked, rich silks nonsense, people 
 did not have them in old Greece ; so they burnt them for 
 the gold in them, and let delicate women die of cancer 
 and bronchitis in high-waisted muslin which could not 
 keep them warm. They forgot, no doubt, sometimes 
 that Athens was old Greece as much as Sparta, and in 
 their vigorous sweeping away of all that they considered 
 needless and bad, they swept away much that was very 
 
PSEUDO-CLASSICISM. \ 75 
 
 good. This Is the unavoidable result of every violent 
 reaction, and many innocent often suffer for one guilty. 
 What is chiefly curious in the history of English and 
 French art is that, however eccentric the fashion, how- 
 ever extreme the recoil from that to the next, all is done 
 in the name of the classics. When we walked about under 
 a mountain of padding and buckram, and built our black 
 secretaires like temples and our beds like monuments, 
 we copied the classics ; when we threw away whalebone 
 and weight for the graceful laisser aller of Charles II.'s 
 time, with short waists and flowing robes, and began to 
 mix Chinese panels and Italian marqueterie with our old 
 oak, it was still the classics we were following. When 
 luxury seemed frantic with rainbow colours and curves 
 of endless vegetation, we had a classic reason for it ; and 
 when we suddenly sat down in a chemise on the hardest of 
 chairs and went in sedulously for the barest, stififest, 
 coldest of forms in dress and furniture, still we said it 
 was a return to the classic, and this unhappy word has 
 to bear the burden of all our follies. 
 
 It is constantly forgotten by persons who praise the 
 furniture and costume of the Empire period, that beauty, 
 refinement, grace, are terms wholly opposed to the spirit 
 of that terrific reaction. The changes which we refer to 
 Louis XVI.'s reign but for which Mme. de Pompadour 
 is primarily responsible, being greatly harassed by 
 dreams of the ' antique,' were indeed a refinement upon 
 forms whose redundance was becoming foolish and 
 vulgar ; but the later reformation in art which came 
 after France had turned at bay, was by no means in the 
 direction of beauty, but of truth, straightforwardness, 
 
176 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 plainness, equality. Have done with your elegances, 
 your jests, your love-making, your corruption, your 
 phantasmagoria, the nation seemed to say : strip off all 
 these superfluities, look us in the face, and be simple, 
 like Socrates ; and if you are not simple you shall die.^ 
 Then how fervently people tried to be simple, and to 
 hate refinement, and wealth, and the noblesse — it was 
 important enough in France ; and England, sobered 
 across the water by a lesson which might have been 
 applied nearer home, cried out that life was earnest and 
 the lust of the eye impertinent, as the Puritans had done. 
 Like them she flung away all she had that was merely 
 pretty and pleasant, and fancied that self-castigation 
 was in itself virtue. 
 
 It was a stern, startled, palpitating mood as of 
 people standing before the tribunal of death ; if the 
 works done under such pressure were beautiful it was by 
 accident ; they only strove to express outwardly this 
 vehement alteration in feeling by copying in detail a 
 social state which seemed to them strong, simple, grand, 
 rude, and trusted that the outward life would react back 
 again upon the inward and raise up a new generation 
 with old Greek virtues. Of course the whole thing was 
 wrong, half-sane, like a drunken man suddenly sobered 
 by a shock whom the shock itself may unbalance. 
 
 %\\ ' Empire ^ itoom. 
 
 Then again, it is forgotten that the meagreness and 
 bareness of the domestic fashions at that time may have 
 
 * ' Fraternite, egalite, ou la mort,' was a favourite inscription on Nevers 
 fayence at the time of the French Revolution, and there were others fiercer. 
 
AN 'EMPIRE' ROOM. 177 
 
 had some foundation in real indigence. The noblesse 
 (stript of their possessions) who escaped the guillotine 
 fled to England and deluged us with refined, heart- 
 broken Emigres, who thankfully stooped to tuition for 
 their daily bread. A very few chairs ranged in frigid 
 symmetry supply the wants of people both poor and 
 pre-occupied ; cartloads of Sevres and gilded shepherd- 
 esses naturally go ' up the spout ' ; and if they care to 
 have an ornament or two as days grow brighter, it will 
 be a little grey bit of Wedgwood to make tea in, or a 
 little drab bit of Chelsea, or a whitish patch of Leeds 
 ware ; and neither recalls Eros or Aphrodite in its pallid 
 bas-relief, but Pallas or Nemesis. Black horsehair is 
 more suitable to such a room than velvet or Gobelin 
 work. It wears' well, and gives no trouble. One little 
 mirror with Jove's eagle aloft is also in character ; we 
 don't want to look at ourselves now ; besides, our hair is 
 grizzled and our cheeks sunken with tears and watching 
 and mean food, and if we do catch sight of ourselves we 
 prefer the image blurred, distorted out of recollection. 
 
 A convex, or worse, concave, mirror becomes absolutely 
 sympathetic. Hard are the seats, for life is hard ; hard 
 are the pierced strapwork backs, made by Heppelwhite ; 
 the walls are covered with a thin ugly paper or white- 
 washed, and the books we need are together in the neat, 
 paned bookcase that also holds our wardrobe. Bureau and 
 linen chest are also combined — that needs less room. 
 Everything has a rectangular way with it — that means 
 straightforwardness. Everything looks naked — that means 
 candour. A map on the wall, the globes in the window, a 
 wooden stool or two for the children, with a slit for the 
 
 N 
 
178 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 hand ; the tea-caddy, the well-used work-box, and the 
 tall corner-clock with its severe round face and classic 
 pediment slightly spatterdashed with mock Chinese 
 sketches — here is our survey of a regular * Empire ' room 
 in England. A lithograph of a close-capped mother 
 teaching her child to pray, and the black paper profiles of 
 our lost relations (a plain * honest ' remembrance of them 
 as they sat in our light, as usual — no fulsome flatteries to 
 wake criticism or vanity) — completes the inventory. It 
 is simple ; is it beautiful ? ah ! that word has not so much 
 meaning now — we forget whether these things can be 
 called beautiful ; the canons of taste were all banished — 
 lost — guillotined perhaps, a few years ago. We are very 
 grave strict people. The father does not like to see the 
 children stoop ; that means weakness, which must be 
 checked. The mother does not like her girls to enter the 
 room without gloves ; that is too familiar ; and if there 
 
 was a hole in one Ah ! 
 
 Most of us who have had oldfashioned relations or 
 friends in childhood, can remember the curious stigma 
 attached to the words ' proud,' * vain,' * selfish,' ' afiected.' 
 Such terms meant much more to them than they do to 
 us, the spirit of the times was so severe, emulating classic 
 patriotism, primitive candour. To say a woman was 
 vain implied a real fault of heart, not mere consciousness 
 of beauty ; to say she was affected was to impugn both 
 her sincerity and her taste. Even in Miss Austen's 
 novels we feel the influence ; we get no hint of a 
 heroine's face ; but we are told she was remarkable for 
 a * candid ' mind, for good-sense, and a disposition so — 
 decorous as to be positively arctic. Duty, not enjoyment, , 
 
AN 'EMPIRE' ROOM. 
 
 179 
 
 was the aim of life. We constantly find people approved 
 for being ' candid,' which probably meant sincere, well- 
 mannered. We never hear that anyone is • unselfish,' 
 the antithesis called up is too violent. Marianne ^ 
 admits that her lover is mercenary, dishonourable, pro- 
 fligate, and a dastard — but she defends him against the 
 ghastly obloquy of selfishness ! ' What is proper' was 
 the bugbear, for it had been a question of life and death ; 
 and hardly any gaiety was held proper, as once it had 
 been scarcely safe. Pride was a sin, for Egalite had 
 taught us so in letters of blood. 
 
 When I hear people praise that time, so stony and 
 so grim, from the harsh unbecoming costume which I 
 have elsewhere criticised, down to every detail of 
 awakened life, I am certain that they do not understand 
 it. In France David and his partisans played at being 
 Greek as children might play in a churchyard. But the 
 false, stilted fashions that covered London and Paris 
 with pseudo-classic conventionalities in the very worst 
 taste became quite unmeaning in this climate ; where the 
 sapient architects built Greek temples with windows(!) 
 of course nearly rectangular, terraces darkened by colon- 
 nades, changed every teakettle to a cinerary urn, even 
 to the name, coalscuttles to sarcophagi, and beds to 
 hearses. The 'propriety' which refused a tired child a 
 chair with a back if the seat was over four inches wide, and 
 discouraged all freedom of activity and self-forgetfulness 
 or pleasure in everyone young and old, has much to 
 answer for in the inherited delicacy of many of our girls 
 and boys. 
 
 ' Miss Austen's Sense and Sensibility. 
 
i8o A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 People often ask what I think of the costumes of 
 the * Empire,' and whether I consider that it will ' suit ' 
 such and such an one. If they had read one-half what 
 has been written against the * Imitation Greeks,' my 
 readers, at least, would not ask such a question. Still, 
 as examination and re-examination again and again of 
 motives and habits is always serviceable- I may give 
 here a brief description of (ist) what the Empire dress 
 was ; and (2nd) why it cannot suit anyone, if to * suit ' 
 means to * become,* and to become implies concealment 
 of defect, accentuation of good points, and protection 
 from the elements, for these are the three main require- 
 ments of clothing, and the Empire Dress fulfils none of 
 them, nor ever did, or can ; and (3rd) why this fashion, 
 nevertheless, possesses a kind of beaiite die diable, and 
 does not misbecome a certain few. 
 
 The dress, like the furniture, of the Empire drew its 
 inspiration from ancient Greek art, and, being a reaction 
 from a totally different kind of costume in the last stages 
 of decay, caught the fancy of the more educated classes 
 under the artistic direction of a man of extraordinary 
 originality and force of character, Jacques Louis David 
 the French painter and politician. Indeed, the whole 
 nation was then eager to reverse all that had been 
 popular under the old noblesse and to cleanse both the 
 inside and the outside of the platter, and warmly seconded 
 the efforts of the artists to bring in a new school of art. 
 Hence, manners and habits, furniture, china, plate, 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. i8i 
 
 jewellery, everything connected with aesthetics followed 
 the new bent. In the dress reform which took place, 
 greatly under David's direction, the adaptation of 
 dress to the human shape was aimed at, instead of the 
 adaptation of the human shape to dress, as in the 
 previous fashions. Sated and disgusted by artificial 
 forms and foul corruption and falsehood, the people 
 cried out for honesty, simplicity, candour, cleanliness. 
 Hoops, furbelows, and their attendant miseries disap- 
 peared. Extraneous aids, such as padding, patches, 
 powder, buckram, and paint, were cast aside as un- 
 worthy the elevation of awakened minds. Scarcely 
 Greek, perhaps, this — at any rate, ' out-Heroding 
 Herod ; ' but the Greeks were sometimes misconceived 
 by their admirers. However, this seemed to be the 
 modern view of the permanent condition of ancient 
 Greece, and they jumbled up Athens and Sparta some- 
 what, no doubt. 
 
 For the first time for many years, the feminine shape 
 became normal ; beautiful girls gained credit for beauties 
 which had lately been buried under mountains of decep- 
 tion ; the lovely complexion, hair, and limbs were 
 acknowledged in due order of prominence, the attitudes 
 and movements were nature's own, cleanliness suddenly 
 became fashionable, and the toilet became scentless and 
 took up very little time. The stiff brocades gave way 
 to the humblest fabrics, white muslin or calico printed 
 with unobtrusive dots, within reach of the whole 
 * Egalite.' Beautiful women simulated the philosophic 
 candour of statues — the gown, very simply cut, in fact 
 like a nightgown or long chemise, fell straight to the 
 
i82 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 feet, slightly longer behind than in front or at the sides. 
 A small sash or girdle confined the folds of this loose 
 gown somewhat above the waist, under the arms, often 
 brought across the shoulder to keep it in position, and 
 tied before or behind. For outdoor wear, a straight 
 scarf (a faint and shrunken echo of the Greek himation) 
 was cast about the shoulders. The sleeves were ;///, for 
 a shapely arm brooked no disguise. The small bonnet, 
 helmet-shaped, offered a slight, very slight protection to 
 the eyes ; and the shoes without heel§ were rather high 
 and tied with a small bow on the instep. By this 
 violent reaction from the previous fashion, now called 
 * Queen Anne,' which was a regular domino, a graceful 
 woman could appear graceful, a clean skin could assert 
 itself as dark or fair — in fact, one could detect a pretty 
 woman at a glance. 
 
 But — and this is noteworthy — one could also at a 
 glance detect an ugly one. A word for the poor plain, 
 or plainish, ones ! The clinging low gown was un- 
 merciful to an attenuated . frame, still more so to one 
 unduly robust. The large wide foot had no retreat ; the 
 thin red arm no shield ; the skin spoilt by the long use 
 of bad paints, the hair worn thin and broken by years 
 of pulling over an unclean cushion large enough to weigh 
 something considerable — these had neither pity nor 
 palliation. If the beauties were beauteous then — the 
 plain were likewise most deplorably and hopelessly 
 unattractive. Woman in fact was severely, savagely 
 Herself! 
 
 This was at the time of the Revolution, about 1793. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds has left us some very graceful 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. 183 
 
 examples of what the beauties of his day looked like 
 under the reformed costume before it became a servile 
 plagiarism, and the promise was fairer than its fulfilment. 
 A long plain gown, the severity of which was broken by 
 an Indian scarf swathed about the waist, or falling from 
 shoulder to foot — the somewhat undefined waist reveal- 
 ing the curves of a fine bust without aggressive display 
 of charms, nor any attempt to deny their existence— the 
 whole contour of the figure acknowledged, but softened 
 by the natural fall- of loose folds, which adapted them- 
 selves to every attitude gracefully enough when the 
 attitudes were graceful. Gillray shows us the 'other 
 side of the carpet,' — his coarse caricatures give us the 
 vulgar and ill-shapen gestures and frames, which 
 naturally went side by side with beauty — he shows us 
 how little chance had those many who are neither hand- 
 some nor ugly, of receiving fair credit for their small 
 merits in a garb so painfully candid, and how the 
 smallest approach to vulgarity or defect became nearly 
 as disagreeable as its extreme ! 
 
 Those were indeed sadly trying times ; but so strong 
 and stern was the national inclination then, suddenly 
 roused out of supine subjection and laisser-aller, that 
 beauty was less cared for than virtue ; and, consequently, 
 though the beauties were in clover, the plain ones had 
 to be and were accepted as facts — very numerous and 
 unmistakable facts — on the ground that beauty was of 
 minor consequence per se. There is something fine in 
 this semi-Spartan mood ; but it was overstrained, and 
 therefore false, like most reactions when too violent (the 
 Puritan reaction is a similar instance) ; and whenever 
 
1 84 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS 
 
 beauty, as beauty, is undervalued, the loss is felt in all 
 departments of life — progress in all refinement and 
 culture is temporarily numbed and impeded, and in 
 many ways the whole community suffers. It is quite 
 terrible to see, now looking back, how the temper per- 
 vading the art reform in David's day, while producing 
 many worthy contributions to art, seemed to kill or nip 
 the vital energy of the sense of beauty, so that upon 
 David's removal the decadence of that fashion was ugly 
 as disease, hopeless like a fire unfed, and barren like 
 ashes (which every decadence is not), containing within it 
 no germ of new life, yet incapable of checking its own 
 dismal decay. For the spirit of those days, whether in 
 politics, art, or domestic life, was harsh, severe, self- 
 castigating in its desire for truth, simplicity, and justice, 
 and it outlived too long its original raison d'etre. The 
 injury to trade, the injury to art, the injury to character 
 even, which began with the bloody Revolution, can hardly 
 be over-estimated, and much domestic suffering, especially 
 amongst the young, sprang from the then begotten 
 prejudices and straight-backedness. Things have only 
 recently begun to recover the shock. Not, we must 
 observe, that the spirit of the times was bad in its action 
 on the times ; but it was destructive of future advance- 
 ment and new culture, like a moral stun. 
 
 But to our Empire Dress. Napoleon's reign may 
 be said to have begun in 1800, and ended with his 
 abdication in 181 5, though his influence lasted much 
 longer. 
 
 The Imitation Greek dress in its stage nearest to the 
 Greek, its first stage and its best, was a little past for 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. 185 
 
 the general public then. David's habitues were still 
 excessively Greek, wearing the ancient garb, as we might 
 put on a fancy dress at the house of a friend who would 
 take it as a compliment — indeed, some of his pupils 
 carried the silly affectation to such an extreme that 
 David repudiated them as desfous^ and les eloigna de son 
 ecole. They were bringing the well-meant movement 
 into disrepute. These Grecomaniacs called themselves 
 the Penseurs. They adopted a Phrygian garb, met 
 together upon fixed days, and at their rtimions main- 
 tained absolute silence for a given time ; then one 
 spoke ; he was followed by another, and so on ; and 
 whilst they were thus resuscitating the age of Pericles, 
 according to their disordered fancy, they despised David 
 as having ' looked back from the plough,' though they 
 still admitted that he was a man of parts. How often 
 do the disciples of new views outrun the master's 
 meaning until he can have nothing in common with 
 them ! 
 
 The Merveilleiises sought to be conspicuous by 
 devising bizarre raiment, sometimes by wearing Indian 
 muslin chitonia over pink tights. But the general public 
 — those who did not wish to be conspicuous, those who 
 were not able to support such a primitive garb, either 
 through weak health, shyness, artistic ignorance, or 
 want of beauty — the general public who can only catch 
 fragments of new fashions, and adapt them to the real 
 needs of busy life — what had the array of this large 
 class arrived at t They could not be troubled to arrange 
 Greek folds. The short gown and shorter waist were 
 general now, the one considerably above the ankle, the 
 
1 86 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 other a formal * made bodice/ gauged and fitted ! The 
 materials — muslin, cotton, or the thinnest silk and wool 
 — were general also. The helmet-shaped bonnet had 
 settled down into a popular form. Of course it had 
 grown larger, and its worst features, by the natural law 
 of fashion, vitiation of the eye, were all magnified. The 
 shoes had shrunk into the most inadequate protection 
 for the foot. The sleeves, unendurable quite short, now 
 reached the wrists in a slight gigot form (this, later on, 
 was more and more exaggerated ; it commenced only 
 wdth the slight rounding necessary to fit the shoulder 
 joint). Petticoats, indispensable in winter, set the gown 
 out in a wonderfully un-Greek manner ; and the milliner, 
 tired of plain skirts, which did not ^ pay her,' and were 
 truly very mean-looking and insignificant, had begun to 
 decorate the extinguisher with horrible loops and 
 festoons and lumps, after her time-honoured habit. 
 People must have looked very like bottles with arms and 
 feet then, and the topknot carried out the idea of the 
 cork rather well : not that the topknot was not Greek, 
 for it was Greek ; but, with that burlesque of a gown, it 
 gave just that touch of distasteful gingerliness, semi- 
 knowing, but usually indicative of vacancy, which a cork 
 half out always gives a bottle. From 1800 to 1840 
 variations of this costume were worn by all classes. 
 This was the decadence of the Imitation Greek fashions ; 
 this was the true Dress of the Empire. 
 
 No doubt, when people praise the Empire dress, they 
 often mean the original copy of the Greek dress, not the 
 ordinary dress of the time of Napoleon I., which was 
 the copied copy of some copy of the first copy, and the 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. 187 
 
 last effect was of course as wide of the mark as the final 
 whisper in the old game of ' Scandal.' 
 
 But there are people, strange to say, who really like 
 the grotesque vagaries of the popular milliner of the 
 Empire — they ignore, as she did, the Greek element — 
 they like the vast coalscuttle bonnet with its steeple 
 feathers, they like the bottle-shaped gown, they like the 
 flat, unmerciful, useless shoes with vile bits of Persian 
 ribbon on them mis-called ' sandals ' — they like the 
 mean materials, they like the huge collar up to their 
 ears and the vast festoons on the skirts — they like the 
 harsh and ill-assorted colours — and what the Merveil- 
 leuses perpetrated in the way of combinations of colour 
 only caricatures give one any just notion of! 
 
 And now I will show why these people like all this, 
 and why I — who consider that costume the worst and 
 the most trying that ever came in vogue, not excepting 
 the Elizabethan or the costume of Rufus's time, both 
 grotesque, but having the merit of rich materials and 
 careful decoration — can understand their liking it. 
 
 There is a quaintness about this dress which seems 
 to suit some persons — chiefly young girls with unformed 
 figures, but some grown women too. I have elsewhere 
 remarked that lines in themselves have a language of 
 their own, apart from the wearer.^ And this bottle- 
 shaped costume bears me out. There is a precision, 
 a brevity, a kind of abruptness in the lines of skirts, 
 plaits, gaugings, &c., which has the same kind of 
 charm at times to the eye as an abrupt or saucy 
 answer in the mouth of a pretty woman sometimes has 
 
 ' See The Queen, Nov. 6, 1879. 
 
1 88 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS, 
 
 to the car. II y a du caract^re, a Frenchman would say ; 
 and the unexpected reHef from the sweet monotony of 
 complaisance and natural yieldingness (whether the 
 yieldingness be cf a fabric to the figure, or of a mind to 
 another mind) is pleasant, as a change, the more because 
 it is not really beautiful. As we tire of all good and 
 pleasant things, we love change, even to things worse, 
 for a little while ; but it is only that we may be able to 
 turn back and enjoy the good things with renewed zest. 
 And just as the saucy quid pro quo annoys on repetition, 
 so the odd, quaint habits which deny or caricature the 
 body annoy the eye after a brief while, and it returns 
 refreshed to feel how much more satisfying and agree- 
 able is the uncontorted frame, like the kindly, softened 
 manners. 
 
 That word kindly, implying kinship, harmony, a 
 natural tie or connection in its derivation, is not mis- 
 applied to dress. The Empire dress, like the rams-horn 
 shoes or the wheel farthingale, was not kindly in the old 
 sense of the word, for it denied the natural lines ; and it 
 was not kind in the new sense, for it exposed and drew 
 attention to every defect. 
 
 I have seen young girls, and especially very little 
 girls, who are naturally rather bottle-shaped, look 
 charming in this Empire dress, when simply made, and 
 when they are sufficiently nice-looking to be able to 
 bear it. But, I repeat, little girls were not dressed thus 
 during the Empire — this was the adult woman's dress. 
 I have also seen elderly ladies with a certain Puritan 
 dignity of carriage look very well in it : certain ladies, 
 neither old nor very juvenile, with well-modelled graceful 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. 189 
 
 figures and beautiful hair, become this dress — I do not 
 say it ever becomes them ; in these cases it is a question 
 of being too pretty to be spoiled by one's garments. But, 
 under such circumstances, one always thinks, how much 
 more beautiful, how much more graceful and seductive, 
 would all this be in a dress intrinsically good ! In such 
 a costume as that of Charles I.'s time, or Charles II.'s, 
 or a fourteenth- century coat-hardie, or a George II. 
 sacque, or a hundred elegant toilettes which may be 
 found in the National Gallery — how much more pictur- 
 esque a figure would she present who is charming even 
 in the barren, bottle-shaped, insignificant costume of an 
 Imitation Greek ! 
 
 The very best form, well pruned and idealised, of 
 the dress which most people mean when they speak of 
 * Empire ' dress, is to be found in H. P. Briggs's picture 
 of Juliet meeting her nurse and page, now in the National 
 Gallery. But I cannot reiterate too often that this is 
 not the true Empire dress, for satin was against their 
 principles — and so was a train. The imitation Greeks 
 began with a train in muslin ; they may be said roughly 
 to have ended with a train in silk and satin, but this 
 was the ultimate revolt against cheapness and * equality,' 
 and speedily resolved itself into a new fashion, with long 
 waist and somewhat full skirt. Juliet's dress will be 
 seen to be excessively short in front, three or four inches 
 from the ground : this was an ingenious device in about 
 1820 to display pretty feet without sacrificing length of 
 folds, but it is not often really becoming, though, as before 
 said, on a pretty woman everything is pretty. It was, 
 as may be supposed, not long popular. 
 
190 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 No costume is good which has no folds, or which 
 diminishes height as a short dress and a low neck invari- 
 ably do. Beautiful as are the lines of the normal female 
 form, the lines of long folds really add new graces to it, 
 as any artist who has greatly studied the frame will tell 
 you. If a dress deprives the frame of its smoothest 
 curves and its easiest attitudes, without adding any new 
 grace, and without concealing structural defects, that 
 dress is artistically bad and indefensible ; and it seems 
 to me that the Empire dress had all these faults. 
 Therefore, while I like it for little girls, because it corre- 
 sponds to the childish waistless figure and active habits 
 — infinitely better than an attempt to import 'shape' by 
 corset or belt — I can never think it becoming or suitable 
 in any way to the mature figure, which is completely 
 different from the child's, and whose every line and 
 curve and attitude is in opposition to the lines of the 
 costume. 
 
 There were other objections to the Empire dress 
 which I have intentionally not dwelt upon, my concern 
 being chiefly with beauty, and my conviction firm that 
 women will risk every peril in order to be pretty. These 
 were indelicacy (I have heard my grandmother say my 
 grandfather would never allow her to wear a bodice less 
 than four inches deep, an unfashionable depth which 
 will speak for itself), and danger through colds and 
 cancer (the latter was fearfully common, owing to 
 women's efforts to obtain a small waist across the upper 
 ribs— curious union of the old Norman love for ' a 
 myddel smal,' with the classic indifference to it) : ob- 
 jections which I do not think the artist David was in 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS. 191 
 
 any way responsible for when he forced on the pseudo- 
 classic fashions. 
 
 The fashion of hair-dressing, in its best and most 
 idealised form of that time, may be studied from certain 
 portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence, e.g., the Dowager 
 Countess of Darnley (National Gallery, Room II.), who 
 wears the knot high, but of no exaggerated size, nor of a 
 disagreeable hardness and smoothness. Upon the first 
 introduction of Greek modes a large number of hair 
 fashions were adopted from the many statues, statuettes, 
 and coins belonging to Greek territory, which show them 
 clearly, and Greece could boast of very elaborate fashions 
 of hair-dressing in her late time. But in England or 
 France they were never joined to the indispensable 
 mantle as in Greece, and they were most unsuitably 
 combined with stays, long waists, pinched in by four 
 inch belts, full petticoats, and mighty gigot sleeves 
 (1830-40), which followed the short waists such as 
 Juliet's mentioned above. Sir Thomas Lawrence shows 
 us many heads, e.g. ' Psyche,' Mrs. Arbuthnot. &c., 
 cropped and denuded of half their natural locks, under 
 some mistaken idea that the Greeks wore little curls all 
 over their heads like young children. There is no 
 reason, as far as I see, to suppose that Greek women 
 past young girlhood wore short hair. 
 
 If people will be wise, and go to the fountain head 
 whence the art of the Empire drew its inspiration, they 
 will find a beautiful costume, admitting of great variety 
 in manner of arrangement, not great variety in texture, 
 and no variety at all in cut. The lines of the long 
 under-robe and of the peplum, the length and grace of 
 
192 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS, 
 
 folds, depth of shadows, &c., are determined entirely by 
 the human form and its changing attitudes ; ergo, the 
 form must be very candidly exhibited ; and ergo, the 
 charm of the dress depends upon the beauty and grace 
 of the wearer. 
 
 This of course can shock no one in these days of eel- 
 skin dresses, which are far more open to criticism than 
 the well-folded Greek costume. Still, I do not see why 
 the features of the form need be considered more shock- 
 ing than the features of the face, and a reasonable mood 
 on this subject is justly to be encouraged. 
 
 The peculiarity of the Greek dress was its full ex- 
 pression of the form beneath, and the ease with which it 
 adapted itself to every attitude. The main feature of 
 the dress was the himation (mantle or veil), which was, 
 in fact, held to constitute the entire dress, while the 
 under garment or garments only supplemented it, and 
 were never worn without it, at least out of doors. In 
 early Greece, to have walked without doors in the tunic 
 without the himation would have been held a breach of 
 propriety ; to walk out in a thin himation, with nothing 
 beneath it at all, was full dress. Therefore, the ancient 
 Greek never exhibited that meagre aspect which cha- 
 racterised the * Empire ' or ' Imitation Greek ; ' and, 
 therefore, the modern habit of copying portions of the 
 Greek costume without due knowledge of the value and 
 functions of each garment, and without understanding 
 the costume as a whole, must always seem to those who 
 have studied Attic manners a solecism of a most uncom- 
 fortable kind. 
 
 It is clear that so simple and filmy a garb as the 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND IMITATION GREEKS, i^z 
 
 Greek would have concealed little, and only enhanced 
 beauties which were already present, but certainly never 
 supplied to any marked degree structural defect. How 
 then did the Greeks, who so loved beauty, accustom 
 themselves to such a garb ? For there must have been 
 ugly Greeks — Greeks too fat, Greeks too thin, Greeks 
 old and young; yet the fashions did not change — the 
 same dress served for all, and served them well. 
 
 Their minds were strong in philosophy and content. 
 They were used to all sorts of figures ; they did not 
 attach excessive importance to the accidents of time and 
 nature, since all ages of man had their merits and de- 
 merits, and all were true. They thought it was good to 
 be beautiful ; they thought it a sad misfortune — indeed, 
 some sign of shame — to be ugly or ill-shapen ; but they 
 did not insist upon certain proportions in frame being 
 always carried out, and as a rule they did not try to 
 remedy nature's omissions. A thin person looked thin, 
 face and figure corresponding, as a fat person looked 
 fat, but not objectionably in either case, as the eye 
 was carried along so many folds in the mantle that it 
 had no need to dwell long enough to be annoyed upon 
 the defects beneath. That constituted the merit and 
 grandeur of the dress ; it would really palliate harsh lines, 
 but supply no false aids ; and to the Greeks an imperfect 
 figure was what a plain face is to us, no unusual sight, 
 nor of vital consequence, but a fact — 
 
 'Tis true, 'tis pity — pity 'tis, 'tis true — 
 
 was the mood in which they viewed it as they passed on 
 and forgot it. 
 
 O 
 
194 A RETROSPECT OF ROOMS. 
 
 But the average was probably higher in Greece than 
 it is in England as to general build and robustness. 
 The Greeks were a fine race, and the Saxons are a fine 
 race ; but in England the breed is so mixed that there 
 are as many slight, weakly frames as strong and hand- 
 some ones, and the Greek dress would be much less 
 merciful to the former than almost any other costume. 
 
 One thing is noticeable in England, that some 
 persons by nature are far longer or shorter waisted than 
 others : many too are of an erratic build. You will find 
 people having fat arms but thin legs, or people with very 
 skinny throats yet with a full bust, or vice versa. The 
 types almost seem to have got confused, as if the moulds 
 had been broken up and put together wrong. In such 
 cases it would be a great pity not to supplement and aid 
 extraneously defects which might spoil the tout ensemble 
 otherwise really handsome and pleasing, but without re- 
 versing the features of the type. Now, how can one 
 coat fit everyone t It cannot, and we can have no 
 national costume in our country, least of all can we 
 satisfactorily employ the Greek one. It is because we 
 cannot — because our needs are too conflicting and our 
 types too numerous — that the Greek costume, when 
 tried in England and France, has invariably degenerated 
 into some hideous monstrosity. In the sixteenth century 
 we see what it came to in Elizabeth's state dress ; in the 
 nineteenth we see in such old-fashioned books as the 
 'Ladies' Magazine,' * La Belle Assemblee,' 'World of 
 Fashion,' &c., which T pray my readers to examine in 
 the British Museum. It is radically unsuited, in its pure, 
 proud, original form, to this country ; and it is a costume 
 
EMPIRE DRESS AND LMITATION GREEKS. 195 
 
 that cannot be taken ' by halves,' for the simple reason 
 that as soon as it is * improved upon ' or * adapted/ it 
 ceases to be itself. 
 
 I am, in fine, perfectly assured that, in spite of these 
 facts, as facts they are, no one who is resolved to wear 
 the Empire dress, and to think it * suits ' her, will be 
 deterred by advice or threats. People love asking for 
 advice ; they receive it gratefully, and as one who has 
 found a treasure ; but in her heart every woman is con- 
 vinced that she knows better than anyone else on most 
 subjects, and especially on dress, and the less she has 
 studied the surer she feels ! I can only adjure those 
 who really care for what is beautiful not to carry on the 
 beaute dti diable experiment too long at a time. There 
 is a piquancy in the costume, but it is a piquancy that 
 must be handled wisely — like a crab. 
 
 o 2 
 
€l)trti 25ooft 
 
 General Applications 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 ON PLACE AND TONE. 
 
 i 
 
 Strrangemcnt of tl)c iloonu 
 
 HE kind of room you have to decorate is of 
 more importance than many people suppose. 
 A well proportioned room with handsome, 
 not obstrusive, cornices, really v/ell designed 
 mantel-shelves, and walls of the right height in propor- 
 tion to their length, certainly lends importance to every 
 object brought into it. A poorly proportioned room, — 
 such as we find in the majority of suburban residences, 
 built by some dealer in brick and mortar who knows no 
 more of design than a monkey, — will be found to exer- 
 cise a destructive influence upon the furniture, however 
 good. The large things will look clumsy without look- 
 ing handsome ; the small, insignificant without being 
 mignonnes. The chimney mirrors will overpower the 
 fireplaces; the doors will be refractory whatever they 
 are dressed in ; the meagre, miserable niches will admit 
 of no furniture save what is meagre like themselves, 
 
200 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 and you will never get really fine lights and shadows 
 upon anything. 
 
 It is for this reason that many of the old houses 
 built by the brothers Adams, by Inigo Jones, and 
 others of their time, have become popular with persons 
 of taste, despite the many disadvantages of old houses ; 
 they are often so finely planned and so well built that 
 they add lustre to the internal additions, for architecture 
 received much attention in England during the dkadcnce 
 of the Renascence. Hence too architects, such as 
 Mr. Norman Shaw, Mi\__Street^ Mr. Gilbert Scott,' 
 &c., prefer to build in the style called Queen Anne, 
 which admits of coloured brick, and insists upon deep, 
 properly proportioned niches, cornices, and m^antel- 
 pieces, and well- shaped windows, doors, and door 
 entries. Many of the houses about Charles Street, 
 Berkeley Square, Wimpole and Harley Streets, are thus 
 admirable, and it is best before furnishing to get the rind 
 of the house right if you can. 
 
 If you cannot (and many persons are too completely 
 at the mercy of ignorant builders and landlords, not 
 to say cheap leases and other domestic considerations), 
 you must do the best you can in furniture as you have 
 to do in dress, by concealing as well as revealing. You 
 can hardly spoil a really fine room, as you can hardly 
 disguise a beautiful woman ; that is one of the reasons 
 why Annamaniacs, who secure good old houses, have 
 such a very easy task to furnish them ; but you may 
 amend a poor room with multitudinous hangings and 
 pretty and interesting objects, all calculated as to tint 
 and shape to harmonise with each other if not with their 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF THE ROOM, 201 
 
 home. Paint and good colour are potent agents, and 
 the suggestions I shall give will fit equally a handsome 
 dwelling or a mean little villa. 
 
 To make a beautiful and artistic room it is not 
 sufficient to collect a mass of good materials, and mix 
 them together. You may spend a fortune at a fashion- 
 able decorator's, and make your house look like an up- 
 holsterer's showroom ; or you may fill your house with 
 antiquities of rare merit and calibre, and make it look 
 like an old curiosity-shop ; but it may be most unpleas- 
 ing all the same. 
 
 The furnishing ought to be carried out on some sort 
 of system ; and this is especially difficult when the taste 
 is already refined enough to prefer ancient art to new. 
 For it is easy enough to buy cartloads of goods, but the 
 temptations offered by each century in succession, each 
 country in turn, make it impossible to carry out a 
 definite plan without heroic self-control. Old Oriental, 
 genuine old English (say fifteenth century Gothic), early 
 Renascence, Louis XIV., or genuine Queen Anne, and 
 genuine Georgian, all hold out beckoning fingers of 
 welcome. 
 
 The aimless conglomeration of totally discordant 
 periods and schools may be utterly confusing and un- 
 pleasant ; although there is a mode of arranging an 
 eclectic style of room which has very great advantages, 
 eclectic and discordant being understood to differ. 
 
 The union of works of art of all kinds and from all 
 quarters of the globe suggests a characterless and un- 
 meaning medley, like a building compounded of several 
 opposing styles ; yet, when there is no preponderance of 
 
202 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 any single item which can put the remainder out of 
 keeping, this union forms the most satisfactory, because 
 elastic, background for changing elements, just as a 
 liberal spirit often reconciles conflicting opinions on a 
 common ground of peace. It has another advantage, in 
 allowing of alterations, impossible in a room that severely 
 represents a certain period. The first rule is, not to have 
 too much of any one thing — directly there is a prepon- 
 derance it must be isolated, and suggests a collection 
 intact. The next rule is, to keep the key of colour low, 
 by avoiding too-vivid spots or masses, yet the tone must 
 be rather warm than cold. It is wonderful, when the 
 elements are sufficiently varied, both in character and 
 colour, how bright the new additions may be, or how 
 quaint, or how simple, without disturbing the repose. 
 The myriad curves and colours in an Indian shawl do 
 not break the harmonious tone ; only here, or there, 
 one broad mass of soft self-colour recreates the eye. In 
 a shawl it is in the middle — in a room it may be on 
 ceiling, or floor, or wall — somewhere the eye will insist 
 upon it. 
 
 An eclectic room ought not to be built on any striking 
 architectural style; that in itself would cause a disson- 
 ance. Gothic, or Oriental, or Renascence arches and 
 mouldings would demand to be carried out by similar 
 furniture. But as the common English room cannot 
 lay claim to the dignity of * architecture ' at all, cornice, 
 panels, windows, mantel-shelves being all equally non- 
 descript, the eclectic style of decoration is facilitated. In 
 fact, to put it briefly, extremes meet. Imperfect con- 
 glomerations are 'confusion worse confounded/ but if 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF THE ROOM. 203 
 
 the medley is sufficiently great it forms harmony some- 
 how like a Christmas pudding. 
 
 There are two systems of arranging an eclectic room. 
 The room may avowedly embrace a period extending 
 over certain centuries without pretending to be a 
 * period ' room ; it may have its prevailing character 
 mediaeval, or Renascence, or eighteenth century ; it may 
 be rude or rich. Say the mediaeval element be preferred 
 — then the colouring of the walls should be simple, yet 
 gay ; tapestries of worsted and plain surfaces of paint may 
 be the background to all the objets de vertu produced 
 up to, say 1500 — such as old oak, pictures of early 
 schools, crystals and pottery ; and the furniture, though 
 modern for comfort's sake, should be massive, and built 
 after the Gothic precedent of simple construction with 
 decorated surfaces — the useful purpose being always 
 honestly admitted in the ornament. If Europe and the 
 East are ransacked for mediaeval work, old ivory or inlaid 
 chests, and cabinets, the variety will be found enormous 
 and the mixture not incongruous. In such a room a 
 huge mirror of plate-glass would be absurd ; not so 
 spring seats, which do not assert the modern element 
 noticeably by their outline. 
 
 I. 911 iilcna^ccncc <Sctcctic iSooni- 
 
 The Renascence period offers as wide a choice ; but 
 this pseudo-classic time is out of harmony with Gothic 
 work. It is completely distinct, and Renascence designs 
 resent the propinquity of those for which the term 
 ' Gothic ' was coined in contempt in the sixteenth cen- 
 
204 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 tury. But the work of at least two centuries, all the 
 world over, is ready to hand, Northern and Southern 
 interpretations of that overpowering movement ; more- 
 over the old world may contribute, for genuine classic 
 fragments in marble, bionze, or glass, may mix with 
 Raphaels and Murillos on the walls, Vandykes, and 
 Durer prints, autotypes of the old masters' sketches, and 
 even photographs of fine pictures, as well as Venetian 
 glass, Brussels and Arras tapestry, old Oriental tissues 
 and panels of leather, or leather paper. Taste demands 
 that the tables and chairs should be in harmony, and 
 here some of the Empire furniture (a classic revival), 
 comes in properly, and far more gracefully than when 
 isolated in a drear and scanty Empire room, i.e. good 
 inlaid tables, sofas, wine coolers, &c. 
 
 The Parisians are partial to eclectic rooms of this 
 kind, especially those with the Renascence stamp, as 
 well as Renascence rooms furnished after a given date. 
 Such seem peculiarly fit for the present day, which in 
 its thirst for knowledge among both men and women, 
 its increasing luxury, its materialism, and its love for 
 the antique, is indeed a second Renascence time. 
 
 II. 3Cn €isl)tcentlj-€enturp €clectic 
 
 The Louis XIV. fashions are, again, wholly distinct ; 
 the mixture of Boule work and pietra ditra with pure 
 classic types or Gothic work would be a revolting 
 medley, and this is what an eclectic room should not 
 be. Louis XIV. fashions, however, go with Oriental 
 
AlV EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ECLECTIC ROOM. 205 
 
 work when well mixed, as the connoisseurs of his day 
 knew how to mix them, ' magots a gros ventre de la 
 tournure la plus neuve et la plus boufifonne,' say con- 
 temporaries, on every table and console, and lacquer 
 cabinets on all sides. The gallant and mirthful designs 
 of French porcelain agree with the general mood of 
 haughty frivolity belonging to that time, and to no 
 other. But porcelain should never be placed thought- 
 lessly in a hostile milieu. The rude surroundings of a 
 rough or an indigent period do not correspond with 
 those of an era of excessive luxury, however interesting 
 both may be in their several styles. Modern Boule and 
 pietra dura should only be mixed with the antique to 
 point a wholesome moral ; the style at its very best 
 escaped vulgarity and frippery by its superb workman- 
 ship and laborious finish — the modern does not escape : 
 it always betrays itself by its scamped, coarse inlaying, 
 and hastily-cast, not hand-worked, mounts. The dif- 
 ference is clear on comparison. On the other hand, 
 eclecticism may go to greater lengths than this. 
 
 In either of the two first quoted eclectic rooms 
 Sevres china would be completely out of place, for this 
 belongs to a period outside the Renascence, while in the 
 eighteenth-century room it is in perfect good taste. A 
 room so eclectic as to admit Sevres may admit Minton, 
 and such a room must not allow any one period to give 
 it a cachet. It must associate objects avowedly because 
 they are beautiful, never because they are consistent ; 
 and every modern object must be borne out by others of 
 similar date to prevent any invidious comparisons. The 
 room may then be made a capital background for the 
 
2o6 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 inhabitants ; it should indeed aim at being nothing but a 
 background. Then nothing will be inconsistent, not 
 even big mirrors. A seventeenth-century screen may 
 be used to isolate an Imperial Roman bust, a Sevres 
 tazza may rest upon a modern Turkish cloth, an early 
 Moorish secretaire may support an Indian box, Berlin 
 and Worcester pots may mix discreetly with Flemish 
 grey, Chinese hangings and Gothic tapestry, modern 
 English curtains may hang beside the old bullion and 
 velvet of a century ago, and sixteenth-century marble 
 and oak may stand on nineteenth- century rush matting, 
 and what a comfort it is if it may ! 
 
 III. 51 a^otietn Eclectic Jtoom* 
 
 An avowedly modern room (one in which modern 
 upholstery prevails) always seems to .me injured by the 
 introduction of antiquities, which, like peculiar shades of 
 colour, and certain classes of ornament, always require 
 carrying out of the picture. They injure the modern 
 manufactures by putting out their light (according to the 
 connoisseur), or by ' looking shabby ' (according to the 
 Philistine) ; and after all they almost disappear in their 
 places, lost and overpowered by the more self-asserting 
 shapes and dyes of machine-cutting and distillation, like 
 timid waifs hunted about and pecked to death. 
 
 Thus a modern eclectic room may admit modern 
 Oriental objects in sufficiently small quantities, Indian, 
 Chinese, African, and the like, modern German, Swiss, 
 and Russian carving and casts, Italian mosaics, Doulton 
 ware, Minton's china and tiles, and all the best efforts of 
 
A MODERN ECLECTIC ROOM. 207 
 
 the nineteenth century. But a medley overstepping the 
 limits of a few hundred years, unless for some very good 
 reason, becomes unpleasant, because the incongruities 
 are powerful enough to strike even the most ignorant. 
 
 The distinction between an eclectic room furnished 
 upon some reasonable system, and a room furnished 
 after a given period, must here be noted. The one is 
 really a medley, directed with taste ; the other repro- 
 duces a scene which a contemporary might have viewed, 
 and must have no anacJironisms. 
 
 In laying down abstract rules for beauty, and for 
 distinguishing what is beautiful in form from what is 
 ugly, we must remember that two great laws chiefly 
 determine the lines and dimensions of curves, the folds 
 of garments, &c. — one is the law of gravity, the other 
 the law of balance. It is the law of gravity, or attrac- 
 tion downward, which draws a thin fabric into small and 
 delicate plaits as it hangs, and a thick one into large, round, 
 weighty ones ; it is the law of balance combined with 
 gravity which sends out the tree-boughs into tortuous, 
 wide-reaching arches, which nevertheless do not uproot 
 the tree. When the Japanese acrobats came to England 
 some years ago, and climbed into strange groups, 
 balancing ladders and chairs at angles apparently impos- 
 sible, at least new to English spectators, we stared with 
 unobservant eyes that never had marked how a slight 
 flower balances its stems of blossoms, directing its arms 
 this way or that as it seeks the sun, and settling its 
 
2p8 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 main stalk or body into the precise attitude which shall 
 support their weight with least distress and strain — a 
 sight which we might have marked and learnt a lesson 
 from, as the Japanese discoverer of those strange group- 
 ings doubtless did. They are artists at heart, the Japa- 
 nese, because they love and study nature so deeply ; and 
 the feats of those climbing jugglers, and their surprising 
 knowledge of the proper distribution of weight, now 
 familiar to their British imitators, were founded upon 
 the natural laws of balance which the flower obeys. 
 
 Many people possess, unconsciously, a sense of pro- 
 portion and balance, which is technically called an ' eye 
 for form,' a 'correct eye ;' just as others possess a subtle 
 appreciation of the value (or balance) of tints, also called 
 an ' eye for colour.' Both are derived from observation, 
 conscious or not, of natural effects. Of some it is a 
 ' birthright ; ' by others it may be acquired, like Jacob's. 
 
 These persons always know when a certain combina- 
 tion of curves and colours ' looks right ; ' they feel in- 
 stinctively when such a curve, mass, or * tone ' wants 
 supporting by such another ; they can never tolerate a 
 lop-sided or top-heavy effect, and will say, ' this must 
 be so, I know not why.' In reality, the nice sense of 
 balance or proportion is satisfied or outraged by right or 
 wrong (i.e. natural or unnatural) positions or qualities ; 
 and persons who, by nature or grace — and the first is 
 best — possess the happy instinct, are certain always to 
 surround themselves with things beautiful and pleasant, 
 as a plant selects the nourishment it wants from the 
 medley of outward forces, and draws in its native blue or 
 red from the sun's white rays. 
 
BALANCE. 209 
 
 The same laws which direct forms direct hues. Very- 
 deep or pronounced colours never look well when placed 
 above light and delicate ones — e.g. a pale blue dado sur- 
 mounted by an Indian red frieze. The latter ought to 
 form the dado as it is the heavier, hotter colour of the two. 
 Dark green above and pale green below are equally- 
 uncomfortable — why } Because in nature we are accus- 
 tomed to dark colours nearest our feet and pale ones 
 nearest the sky. Yet a dark mass may surmount a pale 
 one if maintained by dark-toned columns of colour, 
 because (nature again !) the columns may seem to hold 
 up a cornice in shadow. 
 
 The distribution of colours demands thought and 
 understanding, like the distribution of forms. A very 
 insignificant, plainly-furnished room should never have a 
 gay, large-patterned ceiling, or it will seem to be de- 
 scending on the heads of folks ; for in nature all heavy 
 masses are supported by equal masses, either in dispersed 
 or condensed matter — an umbrageous tree has its mighty 
 trunk, a mountain its width of base — the very Rocking 
 Stone of Ireland is balanced on the same principle as a 
 standard rose —otherwise great were the fall. 
 
 In my first chapter I have shown that there ought 
 to be a nucleus, or minor point of interest arranged, 
 pending the m.ajor point, the people, to which the colours 
 * work up.' 
 
 For determining the position of the various pieces of 
 furniture in the room, and the various masses of colour 
 which they bring within sight, the proper distribution of 
 masses must always be studied, so that the room may 
 not look lop-sided ; but by this I do not mean that 
 
 P 
 
210 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 everything is to be symmetrically arranged, with chairs 
 * to correspond ' and tables ' to correspond,' placed at 
 regular intervals along the walls. Balance must not be 
 confounded with symmetry, and monotony, either in 
 colour, shape or place, is as fatiguing to the eye as it is 
 disastrous to the happy impression of the room. 
 
 As an explanation of my meaning I may say that, 
 given a vast black armoire'aX one end of the room, which, 
 besides possessing light and shade of its own, throws a 
 deep shadow on the wall, a slight ebony table at the 
 corresponding end of the wall would throw the room 
 out of balance ; but supposing you have neither grand 
 piano, cabinet, nor other heavy mass which you can 
 place there, the table may be made to balance the armoire 
 satisfactorily by hanging above it some large picture in 
 dark tone, or heavy mirror, or nest of books — books 
 always tell dark. On the other hand, put a case that 
 the vast armoire is not black, but light in colour, a much 
 smaller piece of furniture of more pronounced tone may 
 fairly balance it — an ebony table, a dark lacquer cabinet, 
 &c. A black coffer may be balanced by a black Japa- 
 nese etagere four or five times its height and breadth, if 
 the amount of black, including shadow, dispersed in the 
 open etagere is about equal to that condensed on the 
 visible surface of the coffer. A large mass of bright- 
 coloured material, such as an Indian table-cloth, will 
 often balance a dark mass in wood ; a mass of gold 
 may be balanced by a mass of scarlet, or white if the 
 room is sombre, and so on — as long as the relative strength 
 or value of the two masses strikes the eye as equal ; and a 
 room so planned and subtly balanced will be far more 
 
BALANCE. 211 
 
 interesting, because full of surprises and discoveries, 
 than any room laboriously matched corner by corner, 
 side by side. 
 
 proportion* 
 
 It is very difficult, of course, to make plain by de- 
 scription what can only be really proven by experiment. 
 Even in the most accustomed and skilful hands things 
 have a knack of looking different in different places, 
 larger or smaller according to their surroundings in 
 most unexpected fashion. The proportions of rooms have 
 a strong effect upon certain details of furniture hardly 
 to be made clear on paper. I have known cases where 
 such large machines as sideboards and wardrobes, which 
 looked massive and imposing in large rooms, became 
 suddenly dwarfed and debased by being transferred to 
 small rooms — a result wholly outside the range of sup- 
 position, for one would naturally imagine that a thing 
 which looked large in a large room, would look con- 
 siderably larger in a little one. But it is a fact that 
 proportions, which are no doubt relative at all times, 
 often resist the rules we think to govern them by. 
 
 Pictures, too, are very surprising occasionally. They 
 will not show up where you think they are likely to, 
 judging from the position of the window without trial. 
 Sometimes they will persist in looking right when 
 brought in contact with a quantity of bright-coloured 
 porcelain which ongJU to put the colours out ; and in 
 looking wrong when you have got just (what you 
 suppose) the right tint behind them and about them, 
 
 P 2 
 
212 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 and the light striking at the proper angle — ah ! they 
 are as unmanageable as Brigham Young's wives. I 
 once had an infinity of trouble with a marble bust, for 
 which I had prepared a corner of surpassing snugness, 
 against some dim tapestry, and within reach of dark 
 Cordovan leather, which I believed would counteract the 
 coldness of colour ; and this obstinate bust absolutely 
 declined every natural-seeming place, and at last settled 
 down in the most unlikely place behind a door^ where it 
 shone and breathed as it would do nowhere else. In 
 another room I had the same trouble with that bust. I 
 prepared a similar corner behind the door such as I 
 thought it liked, with the same background, the same 
 angle of light, the same pedestal, in vain : my bust now 
 selected the Cordovan leather as a roosting-place, against 
 which it had previously so obstinately declined to be 
 visible. I find it impossible to lay down general laws in 
 certain cases as to what colours and forms will go to- 
 gether, for sometimes every theory will be upset and a 
 whole room disorganised by a sudden mystery, which 
 one would fondly fancy a little study and thought might 
 easily solve. 
 
 For my own part I object to much symmetry in a 
 room, though I demand balance. I am distinctly 
 annoyed if, on finding a bust of Apollo in one corner, I 
 perceive its mate Diana in the opposite corner. Most 
 * pairs ' are difficult to dispose of They require tact to 
 escape insipidity — and Apollo in one corner should be 
 
SYMMETRY. 213 
 
 balanced by some completely different mass in the other 
 — a mass if possible on a higher or lower level, which 
 cannot associate itself in the mind as a match, yet which 
 really forms an exact balance by its value of colour or 
 by its size. The size may correspond in value too, even 
 if it occupy more space : the Balance may be right. 
 
 But here I shall not only have all the * Empire ' 
 admirers against me but the Georgian admirers too — for 
 they all fancy they belong to one faction — and the 
 ' Empire ' rooms, modelled partly on the Greek reaction, 
 partly on the poverty of the ruined noblesse^ and partly 
 on an austere mood, had very little furniture, and what 
 they had was arranged as symmetrically and as contrary 
 to the natural plan as could possibly be. Indeed, to 
 shift a chair or change your position was a crime in 
 the eyes of our strict great-grandmothers, as it was to 
 appear in the drawing-room without gloves, even in the 
 morning. They forgot Hogarth's ' line of beauty,' and 
 never looked at nature — it was the passion for geometric 
 figures foggily redivivus. 
 
 3ligl)t anti ^fjatie. 
 
 No article should be placed without a reason. Its colour 
 and quality, the way in which the light falls, the colour 
 thrown by the window or its blind, as well as the position 
 of the other objects must be considered. Objects in relief 
 must not be placed so as to face the light, and so lose 
 half their beauty ; they must be arranged where the light 
 will strike them from the side, and this will bring out the 
 most minute depressions and elevations. A pretty effect 
 
214 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 of light is worth half a dozen extra ornaments, and that 
 is why windows cut in unusual places are often so pretty 
 --there are surprises for the eye in store. Hidden lamps 
 are often most useful for the same reason. For what 
 were the use of a Titian in the dark, or of a jade bowl 
 so set against the light that it looked black, or some 
 rare cameo in coral laid against a pink surface, that de- 
 stroyed its colour and made it almost disappear } The 
 placing of objects betrays the taste (or the want of it) in 
 the owner of a room far more than the quantity of 
 precious things he ranges around it, or his reckless use 
 of them on his dinner-table. 
 
 Every object in the room should have its comfort 
 seen to, like a guest from whom you expect pleasure 
 and profit. After seeing to the light in its face, the back- 
 ground must be considered : every brightly-coloured 
 thing should stand against its complementary colour or 
 some colour which throws it up ; sometimes a paler or 
 darker shade of its own colour will do this better than a 
 complementary. Some peculiar reds and greens are a 
 good background for everything — china, pictures, prints, 
 books, and flowers — although neither dingy nor dark, 
 The greens are no doubt appropriated by Queen Annites ; 
 the reds are outside * the pale,' and perhaps none the 
 worse for that. 
 

 j 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ON WALLS. 
 
 €oIout of tl)e 33acft0rounti* 
 
 HE colour of the walls is so important an item 
 in the general good or bad impression of a 
 room, that no beauty of minor objects can 
 atone for a bad background ; but a good 
 wall-colour may redeem the minor objects, 
 
 The walls are a background not only to furniture 
 but to faces, not only to faces but to dresses, and they 
 ought to harmonise with the main pieces of furniture, 
 which themselves become part of the wall as they 
 modify the background. Walls should be bright with- 
 out vying with colours brought against thern, i.e. the 
 colours used must be toned down by the admixture of 
 umber or white with the pigments ; or they should be 
 dark, with an indistinct pattern which breaks up the 
 flatness of plain colours, and throws them back like dis- 
 tance. The colouring of the walls, whether on the whole 
 pale or dark, must never be cold, as no after-decorations 
 
2i6 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 check the gloom ; thus white or grey should never be 
 used unless flanked by a dado of warm hue, such as 
 polished oak panels, whose rich brown is easily relieved 
 by pictures, brasses or mirrors, or a stencilled dado 
 enclosing medallions or stripes, whose colours counteract 
 the chill above. Panelling of marquetry (always warm 
 in tone), or a simpler kind of inlaid wood, was sometimes 
 surmounted by a piece of white wall arched into a white 
 ceiling in old Dutch houses, but cream or some dull red 
 tint are better. Marble panels, polished like those which 
 lined the passage where the threatened Domitian paced, 
 hoping to catch the reflections of danger ere it reached 
 him, might be oftener used in wealthy houses. The 
 colours of marble mounted in white or black are too 
 lovely to be overlooked, and veneer is so easy that the 
 expense would hardly exceed many uglier wall-coverings. 
 The ancients veneered panels with lapis lazuli, malachite 
 and ivory. The Neapolitan Giovanni da Nola inserted 
 plaques of marbles among his lovely wood-reliefs in 
 furniture. What cannot money do joined to a little 
 taste and imagination ! but England possesses more 
 money than wits. 
 
 The possessors of fine embroideries and shawls like 
 Mr. Alfred Morrison may emulate him in framing them, 
 like pictures, on the walls. In this case a plain wall 
 beneath, of a colour which sets them off, is preferable 
 to an elaborate pattern which gets confused with them. 
 
 The same is true of pictures. But the frames of 
 pictures often form a destructive element in wall colour ; 
 they are too angular, they present too striking a mass of 
 glossy gold, and thus as often kill the picture as not. 
 Pictures ought to be used as panels more than they are ; 
 
COLOUR OF THE BACKGROUND. 217 
 
 a little lath or other simple moulding would easily cut 
 the wall into panels which fitted the frames, over which 
 the main colour in the wall itself should be carried. It 
 is a pity that the old silver frames have gone out, they 
 were in some places far more beautiful than gold. And 
 silver and gold together might be used with oak or 
 mahogany in a manner infinitely preferable to the 
 oblong and ill-fitting projections which pictures (till you 
 are close enough for scrutiny) in modern gold frames 
 usually are on a wall. An ugly gold frame, we must 
 remember, is as objectionable as any other ugly mass of 
 gilding ; and its being fastened to a picture, which we 
 will suppose is a work of thought and skill, is no excuse, 
 but a further condemnation. 
 
 For pictures, or other articles of vertu, a plain warm 
 colour, or one where the pattern is sufficiently indistinct, 
 is necessary. Blue, grey, and slate walls are always 
 unpleasant, because these colours are cold. I knew a 
 room painted slate-grey, which no gaiety of Algerine 
 curtains could dissever in the mind from the asphalte 
 walls of Newgate, which cheerful dwelling I once went 
 over. White walls I have so long denounced that I 
 need not here add venom to their death-blow — society 
 is rapidly giving them up. They greatly diminish the 
 size of the room, as a white ceiling diminishes its height. 
 They cast an unpleasant glare on all polished surfaces, 
 ruin pictures, and against such a background curves 
 must be exaggerated in order to ' tell' A dark wall 
 adds size, because the eye cannot exactly measure the 
 distance at which the wall stands ; whereas, in the case 
 of a white wall, the eye calculates it to an inch. Velvet 
 is one of the most beautiful coverings for a room ; it is 
 
2i8 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 SO fine a background in any soft colour, and with care 
 it may be kept very clean. It must not be brushed, 
 but wiped with a soft damp cloth, which brings off the 
 dust in little ribs. Dark amber, blue, or crimson is ex- 
 tremely rich, and, when carefully adapted, hardly dearer 
 than the costly papers which rich people buy. 
 
 Moreover, it can be taken down, and cleaned or re- 
 dyed, or replaced, as a costly paper cannot. This is 
 one of the advantages of tapestry which I have remarked 
 under the head of Curtains ; it is not only a beautiful 
 ornament, but so warm through its being loose, and the 
 layer of air between it and the wall becoming warmed, 
 that a tapestried room may be inhabited without a fire 
 sometimes more comfortably than a thin-walled, paper- 
 hung room witJi one. Of course I do not mean a long- 
 neglected old chamber, which has grown damp and musty 
 from want of use. All hangings will collect damp if 
 they are allowed to ; but tapestry well cared for, cleaned 
 occasionally with bread or benzole, and kept aired, is 
 not as musty as dirty paper ; no damper or dustier, or 
 fustier, or mustier than the carpet ; and is free from the 
 risks of arsenic, which analysts know occurs in all paper- 
 hangings, of whatever colour, which give off dust when 
 rubbed or crumpled. 
 
 The colouring of old Flemish tapestry is very fine, 
 and throws up everything placed against it. I think 
 pictures should not be hung against it, on the principle 
 that one picture should not be hung on another, not 
 because it would not set them off; though in the seven- 
 teenth century people were not so particular, but hung 
 their pictures over their tapestry as it pleased them. 
 
TAPESTRY. 219 
 
 Tapestry considered as furniture, both useful and 
 ornamental, might occupy a volume ; and those interested 
 in the progress of this beautiful art should study M. 
 Pinchard's long-promised work, or, in English, Jacque- 
 mart, or Mrs. Owen's ' Book of Needlework,' and then 
 compare some of the very early pieces in the South 
 Kensington Museum with the lovely breathing female 
 forms recently to be seen upon the Gobelin looms, which 
 have all the vigour of paintings, all the luminous trans^ 
 parency of flesh, which Rubens taught the world, and 
 the accurate drawing of strict academic study. 
 
 Many persons have a rooted aversion to tapestry 
 because, they say, it harbours dust and insects, and is 
 not as satisfactory in any way as paint or paper. As to 
 the dust and insects, such an objection might apply to 
 curtains, if they were left up long enough ; but tapestry 
 does not mean necessarily dirty tapestry, and it appears 
 to me that it is more satisfactory than paint because it 
 has a pictorial design, and than paper because it can be 
 removed and cleaned. There is no background better 
 than old tapestry, because the colours have grown dim 
 enough not be obtrusive. Early tapestry, like early 
 windows, was made in somewhat flat designs with a 
 strongly marked outline ; and this purely decorative 
 kind of treatment does not make an apparent breach in 
 the wall by confusing the perspective. Later tapestry, 
 such as that designed by and ' aftQr ' Rubens, aimed rather 
 at deceptions, which are far less satisfactory to the eye 
 
220 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 unless framed as an avowed picture, and when they 
 were new must have been far less beautiful than they 
 are now in faded age. The fashion has the prestige of 
 antiquity, for the origin of tapestry hangings in the 
 remote Eastern past is unknown ; and no one who has 
 used it can deny that it gives great warmth to a room, 
 not only by covering draughty chinks, but by creating a 
 space of warmed air between itself and the wall. This 
 is on the principle of several thin garments being warmer 
 than a single very thick one — even though the latter be 
 thicker than the three combined — because of the inter- 
 vening layers of warmed air. 
 
 Through all the changes which visited our walls up 
 to the production of wall-papers, tapestry lived and im- 
 proved ; the monkish artists first designed for tapestry, 
 among them cruel Dunstan himself. They probably 
 actually wove it. Raphael and his pupils were not above 
 drawing the great cartoons now in the South Kensington 
 Museum, and many sixteenth century and seventeenth 
 century designs — nay, many 300 years earlier, like those 
 matchless feats of the loom at Berne, and the fine pieces at 
 Chartres — were ambitious enough. Battles, processions, 
 hunts, feasts — the subjects had no end, and were perhaps 
 the largest and most important artistic productions till 
 canvas superseded panels for pictures. 
 
 There were great tapestry manufactories in Flanders, 
 France, Italy, and England from very early times. Those 
 in France date back to 1025, when a manufactory was 
 working at Poitiers, and in the eleventh century Scandi- 
 navian tapestries are spoken of. All these were probably 
 a kind of embroidery like Saracenic tapestry ; it was 
 
TAPESTRY. 221 
 
 called wak-hrcBgelj wall coverings. The Bayeux piece is 
 all we have left of it. Towards the close of the twelfth 
 century Flanders began to use low-warp and high-warp 
 looms, and there may have been English factories as 
 early. Sir Francis Crane owned one at Mortlake, temp. 
 James I., of which Francis de Cleyn was master ; some 
 of his paintings resembled Parmegiano's, and Gibson, the 
 dwarf painter, was one of his pupils. Rubens sketched 
 cartoons in Charles I.'s reign for this manufactory ; but 
 in Charles I I.'s reign, after Crane's death, it declined, 
 perhaps because leather and velvet were rather less 
 costly. Henri IV. and Louis XIV. greatly encouraged 
 the tapestry works ; and pieces are spoken of 1 20 ells 
 long. In Florence we see magnificent pieces worked 
 with gold and gems, as pictures designed by the old 
 masters may well be ! 
 
 Tapestry should be more sedulously collected and 
 preserved than it is. It cost vast sums to make ; it 
 decreases by natural accidents every year ; yet it is 
 often finer in decay than when the threads were fresh, 
 and possibly a little over-bright, for the true purpose of 
 walls — a background. If dirty, it should be cleaned 
 with care, and in any case mounted properly with the 
 town-mark and the signature visible. 
 
 The most beautiful rooms are usually dark in colour, 
 with large windows through which plenteous sunlight 
 streams. For these tapestry is eminently proper. The 
 fashionable Empire rooms with small windows, which 
 the straw-colour walls hardly atone for, would not be 
 suitable. 
 
222 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 aBmfiroilictcti tBaHI^* 
 
 The good old English fashion of embroidery, so 
 fashionable now, ought to inspire artistic idlers to feats of 
 skill. We were ahead of France and Italy in this skill 
 with the needle when we were ahead in nothing else. 
 In the sixth and seventh centuries we had schools of 
 art-embroidery. Near Ely an Anglo-Saxon lady had 
 established a number of young girls, who wofked with 
 her for the benefit of the monastery ; and also in the 
 seventh century St. Ethelreda, virgin and queen, and 
 first Abbess of Ely, presented to St. Cuthbert a stole and 
 a maniple which she had marvellously embroidered. An 
 anecdote f elated by Matthew of Paris, 1246, shows us 
 that the standard of this English work was maintained. 
 * About the same time the Lord Pope, having observed 
 that the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, 
 such as the choristers' capes and the mitres, were embroi- 
 dered in gold thread in a very desirable fashion, asked 
 where those works were made, and received answer, in 
 England. Then said the Pope : " England is verily a 
 garden of delights for us. It is truly a never-failing 
 spring, and there where many things abound, much may 
 be extorted." * Accordingly the same Lord Pope lost 
 very little time in demanding in the name of Holy 
 Church those embroideries in gold which he preferred to 
 all others, by sacred and sealed briefs, a demand which 
 agreed very well with those London merchants who 
 traded in this work. 
 
 Panels down the whole wall, or small panels let into 
 
EMBROIDERED WALLS. 223 
 
 frames, of embroidery on velvet, in either silk or wool, 
 would be a really beautiful ornament and occupation. 
 Gradually the furniture might match the walls in soft, 
 conventional designs — why not the ceiling too ? A pale- 
 blue satin ceiling, a maroon wall, with chairs and table- 
 covers corresponding with such tints as were introduced 
 on the panels, would be * high art ' without reproach, and 
 the wooden frames of the panels might be fastened at 
 their crossing by a small painted architectural rose. It 
 could be removed bodily on changing residence. 
 
 I suggest, however, a stronger twisted silk in pre- 
 ference to the art-school floss, for the purpose of satis- 
 factory wear, to repay the labour given. 
 
 Steatljet. 
 
 Cordovan leather^ like some of the old Norwich 
 leather, is a fine background, but difficult to obtain. 
 Many old families have rolls of it rotting in their lofts 
 and lumber-rooms in a style which makes a penniless 
 collector's blood boil. These old leathers look well set 
 in large or small panels. What leather can attain to in 
 colour and design I have shown in * a Louis XIV. Room ;' 
 let me beg the aroused possessors of old pieces to have 
 them properly repaired, oiled out, and mounted by firms 
 who will not tamper with them or repaint the surface. 
 I have seen screens of old leather entirely painted over, 
 in curiosity-shops, in colours which set one's teeth on 
 edge, and with a delicacy and precision of hand worthy 
 an elephant with a paint-brush tied to his hind-leg, and 
 trained at Henglers. This is barbarity nearly as 
 
224 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 grievous as 'restoring' the pictures of the old masters, 
 and every artist knows what that means. 
 
 Of course with walls so rich and sombre as those 
 covered with sixteenth-century leather, the ceiling 
 should be rich as well, otherwise the contrast will be too 
 strong. 
 
 It is rather depressing to know that the beautiful 
 peacock-room painted by Mr. J. M. Whistler for Mr. 
 Leyland was worked upon a fine collection of old 
 Norwich leather, which, however * ugly ' in some eyes, 
 was undoubtedly too precious to be thus destroyed. 
 
 Leather was at one time used as carpets. The 
 inventories of the Duke of Burgundy and Isabeau de 
 Bavaria included ' leathers for laying down in the rooms 
 in summer time' (1416). The Cluny Museum contains 
 some fine painted leather panels taken from an old 
 house in Rouen, representing Rome seated and bearing 
 Victory, and other Roman subjects. The cost was very 
 great on account of the skill required in working. An 
 entry from the Royal accounts of Charles VI 1 1, is 
 curious : * 1496. To Jehan Garnier, saddler, residing at 
 Tours, the sum of 4 livres 1 5 sous Tournoys, granted to 
 him for a large white ox-skin delivered and consigned by 
 him to a painter whom the King had sent for from Italy, 
 whom the said lady (the Queen) had ordered to make 
 and paint the hangings of her bed — iiij. liv. xv. S.' 
 
 Many of the old houses of Georg-e III.'s time still 
 wear the silken hangings put up when the houses were 
 
SILK. 225 
 
 built or modernised, in his time, such hangings rele- 
 gating the old leather to perdition. Sky-blue silk or 
 satin, or rose-pink, which has now faded to a beautiful 
 silver grey, or pale green which goes admirably with old 
 Sevres or old Dresden china, and a little gold and silver 
 varied in colour, as was fashionable, by the gold leaf b ing 
 laid on a light impression of green, vermilion, &c., an 
 effect we see so much of in the Palace of Fontainebleau. 
 
 What paper would have lasted as long as that old 
 wall-silk, looking well to the last worn thread ? What 
 modern silks, too, would last as that did on chairs and 
 couches, and only fray a little at the edge ? 
 
 Modern French connoisseurs line walls and ceiling 
 alike with silk or satin, the doors protected by closing 
 portihes of the same. Victor Hugo's charming rooms 
 are thus covered, like a magnified bonbonnikre in which 
 wa are the bonbons. If materials are used for walls, 
 they may be either hung flat or in folds ; festooned, or 
 even plaited like a vallance, and supported on nails or a 
 rod and rings. If they are hung flat they usually re- 
 quire some kind of panel or framework to fix the edges, 
 but they could never be too firmly fixed to admit of 
 removal. 
 
 Figured poplin would look very rich, and would wear 
 very well, if procured genuine from a respectable Irish 
 firm. 
 
 Of papers, those which emulate tapestry in a certain 
 harmonious tone of broken colour are the best. Many 
 
 Q 
 
226 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 of Morris's papers, copied from old eighteenth-century 
 ones, themselves copied from damask and leather pat- 
 terns, are very good. The well-known grey pomegranate 
 is really very fine indeed. A certain dark-red poppy- 
 pattern, wherein the flowers mingle dimly with a little 
 gold, like sun rays in water (procurable at Elliott's, Vere 
 Street), has a very good effect, and throws up pictures 
 and china well. No paper should have a very pro- 
 nounced and distinct pattern, as that diminishes the 
 apparent size of the room by bringing the walls near to 
 the eye. Remember the feverish creations in paper 
 temp. Queen Anne ! Indistinctness, like darkness, 
 or like distance, throws them back. Jeffreys, Isling- 
 ton, whose place is worth a visit, has brought out 
 some very fine wall-papers, some of them designed by 
 Walter Crane in fine Renascence and original patterns. 
 The peacock frieze may be cited, and the imitations of 
 sixteenth-century leathers, and bronze and marble bas- 
 reliefs for friezes and panels, &c. ; many of them are 
 suitable for ceilings, especially the wild roses, on gold or 
 silver grounds. 
 
 Red of a bright soft tone is an admirable background 
 — a tone much lighter than maroon, not unlike a very 
 deep salmon colour. It is made of Venetian red mixed 
 with white. Woollams and Co. sell it in a plain, unglazed 
 paper, and nothing can be nicer, especially for a large and 
 rather dark room that needs brightening up. It is also 
 good for staircases, and old carved frames are charming 
 on such a wall, to say nothing of old pictures. 
 
 Pale pink for walls — the common ideal of a juvenile 
 bride — used to be thought ' becoming ' by lending a re- 
 
PAPER. 227 
 
 fleeted flush to the complexion. I do not, however, 
 think it has that merit, and dark furniture looks as ill 
 against pale pink as against white and gold. In a room 
 as light-coloured as that, all the woodwork — say frames 
 of chairs, &c. — should be pale, as in Louis XIV. and 
 Louis XV. furniture, with delicate gilt mouldings and 
 faint satins, to be as little obtrusive as possible. 
 
 Painted or distempered and stencilled walls are not 
 sufficiently in use in England. They are clean, and do 
 not, or need not, cost as much as many a dear paper. 
 In old Italian bedrooms one finds the wall invariably 
 painted and roughly stencilled in patterns on the stucco. 
 In old England, of course, a painted wall was the com- 
 monest, either plain, or worked into pictures and frescoes 
 of quaint beauty — the ' storied walls ' which suggested 
 conversation, pointed a joke, and pleased and instructed 
 rich and poor, grown-ups and children. 
 
 One simple old pattern, imitative of cloth hangings, 
 is always effective. A precept in the twentieth year of 
 Henry III. ordained that ' the king's great chamber at 
 Westminster be painted a green colour like a curtain, 
 that in the great gable or frontispiece of the said cham- 
 ber a French inscription should be painted, and that the 
 king's little wardrobe should be painted of a green colour 
 to imitate a curtain : ' whilst the queen's chamber was 
 covered with historical paintings. Panelling was then 
 in use, and Henry III. ordered that his queen's bedroom 
 * should be freshly wainscotted and lined, and that a list 
 
 Q2 
 
228 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 or border should be made, well painted with images of 
 our Lord and angels, with incense-pots scattered over 
 it/ &c. — this was on a special occasion of festivity. 
 William the Florentine and John of St. Omer were 
 artists brought by him to England ; these are among 
 the first names of decorators preserved in our records. 
 Good washable paint is the cleanest and healthiest of 
 coverings for walls. 
 
 Distemper is so cheap, while it is as satisfactory in 
 effect as flatted paint, that people really might indulge 
 oftener in the luxury of a clean coat for their rooms. 
 The dirtiness of fashionable houses in London, in spite 
 of the efforts of the best servants (though some I fancy 
 count on the ladies doing their work for them), is really 
 distressing to those who are particular, or used to the 
 country. The fires, the outdoor traffic, the gas, make 
 the duster unequal to cope with the enemy. Dirt, who 
 clings to the walls, doors, sofa-tops and chair seats, as 
 well as — oh, horror ! — the corners of stairs and passages, 
 especially in dwellings where the mistress is elderly or 
 shortsighted. And as most rooms can be re-decorated 
 within a week if several workmen are employed, hostesses 
 ought really to regard the cost they inflict on guests who 
 come in clean gowns and go home with the trains soiled 
 all round ; and have their rooms swept properly every 
 day, and re-coloured (at least the lower part) every other 
 year. Cleanliness is one of the most becoming of orna- 
 ments. 
 
MIRRORING. 229 
 
 If a room is over-narrow one way, it is curious how 
 much the offending wall may be thrown back by Httle 
 panels of looking-glass united by an oak or ebonised 
 moulding. They look well about fifteen inches by ten 
 in size ; the effect of a new room with a kind of trellis 
 partition is then obtained, often quite deceptive, and if 
 the room be rather dark and the glass panels face the 
 window, they act as powerfully as reflectors in illuminat- 
 ing the room. These little panels may be of plain or 
 bevelled glass ; the moulding should be broad enough to 
 give the impression of sufficient strength for a trellis — 
 say two and a half inches wide. Walls of mirroring 
 were fashionable in the seventeenth century, but the 
 mirrors were richly painted, as I shall later show. Ceil- 
 ings of mirrorings were also made to tally with the 
 walls, and they are, of course, a kind of wall. 
 
 Ceiling^* 
 
 The wondrous ceilings of old Rome, mentioned by 
 Seneca, made so as to revolve and show changing colours 
 and decorations, as well as to admit acrobats and other 
 dining-room diversions, are hardly likely to be revived in 
 prosaic England, even in such mechanical days as ours. 
 We do not propose to launch out into fanciful descrip- 
 tions, or recommend their being again 'pegmata per se 
 surgentia et tabulata tacite in sublime crescentia,' for 
 people commonly have to be content with ceilings as 
 
230 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 they are, at least as to the fabric. Tenants seldom 
 build their own houses, and are usually averse to spend- 
 ing too much money on a building they only possess on 
 lease. 
 
 But we might make something better than we ever 
 do of our ceilings. Paint is not too expensive to obtain, 
 if it gives pleasure for five, ten, or twenty years to the 
 ow^ners ; and as a well- painted ceiling lasts extremely 
 well and gives a tone to the room which no other decora- 
 tion does, I may offer a few hints on the subject. 
 
 Ceilings should always be coloured ; for a darkish 
 ceiling throws no cold reflections down, and materially 
 heightens the room. The old Georgian ceilings of deli- 
 cately moulded plaster used to be whitened : but this 
 was part of the general fashion of bare material which 
 came in with the Renascence, because the antique carv- 
 ing and stucco reliefs w^ere often found bare ; but the 
 classics, and the mediaeval artists in their best time, not 
 only knew but never disregarded the importance of 
 colour. And such Georgian ceilings are better, even 
 when tinted in a few faint colours, than left white, 
 though outstanding ornament, happily, always itself 
 forms variations in tints by natural shadows. 
 
 Those who have seen the magnificent ceilings in 
 Venetian palaces must admit that although they would 
 be too heavy and oppressive for a small drawing-room, 
 it is more comfortable to see something pretty when we 
 look up than a blank surface of whitey-grey paint. They 
 are mostly formed on the simplest art-principles, cross 
 beams which support the roof, and which naturally form 
 panels that ask for decoration. 
 
CEILINGS. 231 
 
 These panels once formed, any amount of ideas occur 
 to us. The beams must be carved, then painted, then 
 gilt in charming contrasts of colour ; the intervening 
 spaces may be treated in plain colour, or dotted with 
 bosses more or less elegant, or filled with pictures of 
 suitable subjects. This form of ceiling appears to me 
 the most beautiful, and capable of the most delicious 
 variations. 
 
 The fashion of treating the ceiling as an open roof, 
 and painting it with clouds, inhabited by the heathen 
 divinities either foreshortened in mid-air or treated in the 
 flat, is one which I feel is false in taste ; but we have all 
 seen ceilings so splendidly painted that one forgets to 
 criticise. Raphael, Michael Angelo, and their successors 
 decorated ceilings of this kind still visible in Rome. 
 
 These are chiefly suited to banquet-halls and ball- 
 rooms ; but a small portion of the ceiling painted like 
 the sky with a few swallows is far from displeasing in a 
 summer drawing-room. It ought, however, to be painted 
 by Italians used to this kind of work, or under the super- 
 vision of an artist of calibre ; otherwise the birds will 
 have impossible wmgs, will stick to the ' ground ' and 
 not * move ' a hair's breadth. 
 
 People seldom notice ceilings now ; they are so used 
 to find nothing there to see ; yet this expanse of surface 
 should never be neglected by the decorator. The 
 colour of walls demands carrying out above. In modern 
 ' Empire-Anne ' rooms the division of the ceiling into 
 compartments by laths laid across has become common, 
 and this is no doubt a step in progress, only the white- 
 ness remains distressing, and the uniformity of the 
 
232 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 parallelograms, echoing the window-panes, creates no 
 fresh interest. If the laths were left brown, and the 
 spaces intervening bore a simple architectural ' rose ' 
 projecting, or simply painted in a few colours, the eye 
 would be refreshed. Coats of arms at once occur as a 
 suitable decoration either for the ceiling-panels or for the 
 point where the laths cross ; they can be brilliantly 
 coloured without being obtrusive, because all colours are 
 darkened by shadow at that elevation. 
 
 The ancient decorations of the ceiling of St. Albans 
 Cathedral are painted very roughly on laths in colours, 
 brown predominating. Such decorations might easily be 
 done by idle sons and daughters, or would make a 
 capital subject for a * Bee.' A ceiling-bee would be more 
 to the purpose than a spelling-bee, as the aim would be 
 the accomplishment of a common object, instead of a 
 few outwitting and bewildering the rest. 
 
 The Italians have a knack of so colouring flat ceihngs 
 as to look like domes : a very ingenious effect requiring 
 the nicest calculation of distances ; there is one in the 
 museum at Milan which is painted in browns and greys 
 which, whatever our opinion of the taste, must be con- 
 fessed successful. 
 
 In Belgium I saw a ceiling closely covered with 
 small oriental blue saucers, which formed a quaint raised 
 pattern pleasing in itself ; but as soon as we realised 
 that they were saucers we could never be persuaded of 
 their safety, and a vague anxiety pervaded our move- 
 ments beneath that ceiling ever after. Anxiety of the 
 kind is incompatible with good taste. 
 
 The French palaces which contain fine ceilings are 
 
CEILINGS. 233 
 
 numerous. Artists of the first rank have always designed 
 or actually painted such ceilings, which offer good oppor- 
 tunities for studies in folds and foreshortening. But a 
 ceiling must be adapted to the room it crowns, and to 
 the height at which it stands. A very obtrusive ceiling 
 in a low-pitched room would seem to be coming down 
 on our heads, you cannot forget it ; in a very lofty room 
 the ceiling cannot be too obtrusive, and in some modern 
 rooms, quite like wells in their exaggerated height, we 
 long for some ceiling that will assert its existence. 
 
 A plain ultramarine ceiling dotted with gold stars is 
 sometimes very agreeable ; but the stars must be very 
 small; and smaller towards the centre than towards the 
 sides. Of course they must be scattered at irregular 
 intervals. A blue ceiling painted with a conventional 
 cloud-border in a much paler blue is pretty also ; and 
 when blue is not liked in other parts of the room, the 
 mass above carries out the right proportions in the least 
 obtrusive manner. For instance, given a room furnished 
 with various reds, a considerable share of amber and 
 yellow, softened together with spaces of Spanish leather, 
 which, though including many colours, tells brown : — it 
 would be difficult here to check 'five red and three 
 yellow,' with * eight blue,' ordained of the orthodox 
 colour mauve, unless the blue were on the ceiling ; but 
 in this elevated place the colour is sufficiently visible to 
 satisfy the eye, without breaking up the scheme of colour 
 below which might be a little * hot ' were blue wholly 
 excluded. 
 
 The frieze should always connect the walls and ceil- 
 ing by rounding off the angle, and should contain the 
 
234 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 main colours of both either pure or in combination : e.g., 
 a Venetian-red wall and an olive-green ceiling may have 
 a frieze of orange containing these reds and greens, the 
 green nearest the red, the red nearest the green ; or, the 
 frieze should partake noticeably of the tertiary citrine 
 which is formed by the admixture of orange and green 
 (see Diagram, page 12). Those who do not know what 
 olive-green is may look at an olive, 
 
 A plain red ceiling sometimes has the happiest effect. 
 It requires carrying out by red in the furniture. A gold 
 ceiling contrasts beautifully with almost any coloured 
 wall, and does not bring the roof down. Paper is less 
 expensive than gold-leaf, and lasts better than one 
 would expect. I have tried it with a purple wall, bring- 
 ing the gold a foot down, like a frieze. Mr. Alma 
 Tadema has tried it with the upper half of the wall gold 
 also, and the effect is admirable. Some of Cottier's 
 ceilings are very fine. 
 
 As hardly anything lasts worse than a white or cream 
 ceiling, the additional expense of the first outlay is not 
 lost in making the ceiling a work of art ; and if gas be 
 not used, such ^ ceiling will last a very long time, all the 
 colours toning down equally and unnoticeably. The 
 improvement to a room will never be disregarded by 
 those who have once tried the experiment. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON WINDOWS, 
 
 transparent JBallS* 
 
 HE windows offer a large and attractive field 
 for decoration, so attractive and so useful that 
 nothing but ignorance of the capacities of 
 glass can be our excuse for overlooking it. 
 It seems singular that at a time when art was still in 
 the cradle, that branch of its development which culmi- 
 nates in painted glass should have been most encouraged, 
 most advanced, and most popular. Giotto had scarcely 
 breathed ; Cimabue was discovering the laws of painting 
 which gave permanent life to wood and stone ; but 
 many artists only a little inferior were combining colours 
 in glass which we still admire and copy. 
 
 The reason of this is I think clear. When a wall is 
 heavily decorated, as the walls in * houses of worship ' 
 were from very early times, the blank left by a window — 
 and windows must be admitted — is at once felt, like a 
 shock to the eye. The more rich and intricate the 
 
236 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 colouring of the wall, the more the blank is felt, and the 
 early windows which were only protected by a curtain 
 or a shutter, before glass was invented, were probably 
 an eye-sore to the eager decorators as well as a punish- 
 ment to the shivering inhabitants. As soon as they 
 devised a shield which did not exclude light they began 
 to decorate it. The Romans used a transparent stone, 
 lapis spccidaris (mica ?) and horn in the second century. 
 The Moors and Persians used delicate wood-tracery in 
 their windows even without glass, because the eye de- 
 manded it as much as to create shade — in fact a transpa- 
 rent shutter. The Chinese devised a thin stuff glazed 
 with varnish or lac, polished oyster shells, and horn. In 
 Gothic architectuie, when the walls are incrusted with 
 carving, a sudden break in the ornament, which would 
 be caused by a plain cut window, would be, I think, dis- 
 tressing, as is a hard, unsoftened edge in a picture ; the 
 shock is lessened by the internal arches being splayed 
 off, and decorated with shafts and arch-mouldings 
 running into elaborate patterns, these enclosing glass. 
 Thus the windows in Gothic architecture are carefully 
 planned, both in form and in colour, to vary the scheme 
 of ornament on the wall without too sudden a jar. They 
 were actually transparent walls. 
 
 If they so calculated their framework, it is imme- 
 diately clear how their eye would have resented a vast 
 window of plate-glass, rectangular, colourless, like a 
 breach in the wall. It is natural that coloured glass 
 should have been employed both to carry out the ad- 
 jacent colours and to utilise new spaces for the restless 
 imagination, more especially as coloured glass existed 
 
TRANSPARENT WALLS. 237 
 
 before transparent white. I have before alluded to the 
 importance of decoration when books were scarce and 
 knowledge scarcer. A window which could admit light 
 by which to better view the richness within, and mean- 
 time offer its own bright story or sermon — what a thrice 
 welcome invention ! How we can comprehend the labour 
 and cost spent on so valuable an addition ! As architec- 
 ture advanced, the brilliancy and size of the windows 
 advanced with it, till we arrive at such masterpieces (# ^^^^^ 
 knowledge, fancy, and technical skill as the wfndo-ws ih ^'^^^ 
 Rheims Cathedral. l U a/' T rrU^^ 
 
 Of course the use of coloured glass in mosaic is very old. 
 The walls of Theodoric's palace at Rome were brilliant 
 with pictures whose shining fragments still strew the waste 
 ground, and from such use of glass the step to transpa- 
 rent mosaics in casements is not great. The first authors 
 who speak of glass windows are St. J erome and Gregory 
 of Tours, who lived towards the end of the fourth cen- 
 tury. St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, filled the vacant 
 windows of the cathedral with glass about 669 ; in 
 674 Abbot Benedict Biscop brought artists from France 
 to glaze those of the Abbey of Weremouth ; and in 
 979 there were Venetian workmen, settled at Limoges, 
 who drew from Byzantine traditions their skill in colour- 
 ing glass. Glass mosaics may even have served as 
 models for early glass paintings. About the end of the 
 twelfth century coloured windows came into common 
 use in churches, with the introduction of the pointed 
 
i>38 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 arch, and abolished the old tapestry curtain. These 
 windows represented geometric patterns, or pictures, as 
 desired : in the latter the figures were made of small 
 pieces of self-coloured glass skilfully joined by leaden 
 seams, but the faces were painted in enamel colours, 
 and burnt in. 
 
 The first thing that strikes the eye in the windows 
 of the best period of coloured glass (1200-1500) is, that 
 the pieces of glass are so arranged and distributed as to 
 form a kind of general brilliant mosaic of broken colour, 
 which delights the eye from afar as a sunset does, the 
 colours harmonising and playing into the perfect whole. 
 This mosaic-look at once suggests the origin, wall- 
 mosaics : it is so pronounced as to be almost confusing in 
 very old windows ; but as the art advanced there was no 
 change in the scheme, though better drawing and better 
 colours were introduced ; the entii-e field was well and 
 equally covered, and at a little distance no pattern was 
 discernible to mislead or at once content the eye. On a 
 nearer approach the patches of broken colour separate 
 into subjects of increasing interest and charm, each little 
 picture framed in stone-tracery distinct and well-con- 
 trasted, yet all the subjects being about equal in value 
 of colour. The Bible heroes and angels are clearly 
 defined, treated with a simplicity often amusing. If you 
 climb up close to the window, or reach it by walking 
 along the clerestory — as how many a poor man, or un- 
 lettered noble, m.ust have done listening to the good 
 priest's exposition of the looming meanings !— more and 
 more details appear : minute figures start into being ; 
 every bit of colour falls into robe or crown or wing, and 
 
MEDIEVAL PAINTED GLASS. 239 
 
 is doubly accounted for ; delicate borderings, naive 
 details over and above the mere visibility of the subject 
 startle us into fresh admiration and surprise. A strong 
 opera-glass shows this without the trouble of ascent. 
 Yet on dropping the glass, and moving far away again, 
 the soft, shapeless, but beautiful mosaic melts into sun- 
 rise or sunset) or dusky colour once more — an indistin- 
 guishable whole. Thus the old windows offer three 
 points of view in which to be thrice admired. 
 
 Some people fancy that this is owing only to the de- 
 fective knowledge and skill of the old artists ; but it seems 
 probable that on the contrary the glass-paintefs knew 
 and felt the double interest attaching to colour /^rj"^ and 
 colour as the vehicle of thought, and succeeded in giving 
 both in their treatment of window-decoration. The diffi- 
 culty of fusing large sheets of glass in old times may have 
 partly accounted foi the absence of large masses of plain 
 colour ; still they must have known (as we know directly 
 we try the experiment) that small pieces of glass can be 
 arranged in a far more interesting and surprising man- 
 ner than large sheets. Even latticed windows are more 
 beautiful than big panes, because the pattern of the 
 leading carries decoration into a place where we moderns 
 admit none. The coloured cathedral windows are often 
 masterpieces of art-ingenuity which, without greatly 
 excluding light, invest the whole gorgeous fabric of 
 Gothic architecture with a ' dim religious ' charm, no 
 doubt indispensable to harmony when the cathedrals 
 were new, and internally coloured throughout as richly 
 as the Alhambra itself ; but even now, in their semi- 
 whitewashed condition of renovated old age, the old 
 
240 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 windows remain the one link of living colour that revives 
 the keynote of the whole. 
 
 Si^Dticrn ^aintcti a3Ia^^» 
 
 Now that we have unlimited command of knowledge 
 and methods, we find that the treatment of windows as 
 oil-paintings, with rounded figures and apparent pro- 
 minences, is false in motive and bad in effect, and we 
 are forced to go back to the early masters for hmts 
 whenever we wish to succeed. We find that small 
 pieces of glass, or a general treatment of a similar effect 
 to that of small pieces of glass, are necessary to give 
 that repose in mere colour which the old windows pre- 
 sent w^hen viewed from a distance. A transparent 
 picture, equally visible far or near, wearies ; it also 
 diminishes the apparent size of the building, as a too 
 conspicuous wall-paper does ; and drawing the eye 
 from details of sculpture near it, which ought to be just 
 equally visible, no more, no less, destroys the unity of 
 the ensemble. We are driven back to the old manner of 
 trebling pleasure by interesting the eye from three points 
 — distance, in mere colour ; propinquity, in colour rang- 
 ing itself into subjects and devices ; close scrutiny, with 
 a field-glass, in minute, unending detail of tender and 
 quaint handwork. 
 
 The costly Munich windows in Peter House, Cam- 
 bridge, are an instance of the worst blunders in window 
 decorating ; they create a breach in the wall, and the 
 treatment is too finikin to excuse the faults in style. 
 
 Burne Jones's lovely window in Christ Church, Oxford, 
 
MODERN PAINTED GLASS. 241 
 
 and some of his in St. Peter's and Jesus Chapels, Cam- 
 bridge, are instances of modern glass treated in the spirit 
 of the old glass ; it is somewhat ' flat,' and the figures con- 
 ventional, but the colour and the treatment are most 
 poetic and sweet. Much of Cottier's glass is extremely 
 fine both in design and colour ; Powell has six windows 
 in St. James's Church, Marylebone, of considerable and 
 quite peculiar beauty ; nor must we omit to note as good 
 windows some in Ely Cathedral, by Clayton and Bell, 
 Luchon, and Wales of Newcastle. 
 
 At the same time much of the finest sixteenth- 
 century glass is far from ' flat,' without being exactly 
 shaded into roundness like modern Munich glass, 
 than which, generally speaking, nothing can be more 
 tasteless and ill drawn. The broad shadows dear to 
 Renascence artists are brought in by dark masses of 
 colour, but so skilfully that the eye is not annoyed by 
 false appearance, and bold as the treatment is, the 
 mosaic-look and broken colour are present when we 
 gaze from a distance. Probably their recognition of the 
 merits of this distant effect was the cause of their pre- 
 ference, as a rule, for small pictures instead of large and 
 conspicuous figures. 
 
 Among the honourable names of glass-painters are 
 those of Albert Durer, Franz Floris, called the Flemish 
 Raphael, Domenico Pecori, Bernard de Palissy. Van Dyck 
 (father of the painter), Gerard Douw, Dardennes de Char- 
 tres, who has left lovely work at Rouen, R. van der Weyde, 
 Dirck and Wouter Crabeth, Henry Gyles of York, 
 Michael Coxcie, Raphael's pupil, Jean Cousin, Lambert 
 Lombard, who painted the beauteous windows in Lich- 
 
 R 
 
242 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 field Cathedral, which are among the finest existing of 
 the Flemish Italian school, and many more. 
 
 Colourcti it5int!oto.£f at ]^omc» 
 
 In England, where so much of life is of necessity 
 passed indoors ; in London and all large towns, where the 
 outlook is so uninteresting or so ugly as to be commonly 
 outside the question of taste — why do we use so little 
 painted glass ? Why have we not fair pictures to look 
 at, stories written in light and colour, to give the in- 
 mates some more pleasurable ideas than black chimney 
 pots or wet slates ? In early England coloured glass 
 was the most beautiful ornament they could devise for 
 their windows, the crown of their superb architectural 
 effects ; it was too costly for any but princes and the 
 Church, and in the Church it survives to show us what 
 they meant by it — but it had no exclusively religious 
 significance, it was associated only with beauty and 
 wealth. In ' Chaucer's Dream ' we read of 
 
 A chamber peynt 
 Ful of stories olde and diverse ; 
 
 and of the fair bird which, in its fear of the aged knight, 
 took wing, missed the opening, 
 
 That backeward downe he fel 
 From a window richely peynte 
 With lives of many divers seynte, 
 
 and broke the window. And Chaucer speaks of an Isle 
 
 Where wal and gate was al of glasse. 
 
 That the beauteous carvings aboun^ling in the archi- 
 
COLOURED WINDOWS AT HOME. 243 
 
 tecture of the fourteenth century were coloured to 
 imitate nature, Chaucer's words may again be quoted to 
 prove ; likewise the decorative ' conceits/ as bird-shaped 
 weathercocks, which with beaks open ' against the air ' 
 produced a sound like birds singing. 
 
 For every yate, ' of fine gold, 
 A thousand fane?, ay turning 
 Entuned had, and briddes- singing 
 Diverse : and on ecVe^ fane a paire 
 With open mouthe, again the aire. 
 And of a sute^ were alle the floures, 
 Of uncouth^ colours, during ay. 
 That never bene none^ s-'ne in May. 
 
 Alas, May's colours do not ' dure ' for aye. Stephen 
 Hawes also describes this use of fanes — 
 
 Aloft^ the toures the golden fanes goode 
 Dyde** with the wynde make ful sweete armony. 
 
 It is quite certain that colour and glitter were sought 
 by all who could afford it, and it was afforded by the 
 Church in honour of God, as it was by the wealthier 
 citizen in honour of himself. Why have we, rich or no, 
 forgotten the charms of colour, and especially translucent 
 colour, and banished it from our home surroundings .-* 
 Why does the careless eye admit the most glowing tints 
 on sofa and chair seats without feeling the want of it on 
 our blank spaces of cold wall, and, above all, in our vast 
 vacant windows ? 
 
 Because, most persons will say, painted glass excludes 
 the light, and all light that can be got is indispensable 
 
 • Gate. * Birds. ^ Each. * Suit. * Strange, foreign. 
 
 * Such as are never. ' Above. ' Did. 
 
 F 2 
 
244 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 in a London street. This objection does not apply to 
 the many country-houses where coloured windows would 
 be a vast improvement, but it is certainly true of many 
 town-streets. It is, however, answered by the fact that 
 much of the good modern glass, such as the pale diaper- 
 patterned kind provided by Clayton and Bell, Morris, 
 and Powell— and providable by any intelligent glass 
 manufacturer — does not exclude light. In certain posi- 
 tions it occasionally even adds light, owing to the refrac- 
 tive property of uneven surfaces. It is not as interesting, 
 of course, as glass artistically painted in subjects, but it 
 is very useful as a screen, and often an ornament of con- 
 siderable beauty. 
 
 3Emateui: oEffort^* 
 
 But the windows are a legitimate field for the exercise 
 of original taste — not only the frames and sashes, which 
 may be regarded as distinct from the panels or shutters 
 — but even those broad white panes which we dare not 
 always get rid of even when we have begun to dislike 
 them, and to realise that there is absolutely no * view! 
 If you have not the surplus daylight to be able to venture 
 upon heavy, deep-tinted Titianesque subjects, the plain 
 broad panes of plate-glass may be simply, and as scan- 
 tily as you please, outlined in yellow, brown, or any 
 colour, in slight subjects which are better than nothing, 
 and which would not interfere with the rare impulse to 
 look out of the window. People indeed do not look out 
 of windows greatly in London, the reason being obvious ; 
 but, at any rate, with windows so sHghtly decorated we 
 
AMATEUR EFFORTS. 245 
 
 could afford a passing glance, however busy within, at 
 Enid riding before her lord — or Autumn scattering the 
 leaves of Summer — or simple blades of grass and 
 butterflies dancing on the vacant pane ; and when we 
 hurried perchance to the window to follow the motive of 
 some casual street fray, or to watch a funeral procession, 
 or a drove of sickly cattle, or to satisfy impatient curio- 
 sity as to what visitor is on the doorstep, or what cats 
 are on the leads, or whatever induces people to look 
 out of the window in London — these slender outlines of 
 Enid, or Autumn, or grass blades would not shut out 
 one spicy detail in the external world. 
 
 This mode of decoration would, I think, have the 
 additional merit of being inconspicuous enough not to 
 tire the eye by perpetually attracting it ; and the upper 
 part of the window might be left untouched if preferred 
 so as to show the whole sky, if any be visible, from the 
 position of the house. 
 
 This would also offer a pleasing employment to idle 
 young ladies at home, who could trace a pretty device in 
 opaque enamel from a transparent pattern pasted out- 
 side the pane, whether they have much idea of drawing 
 or not, and it would be better than making cardboard 
 mats or gumming gold-paper around photographs. 
 
 Whether done at home or by a glass decorator, the 
 mode is simple enough, as I described with full details 
 in the 'Queen' of January 31, 1880. The design is 
 simply traced in outline with a thick enamel paint which 
 lies on common window glass perfectly well, and it may 
 be as simple or as elaborate as is wished. 
 
 When the paper pattern outside the v/indow is re- 
 
246 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 moved, the effect is really very pretty of these trans- 
 parent and slight pictures, just sufficient to obliterate 
 a bad look-out without really obliterating a good one. 
 It can be washed with care, whenever the windows 
 require cleaning, and can be entirely removed by tur- 
 pentine. Outlines in scarlet, or in brown and amber 
 tints, are very effective for this purpose ; and if wished 
 the outlines can of course be filled in with transparent 
 flat colour for a richer effect. 
 
 Glass screens, by Powell or Cottier, are a commoner 
 way of making a blind without disusing the plain glass 
 which belongs to one's lease. These add considerably 
 to the weight of the sash, but most difficulties can be 
 obviated by a little ingenuity. 
 
 (ffiiia^^ partition^ anti ^ctccn^?* 
 
 Coloured glass worked after the fashion of old 
 windows is not enough used for door-panels, and even 
 walls of rooms where light is wanted on the staircase. 
 Many modern aesthetic houses follow the affectation of 
 dark staircases quite disagreeably. I have made the 
 ascent in red-brick mansions in such obscurity that 
 every step had to be felt for, and ideas of spiders, 
 beetles, and mice are inseparable from this unwholesome 
 darkness. In such cases the builders' folly may be 
 remedied by a wall, or part of a w^all, built of translucent 
 glass, with a pretty leading — not so translucent as to 
 destroy privacy, of course ; and more than once I have 
 seen a landing so built around as to form a charming 
 glass corridor, in fact a new room, more brilliant than 
 
GLASS PARTITIONS AND SCREENS. 247 
 
 any other, and twice as sturdy as most. Thick glass, 
 well leaded, is stronger than lath and plaster. The 
 sense oi mystery, a striking element in Gothic charm, 
 may be conveyed to very humdrum places by well- 
 arranged coloured glass. There is a sense of freedom 
 and space within glass walls which confess to something 
 beyond, whilst softly veiling what is there, and they are 
 more easily ventilated than others. How many a room 
 would be improved by a ceiling of such glass, skylight- 
 wise, when the windows are distant and small ! and 
 numberless pretty, decorative devices occur, in glass 
 pictures lighted from behind at night, small illuminated 
 niches of brilliant colour, to say nothing of conservatories 
 and ferneries and balconies, so guarded. 
 
 Such tasteful fashions should soon banish the dull grey 
 patch of ground-glass, starred or plain, that builders 
 always place on the staircase, sometimes cheered up by 
 panes — of course most garish colours — through which 
 we may take a 'blue' or jaundiced view of sparrows 
 and cats on the leads. But, in view of many dire failures 
 in * Queen Anne ' suburban villas run up by speculative 
 builders, I must add, if you cannot have first-rate stained 
 glass, adhere to simple lozenge forms — avoid the heads 
 of Dante, Chaucer, and Cetewayo, and all else that 
 requires an artistic training — and above all eschew the 
 false ' old English ' mottoes which are so dismally repug- 
 nant to a scholar ; such as ' Yee Sunne Flowere,' * Yee 
 Pusse inne Bootes,' ^ Yee Gurle withe yee Umbrellah.' 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON MIRRORS. 
 
 ^aHor: not Eigljt* 
 
 EOPLE who love 1 
 increasing fashion 
 
 ight 
 
 are often shy of the 
 of colouring the walls, 
 ceilings, and floors of rooms. They say 
 not untruly that in London there is too 
 little light for us to dispense with any, and that all 
 colouring which tends to darken the rooms is a mistake 
 in a town. But it seems to me that these people confuse 
 the meaning of light and brightness. Mere pallor is not 
 light-giving — a room papered, ceiled, and furnished with 
 white would ofler us no more advantages during one 
 of the rich brown fogs of our dear native isle than one 
 coloured with however deep a crimson or purple. If the 
 windows are small and blocked by adjoining walls, the 
 internal reflection of slate-coloured skies (and remember 
 that white is not white in a room, it is every tint of grey, 
 through shadow and dirt) will not make the atmosphere 
 more luminous ; while a room furnished tastefully with 
 
PALLOR NOT LIGHT. 249 
 
 bright and rich colours, a good many mirrors, and bright 
 objects, such as china, brass, and silver, really does re- 
 fract light by contrast and by reflection. 
 
 3©ljat not to bo* 
 
 One of the fixed laws of the admirers of the false 
 Queen Anne style of room is the enmity to mirrors, 
 only proper and wise if everyone in the house is a fright. 
 One enthusiastic votary of this effete reaction actually 
 recommends the ' unfortunate possessors ' of lofty mirrors 
 to cut the plate into oblong fragments ; and adds, ' if 
 strong unwillingness should exist to have large plates of 
 glass cut into pieces,' an alternative remains, ' an ebon- 
 ised oak or walnut frame altogether enclosing and 
 dividing by cross-pieces the surface of the glass into 
 compartments, arid leaving perhaps one uninterrupted 
 oblong piece, about 18 inches high at the bottom, with a 
 trellis work of shelves and brackets ' — for books and 
 china ! 
 
 Here is the most hornee incapacity to appreciate 
 really good elements, or to know what to do with them 
 when they have got to be used. It would really seem, 
 were these people reliable, that all wall-mirrors are an 
 abomination, unless they not only refuse to repeat pretty 
 objects, but actually go out of their way to create 
 hideous ones, convex mirrors of the * Empire ' time alone 
 being admitted in such * aesthetic ' houses. 
 
 Probably this desire to mortify the flesh was the 
 logical accompaniment of the ascetic tendency of the 
 early nineteenth century, the period now pitched back- 
 
250 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 ward 100 years, and praised under the fancy name of 
 Queen Anne. At any rate it is certain that you cannot 
 tie on your bonnet straight in this kind of house, for 
 you may wander from room to room without finding so 
 much as a span-wide mirror ; but you may be whole- 
 somely reminded of the ills which flesh is heir to by that 
 convex horror supported by a most inadequate eagle, and 
 wherein you see your brow or jaw swell sickeningly, your 
 
 Fig. 42.— What Helen of Troy would appear in a convex mirror 
 
 eye burst forth or your mouth protrude, according to the 
 position in which you place your devoted head. Only 
 the meanest spite could wish the youngest and prettiest 
 guests to see themselves like this. 
 
 However low our opinion of our friends' looks, 6r 
 our own, tact forbids that we should placard it on our 
 walls. Queen Elizabeth banished her mirror in her 
 dismal old age because she did not know how to grow 
 old gracefully. However, whether this practice spring 
 
WHAT NOT TO DO. 251 
 
 from sick vanity or misanthropy, I repudiate it. I 
 humbly study the art of beautifying home, not ugHfying 
 it, hence perhaps am behind the times (wherefore I give 
 thanks) ; for in my opinion a good mirror is undoubt- 
 edly an ornament, as I have shown in a * Louis XIV. 
 Room.' It is one which of course can be abused — the 
 vast mirrors which invariably accompany the coarse gilt 
 consoles in the house of every vulgar Crcesus have 
 disgusted us all, and the accidents to persons who have 
 run heedlessly into looking-glasses, supposing them to 
 be openings to new rooms, are sufficiently authentic to 
 enjoin care in the arrangement of sheets reaching the 
 ground. Nevertheless, a mirror, properly mounted and 
 protected, greatly adds to the size of a room ; it cer- 
 tainly reflects light in almost any position, it opens 
 quaint and unexpected vistas to the eye, it doubles the 
 number of fair faces present, and the curious mystery 
 which pervades the world ' through the looking-glass,' 
 inaccessible, yet so near, is not without its charm to 
 grown-ups as well as to children. 
 
 A mirror of black glass, reflecting objects only when 
 it is moistened, has been recently found in a newly- 
 excavated house at Pompeii ; therefore we now know 
 that the ancients were not ignorant of something beside 
 polished metal for mirrors. But the secret was no doubt 
 afterwards lost, and for a great while, and it was only 
 gradually rediscovered. Mediaeval mirrors were first 
 made of glass at Venice, but though as early as 1 307 
 
252 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 two Murano glassworkers, Andrea and Domcnico, 
 declared before the Council of Ten that they had dis- 
 covered a method of making ' good and perfect mirrors 
 of crystal glass,' plates larger than 4 or 5 feet were 
 never made until one hundred years ago, and they were 
 always cast square or oblong until the end of the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The Venetian glassworkers established at Lambeth 
 by the Duke of Buckingham, whose mirrors Evelyn 
 praised, gave their plates a gently bevelled edge, an 
 inch in width, which adds to the value and beauty of 
 the glass considerably ; it is of extreme difficulty in 
 execution, the plate being held by the workman above 
 his head, and the edge ground at a slight angle. 
 Modern bevelling is too acute, and the ancient feats of 
 skill in the form of interrupted curves, and short lines 
 and angles, are beyond our w^orkmen. Presently figures 
 were sunk in the style of intaglio, or gem-cutting, on the 
 back of the glass and left dead, so that the silver surface 
 of the mercury shows in white ornaments at front, or the 
 hollows were burnished in jewel-like patterns. 
 
 Glass was no doubt made in England long before 
 the seventeenth century, but we have no record of the 
 workers. As early as 1447 John Prudde, of Westminster, 
 engaged to execute the windows of the Beauchamp 
 chapel at Warwick, and to use ' no glasse of England ' 
 (which sounds condemnatory). Stowe and Richard 
 Hakluyt speak of 'glasses of English making' in and 
 about 1580, but these were for domestic purposes, not 
 mirrors, and doubtless Italian glass was superior. 
 
 Buckingham's glass-factory must have achieved a 
 
OLD MIRRORS, 253 
 
 tremendous success. We hear that ' Sir Samuel Mor- 
 laiid built a fine room at Vauxhali in 1667, the inside 
 all of looking-glass and fountains, very pleasant to 
 behold.' Pennant writes that the house of Nell Gwynne, 
 * the first good one as we enter St. James's Square from 
 Pall Mall, had the back room on the ground floor en- 
 tirely lined with looking-glass within memory, as was 
 said to have been the ceiling.' Mme. D'Aulnoy places 
 her Princess in such a room, as it was impossible to 
 reflect too often her charming countenance ; and a room, 
 so panelled in small pieces, with beautifully wrought and 
 gilded seams, must have been beautiful. Mr. Tyssen 
 Amherst possesses two especially pretty old mirrors, 
 temp. Louis XIV. and Louis XV., in which the joins are 
 made a perfect ornament. 
 
 The practice of painting upon mirrors, common in 
 Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is one 
 which we must allude to in passing. Contrary as it 
 seems to our notions of good taste, this fashion of 
 decorating large sheets of metal is by no means dis- 
 agreeable if the work will bear the same criticism as a 
 framed picture on canvas. The finest specimens I have 
 seen are those in the Stanza degli Specchi, in the Borghese 
 Palace at Rome, where sheets of glass, as large as 
 were then made, are covered with loves and wreaths 
 life-size by Girofiri and Mario dei Fiori. The false vista 
 thus created is peculiarly Italian : witness those less 
 pleasing works which turn a house-side into a distant 
 
254 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 landscape, or fill blind openings with ladies and lovers 
 upon balconies, pardonable only when we remember the 
 Italian love for pleasant garden-images everywhere ! 
 Still, a room lined with painted mirrors is really pretty, 
 brilliant, and festive, as roses suspended in the air, and 
 visited by busy birds or bees, may fairly make it. It is 
 a fashion so totally independent of the rigid canons of 
 to-day that it is unjust to judge it by them. The ex- 
 tended area of the walls deceives the eye in one place, 
 but the objects painted on it recall the mind to a right 
 sense of distance and prevent accidents to shortsighted 
 persons. There is a room so painted at the British 
 Embassy at Rome, and, prejudice aside, the effect is 
 good. The silvery lights reflected in the mirrors are 
 intercepted by colour, and all the possible bareness of 
 the vast sheet disappears. Flowers in natural wreaths 
 are preferable to cupids ; and both are preferable to the 
 destruction of mirrors or their concealment by irrelevant 
 books and teacups ; but, as the eye is even more con- 
 stantly drawn to a painted mirror than an ordinary 
 picture, by reason of its brightness, taste demands that 
 the painting should be nothing less than first-rate. 
 
 A mirror always deserves a good frame, which should 
 be either massive or dispersed in filigree after the manner 
 of the old seams. The frame of so conspicuous an object 
 must be well designed. Avaunt the clumsy, writhing 
 frames in gold, nuggets which we have our suspicions 
 of even when wrapped up in yellow muslin ! But a 
 
MIRROR-FRAMES. 255 
 
 frame properly designed to suit the wall, either in gold 
 and colour, or gold and certain woods, carved or painted, 
 can be made a seemly ornament. If we were ambitious 
 we might take hints from many ancient mirrors, or the 
 frames of old panels. The bronze and ormolu enrich- 
 ments which came in under Louis XIV., laid on ebony 
 and tortoiseshell and white metal, are well applied to 
 mirror-frames, when they are moderate, and do not 
 wriggle as we look at them. A large mass of gilding 
 always looks better when variegated in colour, as the 
 eighteenth-century French artists felt when they deco- 
 rated their palace panels and frames with gold, of a 
 yellow or a green hue. The green was largely alloyed 
 with silver, and silver itself was employed for a whitish 
 effect. Inlaid frames are generally inoffensive, and may 
 be very graceful in design. 
 
 I think that much of the contumely cast on large 
 mirrors is traceable to their association with vulgar 
 frames. It is impossible to believe that, had the ancients 
 possessed the art of casting broad sheets of magnificent 
 glass, a discovery reserved for our century, they would 
 have contemned on principle this capital instrument for 
 surprisingly beautiful effects. No ; they made beautiful 
 objects with their limited facilities ; we make hideous 
 ones in spite of facilities unlimited. Had the artists of 
 the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or even old Rome, 
 possessed this secret, they would have mounted their 
 great mirrors in panels which would have been the 
 admiration of the world. 
 
 Most large looking-glasses of the least objectionable 
 kind nowadays are mounted in narrow bevelled frames, 
 
256 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 in imitation ebony with gilt revers, Sic, or a slight gold 
 rope, tied in knots above sometimes a little colour being 
 
 Fig. 43 — Venetian mirror-framt 
 
MIRROR-FRAMES. 257 
 
 introduced in places. But a looking-glass of this weight 
 and importance ought never to have a mean and meagre 
 frame. If we look at the frames of the sixteenth century 
 for either pictures or mirrors, we shall find that they are 
 all broad and massive according to the weight of the 
 enclosure they are devised to protect and set off. Carv- 
 ing of the boldest and most elaborate description, but 
 always founded on a knowledge of the structural needs 
 of the thing decorated, and worked in the hardest wood, 
 and even wrought iron (vide p. 348), surrounds the small 
 plates (the largest they could make), which reflected the 
 faces of Beatrice and Mary Stuart. Silver, modelled 
 with all the genius of a Cellini or a Holbein, sometimes 
 protected the privileged crystal, for silver, being not too 
 good for fire-dogs, was by no means too good for the 
 lady's table. Some of the magnificent designs of ancient 
 Rome, or of the Renaissance, Italian, or Flemish six- 
 teenth-century, taken from old Roman works unearthed, 
 and some of the best of the veiy poor versions of archi 
 tectural styles applied to frames which the ' Empire ' 
 period gave us, and which are now run after, ought to 
 teach us what the old meaning of a frame was. It was 
 not merely a tidy metal edge ' to rough canvas or panels 
 of sharp glass, it was a ' mount ; ' a protection in case of 
 a fall, and an ornament drawing attention and adding 
 importance to the precious object enclosed. 
 
 A big mirror-frame then should seldom be less than 
 two feet wide ; and were the frame sawn out of plain 
 
 ' Some old pictures, wherein the figures stand in a painted alcove, such 
 as may be seen in most galleries of art, seem to suggest that frames originated 
 in a mere metal protection to the edge of the panel. 
 
 S 
 
258 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 wood, of reasonable depth and value, it would add enor- 
 mously to the artistic merit of the mirror. If definitely 
 built into the wall, china, pictures, or gems of any kind 
 might be arranged upon the frame, which would thus 
 partake in a reasonable manner of the mural construc- 
 tion, and belong to it, and it ought to be fitly coloured 
 accordingly. Were a more fanciful class of frame pre- 
 ferred, and cost not begrudged, a carved copy of such a 
 design as enshrines many a masterpiece in the Pitti or 
 Uffizj Galleries, or tall columns with elegant bases and 
 capitals supporting a delicately painted lintel, or perhaps 
 an arch, would immensely add to the architectural 
 importance of a fine room. The small mirror {temp. 
 Empire) would of course bear larger proportions. All 
 large frames meant for the wall ought to be of an 
 architectural character ; fig. 72, p. 348, and many small 
 table-mirror frames of the French and Flemish Renas- 
 cence show the proper treatment of a material so costly 
 and beautiful as reflecting glass. 
 
 While on the subject of frames a few further sugges- 
 tions may be useful. The frames that we allot to 
 pictures even of high merit are sometimes most gaudy 
 and destructive. Few persons consider how completely 
 the frame forms part of the coitp d'ceil as the eye 
 encounters a picture, and how jarring appears either an 
 obtrusive, newly-gilt margin around a very dark old 
 painting, or a showy frame around one whose charm lies 
 in its pallid delicacy of colouring. A frame covered 
 
PICTURE-FRAMES. 259 
 
 with a minute and wearying pattern in stucco too often 
 supports a subject full of large figures, and a * bold ' 
 design as frequently effaces a landscape. Among artists, 
 Mr. J. M. Whistler and Mr. Alma Tadema were among 
 the first to ^vj^ intelligent attention to their own frames. 
 A stroll through the Pitti Palace shows us that during 
 
 ! 
 
 flBH'*''''" 
 
 liPlifl'-V' 
 
 
 ; 
 
 'll' 
 
 
 fi'^. 
 
 M 
 
 Fig. 44. — ' Empire ' mirror. 
 
 the Renascence there was constantly some intentional 
 connection between a picture and its frame, as there was 
 between a mirror and its mount. The larger pictures, 
 especially those representing life-size men and women, 
 have invariably frames at least a foot in width and in 
 
 s 2 
 
26o GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 depth. The Madonna della Seggiola of course has 
 much more ; and in most of them the frame is a well- 
 considered setting with appropriate ornaments. In one, 
 Schiavone's ' Cain and Abel' (Pitti Palace, No. 152), this 
 idea is carried almost too far, the frame appearing almost 
 to echo the subject. The upper part half indicates a fierce 
 hawk-like or owl-like head — like the dream of a bird of 
 prey about to pounce — which admirably suits the story ; 
 and that this notion is not quite fanciful we may reason 
 from analogy. 
 
 For instance, in No. 427, we fnd fishes suggested in 
 just such a vague manner by the scrolls of the rather 
 violent pattern ; and an owl's head is similarly formed 
 at the junction of the fish-heads, in such a way as that 
 you may see it or not see it. In No. 487 this idea has been 
 seized and carried to excess ; very definite fishes are 
 carved in heavy relief, projecting six and a half inches 
 from the wall, and form a quite inappropriate mount. 
 This excess of elaboration in frames seems to have 
 followed the general bent of decaying art. In No. 429 
 dragons form the corners to a frame for a Carlo Dolci 
 quite the reverse of fierce. There are frames solid, and 
 frames of dainty open-work ; frames which seem to suck 
 in, and curl round, the picture, and others which, equally 
 heavy and broad, project the picture forward and retreat 
 to the wall. There are frames which are obtrusive with- 
 out deserving scrutiny, and others which are real works 
 of art in their poetic design and dainty finish without 
 being obtrusive. Of the latter kind a very pretty one 
 exists in the Ufiizj Gallery, just within the door of the 
 room which leads out of the Tribune to the right hand, 
 
PICTURE-FRAMES, 
 
 :6i 
 
 all leaves with cupids nestling in them. I myself possess 
 as fine a one as I have ever seen, small, carved in oak, 
 temp. Hen. VIII , early Renascence, reprresenting a vine 
 
 Fig. 45.— Early Renascence frame belonging to Rev. H. R. Haweis. 
 
 with its small young fruit, which, being similar in colour 
 to the leaf, are rightly represented all in one colour, the 
 conventional gold. This is a most unobtrusive, but most 
 
262 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 perfectly graceful and appropriate, setting for the portrait 
 
 of a beautiful woman. 
 
 » 
 
 a^c of Conticjf J^r^irror^* 
 
 I may now add, that a convex mirror in its place ^x.o.. 
 so hung as to reflect distant objects only, and never 
 come in contact with the face, is a pretty ornament. 
 There is something dainty and amusing in seeing the 
 liliputian world all alive and changing, moving across 
 the convex surface, as one enjoys an ingenious mecha- 
 nical toy, clock, or money-box, which nods at you, or 
 crows, or what not. When a child, I held it a great and 
 dreamy delight to walk about the floor gazing through 
 a diminishing glass, and try now and again to run down 
 the little hollows in the carpet of my father's painting- 
 room. Van Eyck is fond of depicting a convex mirror in 
 his gravest pictures, and its inly-pictured reflections carry 
 the spectator oddly into Van Eyck's time like a dream 
 within a dream, as you seem to catch the movement of 
 windows or trees or seated men behind you, being really 
 for the moment in that room wherein the Virgin sits and 
 rocks her Child. 
 
 If introduced at all in our rooms, this convex mirror 
 must not be regarded as a looking-glass, of which it 
 possesses no qualification, but simply as an ingenious 
 toy which sets its little panorama going for our mirth, 
 and sometimes redoubles a ray of light. 
 
^^^s 
 
 &$ 
 
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 SSSTR-?^ 
 
 i^^^W»^s^^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OJ\r MOVABLES. 
 
 ^tincipic^. 
 
 Y furniture, or rather movables — for anything 
 that clothes the room in any way is its furni- 
 ture — we generally understand chairs, sofas, 
 and tables ; and a few words must be sepa- 
 rately given to these necessaries, for whatever else we 
 add, these we cannot do without. 
 
 The construction of these mechanical aids ought to 
 be as logical as that of a great Ccithedral. Dress itself 
 should be logical. The requirements of a chair must be 
 considered, and they are : (i) to support a heavy body, 
 (2) to be shifted with facility, (3) to be ornaments of a 
 minor kind in themselves, (4) to afford a pleasant and 
 ' becoming ' background to the human beings likely to 
 come in contact with them. 
 
 Nothing is more easy to say ; nothing is less easy to 
 find. The forms of chairs constantly deny the object 
 for which they were intended ; there are, however, some 
 
264 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 which are logically well-designed and only spoilt by 
 extraneous ornament, therefore I need not do more 
 than- draw my reader's attention to the fact that without 
 being an architectural parody, like much French seven- 
 teenth-century furniture, chairs, sofas, and tables ought 
 to be architecturally planned, and every thoughtful 
 architect knows that beauty springs from utility, not 
 empty sentiment. 
 
 Comfort ant! €tjaxt^» 
 
 The desiderata in a chair would not seem to be 
 many, but one thing we might fairly suppose indispen- 
 sable — comfort. Yet this is the last thing chair-buyers 
 think of. They are so ostentatious, or so * aesthetic,' or 
 so stingy, that they ask ' Is it specious V 'Is it the 
 newest high art } ' and ' Is it cheap .? ' before they sit 
 down in it and wonder * Is it comfortable t ' 
 
 Now, before all things, a chair should be easy. Yet 
 I have known people own a set of chairs for ten years 
 without noticing that they are so high that your feet 
 cannot reach the ground unless you sit on the edge, or 
 so low that the adjoining table almost comes to your 
 shoulder ; that the backs are agonising from knobs and 
 excrescences just where they should be kind to your 
 blade-bones, or useless through being set too far from 
 the seat. 
 
 Some people never lean back. Either from early 
 old-fashioned ' drilling ' or a long-formed habit of self- 
 defence, some ladies sit bolt upright in every kind of 
 seat. To people superior to human weakness, such as 
 
COMFORT AND CHAIRS. 265 
 
 those who use kitchen Windsor chairs in their drawing- 
 rooms (a purpose for which Windsor chairs were never 
 intended), I do not address these hints ; but to those 
 who love beauty and comfort I say, see that your chairs 
 are easy, and then all other good things shall be added 
 to them. 
 
 The form, the colour, the materials ought to be good 
 in themselves, harmonious with their surroundings, and 
 adapted to their purpose. Without these desiderata 
 they can never be beautiful, since beauty means fitness, 
 and fitness implies a useful object. 
 
 The shape ought to recall, however remotely, the 
 human form and its requirements of rest and liberty. 
 Arms are good, but not all arms. Last of all the sharp- 
 edged * Chippendale ' or the 'Windsor' kind, which 
 persons who will not accept any easy seats (and perhaps 
 are never tired) profess to enjoy. As to the latter class 
 of chair, Mr. Eastlake was one of the first to assert that 
 the pattern was sound, because admitting no superflui- 
 ties ; but neither he, nor anyone else of a sane mind, 
 ever alleged that they were beautiful, or that they ought 
 to be fetched up from the scullery into the drawing-room. 
 Such chairs are strong, well-pinned, hollowed in places 
 to suit the form, steady, easily cleansed during greasy 
 kitchen service, and the bead, fillet, and hollow mouldings 
 were often effective in good, close-grained wood, hand- 
 carved. But we might as fitly hang frying-pans be- 
 tween our porcelain and water-colours, as associate the 
 hard kitchen chairs with soft carpets and satin dresses. 
 * A place for everything and everything in its place ' is 
 a proverb which is regarded least by votaries of ' high 
 
266 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 art,' and the modern Windsor chair, manufactured by 
 steam in cigar-box mahogany, and heavily varnished, 
 as we have seen them in the drawing-rooms of weak 
 aesthetics, is an affectation which has not even originality 
 to recommend it. 
 
 The exact angle at which the back and the arm-rests 
 jut from the body of the chair must be carefully calcu- 
 lated, and calculated as far as possible to agree with a 
 
 Fig. 46. — The upholsterer's darling. 
 
 number of positions, not one only. For instance, a chair 
 stuffed so as to receive the shoulders comfortably, but 
 leaving a hollow in the middle of the spine (a common 
 fault) is adapted to very few positions, and soon so fur- 
 ther tires a tired body that he or she soon quits the 
 chair to try another. Again, a chair stuffed to support 
 the small of the back, but too low to receive the thrown- 
 back head, is another imperfect instrument of rest : the 
 
COMFORT AND CHAIRS. 267 
 
 positions it accommodates are limited, hence the Hmit of 
 usefulness, and the chair must be supplemented by other 
 kinds. 
 
 And both these chairs are sure to be ugly. They 
 are sure to be ' lumpish,' as Caliban's sea-beast, with 
 abrupt, ungainly projections of velvet and buttons, and 
 the legs will surely echo the immoderate curves. 
 
 The most useful and comfortable, as well as inex- 
 pensive, chair is of a simple form, which by the aid of 
 suspended cushions or other additions can be adapted 
 to a good many needs ; and such loose cushions, in lieu 
 of over-stufhng, add to the artistic beauty and variety of 
 the seat, as well as the liberty of him who sits therein. 
 
 Arms are a difficult question. They are so ugly as 
 a rule when stuffed in one place only — they are so hard 
 when not stuffed — they hem in one's elbow as one lifts 
 it, they hit it as it returns — that I have come to the 
 conclusion that they are very seldom of service. In 
 modern makes they are perhaps least offensive when in 
 the form of simple square cushions attached to a rail ; 
 they are no doubt most beautiful when handcarven, 
 as in the Charles I. chairs. However, in the time of 
 Louis XIV. they managed to attain stuffing without 
 losing the curve within ; and I suppose we might again 
 attain it. The Louis XIV. chairs earlier alluded to are 
 comfortable and pretty. So would be this fine chair, 
 dated about 1690, if there were a loose cushion for the 
 back ; though the dolphin arms are too suggestive of 
 ' a very ancient and fish-like smell.' There are two fine 
 chairs with delicate dolphin arms in the Cambridge 
 University Library. 
 
268 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 For my own part, I incline to think chairs and sofas 
 ought to be made in but one or two forms, with framed 
 
 Fig. 47 —Seventeenth- century chair. 
 
COMFORT AND BEAUTY. 269 
 
 seats to admit springs, which, whatever Queen Annites 
 say, are a great improvement on soHd though cushioned 
 seats, and do not in any way interfere with the graceful 
 construction : these seats to be wide enough to admit 
 of any change in the fashion of dress. A seat is more 
 picturesque when it extends beyond the body of the 
 seated person, and affords more rest and freedom. This 
 would not, however, apply to dining-room chairs, which 
 we cannot afford to have wide in these days of crush- 
 dinners. 
 
 Comfort anti 25cautp» 
 
 The beauty of a room is largely dependent on its 
 comfort, for remember a room is in reahty a picture as 
 much as any painted group, and it should be criticised 
 as such — e.g. a beautiful woman reclining on a sofa 
 becomes for the time a part of the sofa, and the sofa 
 part of her. Is it not best that the sofa should therefore 
 be beautiful, so as at least not to add an ugliness to her 
 during the transient association, though it may be un- 
 able to contribute a charm } It will, however, generally 
 contribute a charm in the eyes of a cultivated spectator. 
 
 No artist would place an ill-formed piece of furniture 
 in this juxtaposition, for coarse colour in a sofa cushion 
 takes the position of an unbecoming bonnet against her 
 cheek — of a destructive gown against her arm or waist. 
 
 Some women instinctively avoid the chair which 
 clashes with their garments — instinctively select the tea- 
 cup that offers dainty contrast ; not through self-con- 
 sciousness, but from some inchoate habitual wish to be 
 
270 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 pleasant. The gown can do without the chair, it is to be 
 hoped, the hand can dispense with the tea-cup ; but the 
 association, however brief, has given its little pleasant 
 mark to the sociable ensemble, as a sweet phrase or 
 chord contributes to the whole song, and it is not 
 necessary that the chord should be perpetual — aic 
 contraire. 
 
 Ergo, tea-cups and chairs are worth making pretty. 
 
 I pray those readers whose opinions on the propriety 
 of art-dressing have been at all moulded by French 
 sentiment, to observe that the calculation of a coquette 
 is not to be confounded with the instinct of the artistic 
 temperament. They may exist together, but they are 
 not one and the same, happily, and do exist apart. 
 That there is no vice in trying to please, whilst there 
 is a kind of cruelty in indifference to the feelings and 
 likings of others, whether the liking of the eye, or any 
 other bent to which they have grown sensitive. And 
 observe also that a vulgar language of tints and trimmings 
 such as that suggested in a certain well-known French 
 book is as far from being desirable — perhaps even pos- 
 sible — in clean English society as it is destructive of the 
 healthy balance on which real beauty hangs. 
 
 Nothing will so soon discourage (by making super- 
 fluous) any morbid pricking vanity in choice, as having 
 all details fairly beautiful and well-planned in the 
 ' background.' 
 
MATERIALS AND FRAMEWORK. 271 
 
 a^atcrial^ anti f raitictootft* 
 
 It is matter for regret that our ideas are so bornees, 
 and our upholsterers so obstinate, else why are the ma- 
 terials for our chairs limited to wood, iron, and stuffs ? 
 There are many materials besides wood which are very 
 well adapted for our seats, and may be mounted on 
 wood, if you will, but at the same time exhibiting new 
 shades of colour, and offering a broad field to art. 
 
 For instance, why is not ivory oftener used for such 
 purposes ? I do not demand an ivory chair like that 
 on which the great Rameses II. is seated in the bas-relief 
 of Khelabshee, in Nubia, of which there is a cast in the 
 British Museum, and in which it is easy to surmise whence 
 the ivory chairs came, from the faces of the bearers— in- 
 ternal Africa. But ivory, or even bone, might be used, 
 inlaid in large masses, and, mixed with ebony, mock 
 ebony, or joined by metal, would not only form in 
 itself a most elegant and picturesque aspect, but it would 
 offer a surface for decoration such as no painted wood 
 can do. Ivory in plates a few inches long might be 
 painted and gilt, as in Hispano-Moorish work, where ihe 
 colouring lasts well, protected by outstanding edges ; or 
 it might be etched with simple arabesques, or small 
 human figures, as in the small seventeenth-century 
 Italian cabinet-work, which, rough as they are, are most 
 effective and picturesque. This idea is one which the 
 larger furniture firms might take up with advantage ; 
 and occupation might be given to hundreds of needy 
 art-students who could scrape in a little landscape or 
 
27: 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 figure with greater facility and less risk than painting 
 tiles and tea-cups. 
 
 Embossed leather, such as the James T. chairs, might 
 be designed for chair backs and seats. 
 
 Brass of course will occur to all Grecomaniacs as a 
 beautiful ornament to our chairs and tables. In the time 
 of the Empire the Imitation Greeks actually adopted it 
 from the school they worshipped. They built mahogany 
 
 chairs, of a semi-Greek 
 shape, or straddling stools 
 and tables, and adorned the 
 feet with lion's claws in brass. 
 This was a good idea, and 
 when the brass was new it 
 had a pretty effect, but, like 
 those lovelier brasses covering 
 the exquisite seats which 
 adorned Pompeii, the colour 
 flies, not into a delicate green 
 mould, but into a dingy 
 colourless rust, in which no 
 pattern is remarkable and 
 no modelling worth notice. 
 
 The marqueterie chairs with lyre backs (a form 
 derived from old Greece and Rome), imported so largely 
 from French, Italian, and Dutch workshops in the last 
 century and subsequently copied here, are sometimes 
 graceful, especially the light yellow satin-wood, and 
 might be adapted to moderate stuffing. Some of the old 
 Italian chairs, speckled with ivory and pearl inlaying, are 
 quaint and decorative, though not always easy, e.g., the 
 
 Fig. 48.— Greek chair : prototype of the 
 common English form. 
 
MATERIALS AND FRAMEWORK. 
 
 '2'IZ 
 
 present design, and the richness of their material adapts 
 them to refined surroundings and richly-clad denizens. 
 Folding and Glastonbury patterns might be revived, 
 improved on by modern mechanism. An architectural 
 chair, which might be a lesson to us, is preserved at 
 
 ^^iff 
 
 W: 
 
 Fig. 49.— Italian Renascence chair : the decadence. 
 
 Barcelona. It is made of silver, the supports representing 
 window tracery in open-work, with three lofty gables, 
 crocketed outside and cusped within, surmounting the 
 back. Embossed or stamped leather in lieu of hot and 
 fusty velvets might be more used for elegant chairs with 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 advantage, and the designing might occupy many a 
 deserving but needy art-student. 
 
 Fig. 50. — Fourteenth-century seats. 
 
 The famous chair of Dagobert, of which a copy is 
 preserved in the South Kensington Museum, may offer 
 
 Fig. 51 —Chair of Dagobert, in the Louvre, dated about 630. 
 
MATERIALS AND FRAMEWORK. 
 
 275 
 
 hints : the seat when furnished would be quite curved. 
 So may the more ascetic fourteenth -century seats en- 
 graved. 
 
 We owe many lovely designs to India, whence 
 Italy originally received the art of marquetry. The 
 elaborate Bombay carving is very effective, like black 
 lace on end, but it does not 
 look well dusty, and in Lon- 
 don it is seldom otherwise. 
 Some of the Oriental bamboo 
 chairs are extremely pictur- 
 esque. 
 
 Veneering is unsatisfac- 
 tory in theory, but so many 
 fine effects have been pro- 
 duced through veneer, such 
 as tarsia work, from classic 
 times to our own, that we 
 must not be hypercritical. 
 
 The ivory wardrobes 
 mentioned in the 45th Psalm, 
 whatever they were, must 
 have been veneered. Venetian 
 pillars cased in malachite and lapis lazuli, recur to us as 
 suggestive of effects for portions, of modern seats. Old 
 Egypt, like old Greece, is full of hints, which we may 
 study in the British and South Kensington Museums. 
 The small inlaid Roman sella can be easily copied, and 
 forms a pretty stool or seat, cushioned. The old Greek 
 folding-stool, the sculptured seat (evidently cushioned 
 and fringed) of Nineveh, need not dismay an intelligent 
 
 Fig. 52. — Chair of Assyrian character 
 on a bas-relief from Xanthus, in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 modern upholsterer ; and it is reasonable, while demand- 
 ing sumptuous walls to enclose Beauty, to claim some- 
 thing like splendour for the seat that shall enthrone her, 
 and chryselephantine effects, without gold and real tusk, 
 are obtainable by well-chased brass and bone, which 
 excite no cupidity whilst improving our rooms. 
 
 A little trouble on the part of the present public and 
 
 Fig. 53.— Stool, in sculpture, from Nineveh. 
 
 Fig. 54. — Ancient sella, or low seat. 
 
 their suppliers, a little education, and enthusiasm for 
 something higher than the immediate money return, 
 would give us nineteenth-century objets de vertii worthy 
 to rank with those of Louis XIV. or any other period of 
 art-encouragement. And it would * pay,' for those who 
 care for beauty of design and construction are usually 
 ready to give a good price for it, and they set the fashion 
 gradually. Such furniture as I have suggested would be 
 a more consistent environment than Spartan shapes, 
 which are radically unfitted for frames enervated by 
 
MATERIALS AND FRAMEWORK. 277 
 
 luxury and by high culture, and whose use cannot check 
 but rather increases weakness by denying it rest. 
 
 In spite of an imminent scream I maintain that we 
 are as a nation more dependent on luxuries, in fact less 
 able to endure discomfort, than we were some centuries 
 ago ; and no doubt every nation, as it rises in the scale of 
 culture, and grows wealthy, does become so far ener- 
 vated as to like comfort The increased culture is able to 
 devise new modes of enjoyment and relief, but it only 
 devises them because they are called for by new 
 wants ; and much as I deplore physical weakness 
 and the habit of self-indulgence, and however sure I am 
 that moderate rough-living, or the power at any rate to 
 do without luxury if necessary, is a nobler and grander 
 state than dependence on increasing refinements, I feel 
 that we must take life as we find it, without trying to 
 force ourselves into an ill-fitting mould ; and I am sure 
 that the severe temper of the early part of the present 
 century, like that of the Puritan revival, dealt many an 
 injury to the health and happiness of the young and 
 delicate rising generation, to say nothing of its comfort. 
 Nineteenth-century spines are not adapted to span- 
 broad seats and straight backs — nor to a perpetual pen 
 in the collar for the uplifting of the chin — nor even 
 to the cherished backboard, which rendered girls the 
 reverse of straight and strong. What is wanted is 
 daily exercise, good air, well-planned change of work 
 and recreation, sufficient but not heavy feeding, and 
 and ease and comfort within fit limits in our homes, to 
 repair the waste involved in hard mental labour, late 
 hours in a vitiated atmosphere, and sedentary and 
 
278 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 other unhealthy habits, which I fear cannot be suddenly 
 given up. 
 
 A really comfortable sofa or chair often puts to flight 
 a bad headache, a bad backache, or a bad humour, and, 
 this admitted, I may go on without hesitation to exhort 
 the public, if only for the sake of those who have to live 
 with them, to collect every variety of chair and sofa that 
 is comfortable, so as to allow of varying positions and 
 relief to their poor skeletons ; and further, for the good 
 repute of art in England, to see that the chairs and 
 sofas are pretty objects in themselves. Note that 
 lumpishness in stuffing does not add to comfort — six 
 inches depth of wadding is in reality no whit softer than 
 two inches. The object of stuffing is to destroy the 
 hardness of the internal wood-frame ; and, so long as this 
 is effected, the result in comfort is the same whatever 
 the depth ; and too great a mass of wool, so much 
 indeed as to demand holding in place by buttons, is no 
 more but considerably less luxurious than a smaller mass 
 well laid without buttons. These dropsical velvet and 
 satin monstrosities, which the ordinary upholsterer turns 
 out by the thousand, use up more material to cover the 
 humps of horsehair, last no better, and are hideous ; a 
 good spring-seat covered with a little wool, and hand- 
 some silk or tapestry, uninsulated by buttons, requires 
 less material and is far more comfortable. 
 
 I have already given a few new ideas for the ornament- 
 ing of the frames, introducing new colours and a higher 
 
COLOUR. 27() 
 
 class of decoration. I may now suggest that the colour of 
 the cover of a sofa or chair be never harsh nor even 
 very bright, as it should always be subservient to the 
 various and quite incalculable hues which will be con- 
 tributed by whoever sits upon it. Helbronner's and 
 Morris's velvets and chintzes are therefore very reliable, 
 as they are always fine in colour, often in pattern ; 
 and if the materials sent out by these firms are too dear, 
 even when weighed with their really durable quality, it 
 is a good plan to have old stuffs dyed to match patterns 
 of theirs, Avhich can be done by every sensible dyer, 
 and at a reduced outlay of money. 
 
 The recent fashion of covering chair-seats with exqui- 
 site antique silks, old brocades, and delicate -featherwork, 
 is a waste of good things which were better applied 
 elsewhere. Not that chair-seats may not be beautiful. 
 The delicate Gobelin tapestries which cover Louis 
 XIV. chairs and lounges are quite in place, pictorial 
 as they are, because Gobelin tapestry is a strong 
 serviceable fabric, and soon tones down in flat colour ; 
 but if the decoration of the room, as sometimes 
 happens, depends upon the chair seats, if these are gems 
 finer than the robes of the ladies, or the hangings of the 
 wall, there is evident waste of force going on when the 
 room is occupied by guests. In short, people who nurse 
 this hobby forget that chairs are to be sat upon, and 
 that when put to this ignoble use you cannot see the 
 seats. 
 
 The form of chairs (i.e. the framework) might be im- 
 mensely varied, were sculpture and inlaying introduced ; 
 and, were the material of the frame handsomer, no doubt 
 
28o 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 improved decoration would follow. But the general 
 form of a chair should be considered before the details, 
 and we may cull new forms from old sculptures and old 
 paintings innumerable if we look about. 
 
 The well-known chair in Raphael's Madonna della 
 Seggiola, in the Pitti Gallery — a folding-chair with de- 
 corative posts, apparently connected by a handsome 
 
 strap, not a rail, common in 
 the sixteenth century — has 
 never to my knowledge been 
 copied ; it would be a very 
 agreeable seat. The chair of 
 Sesostris is one of the most 
 beautiful designs I have ever 
 seen ; its supports, probably 
 of ivory and metal, are far 
 more picturesque and elabo- 
 rate, and full of more devel- 
 oped thought than any Greek 
 or Roman seats even in the 
 Naples Museum, which offers 
 so many beautiful forms. The 
 main outline of the Greek and 
 Roman chairs does not greatly vary, while the bronze 
 decorations are full of thought, humour, and art-know- 
 ledge ; but the chair of Sesostris, like all Egyptian art, 
 is, I think, radically superior to the Greek, because the 
 construction is rather architectural than aesthetic. The 
 seat and back, whatever the original was made of, 
 might be exactly reproduced in stuffed velvet or silk ; 
 a spring-seat is not inconsistent, and the supports (they 
 
 Fig. 55.— Chair of Sesostris. 
 
WEIGHT. 281 
 
 cannot be called legs), representing captives, wouTd 
 admit of an infinite variety in colour and decoration. 
 
 3©eig]fjt 
 
 The weight of a chair has some bearing upon its 
 comfortableness. Some chairs, for dining-room use, are 
 so heavy that it requires a great effort, or the assistance 
 of another person, to pull them to the table. Others, in 
 the drawing-room, are allowed to be so light that they 
 seem to fall over if your eye strikes them — foolish gilt 
 cane baubles, never meant for use. Such weight and 
 such lightness are a perpetual nuisance. There is no 
 more annoying accident than the oversetting of a chair, 
 and nothing more irksome than imprisonment in a seat 
 which will not obey our wish to shift it. A light chair 
 is in many ways more convenient than a heavy one, but 
 the propensity to fall over is not entirely due to paucity 
 of material. It is often because the seat is too small for 
 its height from the ground, and because the legs are fixed 
 perpendicularly to it instead of at an angle giving more 
 purchase to the floor. A wide square seat will admit 
 of perpendicular legs ; but it stands to reason that a 
 small seat upheld by perpendicular legs, without suffi- 
 cient wood in them to make up in weight what is faulty 
 in construction, must fall over at a touch. Some of the 
 vile parodies of high-backed Stuart chairs fall over when- 
 ever the sitter rises, heavy as they look. The sixteenth- 
 and seventeenth-century chairs on their perpendicular 
 legs were ponderous by mass of wood, and furthermore 
 the seats were large, often concave. Nothing can be 
 
282 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 steadier. Some fragile * Chippendale ' (?) chairs are 
 steady, but in these cases the legs diverge slightly and 
 the sharp feet stick fast in the carpet. The height of a 
 chair must be proportioned to the plane of its seat in 
 
 %(K? 
 
 Fig. 56. — Seventeenth-century chair. 
 
 order to afford that security which everyone who trusts 
 his body on it has a right to demand — but this is one of 
 the many secrets hidden from the British upholsterer ! 
 The chairs which became fashionable after the Chip- 
 
SOFAS. 283 
 
 pendale school of furniture had lost its novelty and its 
 merit too, were heavy enough, with large seats covered 
 with horsehair. Only when the monotony of the few 
 forms and straight lines used had become intolerable, 
 did impatient ' taste ' fling itself upon curves for relief, 
 and encourage the ' solicitous wrigglings ' of the modern 
 Louis XV. chairs. 
 
 Sofas ought to be as a rule simply enlarged chairs, 
 they ought not to represent beds. There have been 
 many very ingenious forms invented in modern days, 
 but almost all have been spoilt by the inveterate habit 
 of over-stuffing and pulling in with buttons. The S- 
 shaped settee, in which two people sit on opposite sides 
 and face one another, might be made a very pretty piece 
 of furniture. The S might be more elegantly curved, 
 and the upper rail might be well wadded with a smaller 
 amount of material. The seats should be low, and deep 
 enough to admit of a good plunge into them ; and given 
 a proper contrast of materials, wood and silk, or metal 
 and velvet, or cane and satin, or whatever the choice be, 
 there would be nothing to urge against its picturesque- 
 ness as a sofa. It is at present, htawever, for the most 
 part a shapeless-looking red machine which only forms 
 one item of the ugly * drawing-room suite."' 
 
 A very simple, almost severe, form which may be 
 seen at Knole House is much to be commended. In 
 spite of its straight lines, it is a most luxurious resort, 
 and its broad surfaces admit of patterns in silk or velvet 
 
.284 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 far finer than what we are accustomed to see in drawing- 
 rooms. The fringes (almost all fringes are beautiful) are 
 clearly seen, not smothered by jutting lumps and creases, 
 and all the lines are good and satisfactory to the eye. 
 
 Empire sofas, like Empire chairs, are not usually com- 
 fortable, even when the horsehair is replaced by something 
 softer. I have already said that the mood of that time 
 was adverse to pleasure, and those Chippendale admirers 
 who are so run away with by this ' Empire' hobby as to 
 assert that these high heavy seats are pleasing, deny the 
 very spirit which brought them forth. They were meant 
 to be good artistically and mechanically — they were 
 meant to be Greek ; they are for the most part neither 
 Greek nor good, neither convenient nor comfortable. 
 But, compared with the horrible 'shaped ' monstrosities 
 seen in the shops, they are quiet, severe, at any rate a 
 change, and their angularity and plain dark colour and 
 castorless legs win indulgence on account of the careful 
 and temperate ornament and slender strength which 
 characterise the best examples of this time. 
 
 For the most part, simple forms, adapted to various 
 bodily attitudes by loose cushions, are preferable, this is 
 because they are more manageable and more restful to 
 the eye. Fitness to its purpose is one of the tests of 
 beauty, and a chair or sofa should be judged like a dress 
 or a house, by the laws of appropriateness and pleasure. 
 
 But when I say simple forms, I do not mean without 
 ornament, for extraneous ornament is only objectionable 
 when it misses or confuses the original intention of the 
 thing decorated, and is only dangerous in ignorant 
 hands. 
 
SOFAS. 
 
 285 
 
KM 
 
 ^r;;^< 
 
 
SOFAS. 287 
 
 The fine old French sofa {temp. Louis Ouinze) be- 
 longing to Mr. Luke lonides, may be cited as an ex- 
 ample. The primary idea, that of a low oblong couch, 
 is not lost by the additional decorations, which are all 
 in the direction of defining, not disguising it This sofa 
 is at once a beautiful ornament and a luxurious refuge. 
 It belongs to the date when Madame de Pompadour's 
 taste became classic, and there is no detail in its elabo- 
 rate yet never obtrusive ornament but deserves study. 
 Its refined form, its height, proportions, and workman- 
 ship are perfect. The quaint swans and the wreath of 
 oak-leaves are conventionalised, but not unnatural ; the 
 floral ornament on the lower part is delicate and charm- 
 ing, though its combination with the conventional Greek 
 'honeysuckle,' &c., is indulgent enough. 
 
 The mahogany sofas, or rather double chairs, peculiar 
 to late Georgian taste, are far from easy, but they boast 
 occasionally good hand-carving. The lyre-back is 
 remotely referable to the classics. I have seen some 
 which, protected by loose cushions, and made in 
 well-seasoned, hand-polished 
 wood, are real ornaments in 
 their quiet, rather solemn, 
 fashion. 
 
 It is remarkable how like 
 our own are some of the an- 
 cient Greek sofas or couches, ^ „ ^ , . 
 
 Fig. 58.— Greek sofa, 
 
 or rather how Greek influence 
 
 is traceable in some of our worst productions. Fig. 58, 
 made in two contrasting woods, or wood and metal, 
 would be a beautiful and comfortable seat. We know 
 
288 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 what machinery and obtuseness made of this form, how it 
 spoiled all the curves, and how different is a poor wood 
 structure upheld on ill-turned legs from one of similar 
 form beautifully carven out of a fine material. 
 
 As we can refer so much in the Renascence costume 
 to classic precedent, so we can refer to it many forms in 
 furniture not immediately pretending to be classic, just as 
 we can in Empire time. The 'long settles ' — plain flat 
 couches six or seven feet long by three wide, stuffed 
 with hair — which came in vogue in the seventeenth cen- 
 
 FiG. 59. 
 
 Roman forms. 
 
 Fig. 60. 
 
 tury, with the high square-backed chair, were precisely 
 similar to the couches used in Ancient Egypt, save that 
 in lieu of being supported on twisted legs the box which 
 supported them was painted with devices, more like the 
 Gothic hutch or settle. The Greek couch had a rail at 
 the end, like one of the Empire forms, wherein a rail of 
 ball pattern ran equally along three sides — rather pretty. 
 The limbs of beasts adapted to legs of furniture, a pat- 
 tern so common in Rome, ought to be modelled with 
 extreme ability to be unobjectionable, and when the 
 
TABLES. 289 
 
 modelled limb is debased into the mere curved support, 
 without meaning or grace (as it was in classic times, not 
 ours only), the effect is always that of nerveless insecu- 
 rity, i.e. bad taste. 
 
 Tables are too much neglected among us. If we 
 would take hints for tables only from the Greeks, and 
 beautify the furniture constantly meeting our eyes, instead 
 of trying to use their costume, only fit for their times 
 and climate, and their delicately moulded architecture, 
 only visible under a bright sun and wrought in Pentelic 
 marble, we might figure as a reasonable race of men. 
 
 No wood was too costly for the table-tops of ancient 
 Greece and Rome. No labour was too great to keep 
 them in order. Between the courses of the meal slaves 
 rubbed the polished tables with oiled soft cloths. A 
 single slab of delicately veined maple or citrus, nearly 
 four feet across and half a foot thick ; or daintily inlaid 
 works in marble, porphyry, and ivory, nay, gold and silver, 
 supported by ivory pillars and bronze claws, were common 
 in old Rome, and the Renascence decorators revived 
 the fashion. What can be a more superb table-top than 
 that vast work in tarsia of precious stones, standing in 
 the Borghese Stanza degli Specchi } among which stones 
 some pieces only show you their rare glitter \{ you bow 
 or kneel to catch the changing light as of rubies, or 
 opals, or emerald fire within them. 
 
 In England, tables of m.etal or alabaster, porphyry, 
 and other stones take' too low a temperature to be really 
 
 U 
 
290 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 pleasant to the touch, and a table, to meet its real use, 
 must not discourage touch. Therefore delicate wood 
 inlaying is fitter for us than stone inlaying, however 
 vivid and tasteful. A table should not be too beauteous 
 to use. The Louis Seize tables were toys only, like the 
 Louis Ouatorze cabinets. They would be too fragile to 
 bear the weight of books and tea-cups ; too tender to 
 endure the hasty push of a housemaid, or even the 
 harsh attrition of modern adulterated dress fabrics. 
 
 Fig. 61.— Silver table at Windsor Castle, time of Louis Quatorze. 
 
 The lovely silver table of which I give a cut belongs 
 to Her Majesty the Queen, and on comparing it with the 
 later table (/^;///. Louis Seize, on p. 162), we see how the 
 decadence was proceeding in the direction of refinement 
 and weakness — difuiniiendo I have elsewhere called it. 
 
 A tabic may be elegantly made if it stand aside, and 
 be not put to coarse service, like a racehorse ; still a 
 table it must be and carry something. 
 
 The supports of tables might be far more varied 
 than they are. The lumpish central support, with three 
 
TABLES, 291 
 
 gouty promontories, has been done to death. So have the 
 emasculated prongs which maintain, a ' Queen Anne ' 
 table. The gilt stucco formed like loves and cornucopias 
 is objectionable, for the most cherished tables, like the 
 above-named gem in the Borghese, soon show signs of 
 wear and tear ; and everything which is eminently un- 
 practical must be banished from such a place. 
 
 Le Pautre includes some novel designs for tables 
 among his many plates, and various old missals give 
 hints we could work out. 
 
 The most convenient and the most economical, and 
 not the least pretty tables for English use, are the small 
 oaken ones still to be found in the cottages of certain 
 counties, some with the old ball legs in fours and eights 
 a-row, some supported by quaint jambs of oak at each 
 side, and always fitted with deep flaps. 
 
 Dining-tables of the ^ telescope ' description have 
 been much criticised by the aesthetic, but I am sure 
 they are the most convenient machines, and I find they 
 never get out of order, are easy to shift and to enlarge — 
 therefore there is no reason why they should be super- 
 seded. Their supports might be improved, of course, 
 like everything else machine-made. Many an old Gothic 
 or early Renascence table-dormant, in pictures and minia- 
 tures, gives us hints about the supports, which may be 
 either * legs ' or arches. 
 
 Table legs should either splay out a little near the 
 floor, which gives more purchase, as in a chair, when a 
 weight is superimposed ; or they should be perpendicular, 
 moulded so as to give shadows broad enough to be 
 visible in our gloomy atmosphere, and by no means too 
 
292 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 slender. Smooth ivory is a material that might oftener 
 figure in our tables, whether large or small ; it is less cold 
 than marble, and a more agreeable white. It should not 
 be carved, but it might be incised in black, or inlaid 
 with steel and silver in quantities small enough not to 
 excite cupidity — though that passion overruns this 
 country so that it is a wonder we have any bell- 
 handles or roof-leading left ! and a pretty cloth can 
 always preserve during use or conceal if need be. 
 
 I can well understand tables growing to be a * hobby' 
 with collectors, but they should never be dressed in rose 
 point and velvets like a bride. Something should be 
 left for the mistress of the house, 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON MOVABLES {continued). 
 
 HE English carpets, famous for durability, made 
 fifty years ago, were too hideous to deserve 
 notice as works of art. Whilst the well-spun 
 and well- woven worsted fully deserved the old 
 English reputation of worth and integrity, we found as 
 we grew to see the faults in design that it would not 
 wear out however ill-used, and many a good old Brussels 
 carpet after being endured in the drawing-room till 
 human nature revolted, was sent into the best bed-room ; 
 from thence into the second best ; finally, as nothing 
 would ruffle its temper, it was ' swapped ' for matting and 
 rugs, and probably still lives in some humbler dwelling, 
 looking ' showy ' and feeling comfortable to the last. 
 
 All the furniture made under the influence of the 
 Empire was durable ; this was part of their general 
 principle of truth, and earnestly do I wish that a prin- 
 ciple so good could be combined with pleasanter forms-^ 
 
294 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 but we must not be Quixotic. The carpets were in- 
 destructible ; and if, as a Queen-Annite asserted the 
 other day, 'that which has remained to us is really 
 worthy of study and imitation, mainly because it has 
 remained,' it strikes me that a consistent admirer of 
 early nineteenth-century objects ought to fit the old 
 carpets to the old furniture and have the room correct. 
 They are quite as perfect after fifty years' service as the 
 emaciated tables and sideboards. And perhaps enthu- 
 siasts will yet be born to see something ' nice ' about 
 Bengal tigers and vast roses and snowdrops rearing and 
 wriggling beneath their sesthetic feet. 
 
 Meanwhile carpets have deteriorated in quality and 
 improved in colour. Morris's carpets, which are some- 
 times very pleasing, fade detestably soon ; and there are 
 few firms where durable materials seem to be united 
 with 'high art' colours. But this is a consummation 
 which will be granted as soon as the public devoutly 
 insist upon it ; and, putting intrinsic worth aside, we 
 go on to examine the artistic merits to be sought in 
 carpets. 
 
 Nothing can cultivate our eye as well as intelligent 
 study of Oriental fabrics : not those made for the modern 
 market by workmen sufficiently indifferent to their tra- 
 ditions to accept British dyes, and so impaired by want 
 of keeping up to their original standard that they have 
 almost forgotten how to work minute patterns and a close 
 web. But sufficient Oriental carpets of older date re- 
 main to guide and satisfy cultured taste, and to serve, I 
 rejoice to say, as patterns for reproduction ; and now 
 that import duties are entirely abolished, every year is 
 
CARPETS. 295 
 
 likely to bring over more genuine old products until 
 Turkey and India are exhausted, and that will be some 
 time hence. 
 
 The first merit about these old carpets is that they 
 are hand-made, which necessitates slight irregularities 
 and * imperfections ; ' which yet are more interesting 
 than the excessive precision of machine-made goods. 
 Irregularity in colour or web is called imperfection in 
 the trade ; but a certain imperfection seems necessary 
 to the existence of beauty, which perishes amid the 
 rigid parallelograms and clarifications of Science, like a 
 wild bird in a doorless cage : and many things which 
 machine-trained opinion calls ' spoilt ' are beautiful 
 through the very want of perfectness which is com- 
 plained of. Not that bad work is in itself admirable. 
 We must distinguish between the flights of fancy that 
 spring from want of skill and concentration, and those 
 derived from a strength superior to leading-strings — as 
 also pretty accidents. But all old work show^s us the 
 impress of human minds and hands, instead of me- 
 chanical monotony. Every zigzag will be just so far 
 irregular as a zigzag drawn by hand, not by a wheel ; 
 every spot and group will have its little individualities 
 — as like as a pea to a pea, which is not very like — and 
 every colour will be imperfect by the modern standard 
 of distillation, for every colour will partake slightly of 
 some other, and so there will be better harmony. 
 
 This is visible in all branches of decorative work, 
 from carpets to china and jewellery. Approximate per- 
 fection is all we can endure in this imperfect world. 
 Blue should be unmistakable as blue, yet it should con- 
 
296 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 tain just enough red to bear propinquity with red, or 
 just enough yellow to bear propinquity with green. 
 This is like a sweetly-tempered character that can sym- 
 pathise with many other minds without sacrificing its 
 own individual principles ; and such colours, soft, pliable, 
 not aggressive and obstinate, maybe called sympathetic 
 colours. 
 
 All antique work is tinted with sympathetic colours. 
 The rudeness of the old loom, or tool, or retort, may be 
 responsible ; but be the cause what it may, intentional 
 or no, the result is good, and not uninstructive. When 
 we use modern dyes, exquisitely distilled and rigidly 
 pure, in similar combinations to the old, it will be at 
 once seen that they are out of tune together, and irre- 
 concilable. Our coal-tar colours look unnatural either 
 in masses, or sudden contrast with each other, for such 
 purity is never seen in nature save in an infinitesimal 
 quantity instantly softened apologetically off — observe a 
 grain of ore, a glimpse of a bird's wing, changing at the 
 next grain or the next flash into its modified echo, or 
 its palpitating opposite. This is why faded colours are 
 often better than when new, their harshness has subsided. 
 
 This gentleness of character visible in antique 
 colouring, and in antique shapes too, is very remarkable, 
 and seems to possess a moral significance, which however 
 does not bear pressing beyond the domain of art. 
 
 Probably because carpets were not originally intended 
 to be trampled upon and disregarded, the ancients took 
 the trouble to design beautifully for them and carry 
 them out carefully. In the East the beautiful little 
 carpet is intended for a devotional purpose ; and the 
 
CARPETS. 297 
 
 true believer would weave in the image of the sacred 
 Kaaba with a memory of prayer to Allah : such 
 embroideries and fabrics as were not devotional were 
 meant for seats and hangings,constantly under criticism. 
 Thus carpets were exclusively used in England up to 
 the fourteenth century when they are first spoken of as 
 luxuries ' siir qtioy on marchoif. 
 
 The close, fine web without pile, of some Eastern 
 carpets certainly seems still unsuitable to the rough ser- 
 vice of modern drawing-rooms with their crowded parties 
 and negligent or reckless housemaids. They are better 
 fitted for wall-hangings ^x\d. portieres than for the pum- 
 melHng of hard and ceaseless boots. 
 
 The indefatigable Morris advertises an improved 
 hand-made carpet called * Hammersmith,' for which he 
 will supply designs adapted to the place where it is 
 meant to lie. This is a step in the right direction ; but 
 really fine designs cannot be made 'to order.' They 
 must await inspiration. 
 
 One well-known firm has a pretty carpet, repeating 
 J. M. Whistler's well-known signature of a butterfly ; if 
 it could but be reproduced in worsted which would wear 
 more than a month. 
 
 Brussels is no doubt the m.ost durable kind of 
 English carpet, 'Wilton Pile' the most springy and 
 pleasant, and I am sorry that the vagaries of our high- 
 art teachers are limiting us to Kidderminster. This 
 is a good carpet for bedrooms and schoolrooms, but 
 it is too thin to be as silent as luxury demands, or as 
 warm as an English winter deserves. The flat, visible 
 threads always have a somewhat ascetic and ' wrong- 
 
298 GENERAL APPLICATIONS'. 
 
 side ' look compared with a deep delicious velvet-pile. 
 Why cannot we have such luxurious copies of Eastern 
 work at its best as Henry IV. required when he insti- 
 tuted La Savonnerict Such carpets might be made 
 better (and probably cheaper) at home than in the East ; 
 and if customers could procure them at anything like a 
 reasonable rate, they would soon chase from the field 
 the unsatisfactory carpets we have for some time been 
 obliged to put up with. 
 
 The character and grace of a room depend so much 
 upon the hangings, that we cannot be too cautious in 
 our choice of fabric. The kind of folds into which they 
 fall, and the colour, must alike be carefully considered ; 
 and good sense will rerr\em.ber that the adage, ' Those 
 laugh best who laugh last,' may he applied to furnishing 
 materials — those look best which look well longest. In 
 this age of shoddy and adulteration, it is difficult to 
 know what one is buying, however high the price. No 
 assurance on the part of the shopr^an is reliable, not 
 because he rneans to cheat, but because he really does 
 not know what the wearing capacity is of fa,brics which 
 look like sUk, cotton, wool, but are in reality weighted 
 with chernicals of a destructive kind. After much dismal 
 experience, \ arn inclined to doubt every fabric contain- 
 ing the slightest stiflfness, even when warranted at the 
 best shops. Rich-looking, heavy satins, I know from 
 experience, are largely doctored, and are useless for 
 lone: or even reasonable wear, either in dress or fur- 
 
CURTAINS. 299 
 
 niture They can be tested by boiling a small piece 
 before purchase : // they curl up in the process, they 
 should be avoided : unadulterated silks boil without 
 curling up. Fabrics made of wool and silk mixed may 
 wear well, may clean, may stand sun and air, as modern 
 ' silk ' and 'satin' will not; pure wool is most satisfactory 
 of all. Beautiful as were the old honest furniture silks 
 (however costly), stiff through close weaving, not gum, 
 with their vast arabesque patterns and shimmering lights 
 and shades ; beautiful and durable as may be some 
 modern copies of the old : the extravagance of using 
 the specious rubbish which has taken, their place recently 
 does not justify me in recommending them, save to 
 maniacs. When English trade in silk and satin has 
 regained its ancient prestige, it will be time to uphold it, 
 but not now. I propose then to examine certain fabrics 
 which are worth buying, because fairly serviceable as 
 well as beautiful ; and I must confine my attention to 
 woollens, cottons, and mixtures. And how beautiful 
 such fabrics may be nowadays, I hope to show without 
 frightening the fastidious public with a homely name. 
 1 began by condemning stiff fabrics, 'which would stand 
 alone ' (the old phrase when silk weaving was honest) ; 
 and this applies to woollen goods as well as silk. A stiff 
 woollen, or a stiff mixture, is. probably aided by cotton, 
 and the cotton is surely aided by chemicals. This adul- 
 teration, termed ' dress ' ia the trade, or ' harmless pre- 
 paration on the back, without which the material would 
 look very poor,' vQry soon becomes patent when the 
 material is in use. The * dress ' will actually shake out 
 in powder during the making. It will disappear in 
 
300 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 patches, making the stuff look unequal in colour and 
 thread ; and the first time the curtains are cleaned or 
 dyed, they can never be put up again. This may be 
 ' good for trade ' for a while, but not in the long run. 
 
 The ancient tapestries which line our museums and 
 many old houses in England were made of wool, or wool 
 and silk. The wool was fast colour, and so strong and 
 well woven that the threads have lasted until now. 
 Every tint of fruit or flower, of sky or human visage, was 
 reproduceable fairly well in wool. The brightest parts 
 were put in by silk, or paint itself Such tapestries are 
 eminently suited to wall hanging, and every form of 
 heavy curtain. Nothing looks better as a portiere than 
 a tapestry of moderately conventional design ; nothing 
 wears better. These tapestries can be copied now with 
 very fair success. I have seen some which certainly 
 look as if they would wear as well as the old— that is 
 to say, they are all wool, as thick as carpet, the ends 
 clearly visible at the back, and the colouring soft and 
 harmonious, such as oiigJit to be fast. I have not, how- 
 ever, experimented with them. The warmth of such 
 curtain*^, when weight is needed, would be delightful. 
 For my own part I would not even line them, to hide 
 the honest-looking back, full of ends of wool, and the 
 large folds in which they would hang would be suited to 
 any dining-room or study where solid splendour seems 
 in place. Imitation tapestry, such as canvas painted or 
 stamped in oils, looks very well on the wall, but the oil 
 colour is apt to stiffen the fabric, to make the folds un- 
 gainly, to crack off white, and to smell a little in summer. 
 They do not really ' wash down ' as they are said to. 
 
CURTAINS. 301 
 
 The ordinary cloth or ' tapestry ' curtain, usually sold for 
 dining-rooms, is very fairly worth the money ; it is wool, 
 mixed with silk, often in really fine conventional patterns, 
 but the silk is apt to fade away from the wool. I ad- 
 mire very much the pretty ' tinsel tapestries,' made in 
 delicate colours — pink, blue, cream, &c., interwoven with 
 tinsel ; the effect is charming ; colour and design are 
 both nice, if the tinsel do not speedily blacken, as gold 
 in wall papers does. 
 
 Among the mixtures, the new velvet tapestry, in 
 which I saw a very beautiful design, is an instance of 
 what can be done with wool and silk. A creamy-grey 
 silky ground, with large woollen flowers upon it, so well 
 coloured and shaded, that, without any attempt at 
 making the stuff a naturalistic anomaly, looking like real 
 flowers attached impossibly to the perpendicular, the 
 roses appear raised and velvety at a very short distance. 
 It is costly enough and beautiful enough to please any- 
 body, but apparently durable, I imagine it would tone 
 down in wear all alike, and not need frequent cleanihg. 
 
 A certain plush material, made of cotton, which Hel- 
 bronner used to make in pretty designs, is now made by 
 other firms reversible, in charming colours, such as fawn, 
 with a dado literally imitating the Indian rugs so 
 fashionable for 'aesthetic' drawing-rooms. These cur- 
 tains hang in soft, long folds, are pleasant to the touch, 
 and in every way attractive. Whether they would 
 speedily spoil, as most plush must, and whether they 
 would bear any cleaning process, experience only can 
 tell. ^ Roman satin,' which is a mixture, and cheap, is a 
 very nice material. The coarse threads have a pleasant 
 
303 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 * character' which does not offer comparison with one's 
 gown, and I think there ought to be a distinction be- 
 tween furniture fabrics and the human garb. It is made 
 in many artistic soft shades, and wears rather well. All 
 these thick, heavy curtains ought to be cut just to the 
 ground and no longer. The silly fashion of sweeping 
 curtains, lil^e a lady's train, is unsuited to these weighty 
 materials, which would catch the dust sadly on the floor, 
 and no hooks or ropes u^ould support them in nice 
 festoons. Drawn back, not looped or caught up, they 
 will all be satisfactory as fabrics. The colour, to be 
 good, must depend upon the eye which selects it ; the 
 only safe rule to lay down is that none of the shades 
 should be very vivid, not even the 'artistic' peacock 
 shades, which are often aliiline. All very vivid shades 
 in furnitute are odious. Proper relief and a just measure 
 of brightness in effect must be got, not by spots of sharp 
 colour here and there, but happy (i.e. slight) contrasts. 
 For instance, a room wholly draped in monotone, how- 
 ever nice in shade, will always be dull and gloomy. A 
 room wholly furnished with fine old tapestry must be 
 so too, many as the colours are in tapestry. A hanging 
 here or there of deep red or yellow, or some other self- 
 colour, will be probably wanted for balance, just as in a 
 very gay-coloured room the eye tuins with delight to a 
 rriass of quiet tone. It is wonderful how bright a room 
 may be made to look by skilful contrasts without a single 
 really vivid colour. 
 
 Draperies about a room always add to the home-like 
 feeling of it. They not only exclude draughts, but they 
 conceal the sharp edges and angles of woodwork, which 
 
CURTAINS. 303 
 
 uncovered always seems unhappy. I like curtains at 
 every window, and over every door. I like pretty stuffs, 
 furs, embroideries, and mats, flung loose over couches 
 and pianos. They fall then at every corner and every 
 wrinkle into nice natural folds, so much pleasanter thail 
 tightly fitting cases, further tightened by buttons. 
 
 Curtains ought to be fuller than they usually are ; 
 and such massive folds as I have been describing, for 
 every kind of room, gain much from an alliance with 
 thinner ones. Thin curtains, such as net, lace, &c., 
 actually exclude sunlight, I suppose-, but they seem \:<^ 
 bring it in ; a room with pfetty lace curtaiiis always 
 looks sunnier than one without them. The modern 
 fashion of cream instead of pure harsh White, is oiie 
 which ought never to go out — yet how we used to puzzle 
 over the ancient taste for so tinting lace, and marvel 
 why they did not like it quite white ! The cream-tint 
 softens any contrast, and the shades of folds against the 
 light are far more picturesque. The * Madras muslin-,' 
 that simple fabric now in vogue, with its velvety touch 
 and good straightforward patterns, is charlning for any 
 purpose, and, at least in a good quality, cleans quite as 
 well as the horrible old * lace ' curtain, smothe'red with 
 vague sprawling attempts at fancy vegetation. 
 
 Some intelligent person has devised a thorough 
 novelty in the shape of black lace curtains with pattern 
 in ' old-gold ' colour. They are very pretty, and ought 
 to be durable. They would not suit every room : but 
 one in which black panels, or other dark masses occur, 
 would be improved by such curtains in lieu of white. 
 They are sold under the mysterious name of * Cabul.' 
 
304 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 How pretty black muslin might be stamped with gold or 
 silver, like that worn long ago for veils, ruffles, &c. 
 Properly stamped, it would be capable of being reno- 
 vated by pressing out. 
 
 Books may be considered an ornament by their 
 association with learning and intellectual pleasure ; but 
 unless very handsomely bound, modern books are not 
 particularly ornamental in then:iselves. They may, how- 
 ever, always inhabit a pretty bookshelf, and I have 
 sketched a case which has the merit of novelty in that 
 it breaks up the dull uniform brown tint which a mass 
 of books usually presents by niches for pots and other 
 ornaments, and cupboards whose panels ask for ornament. 
 
 The colour of a bookshelf is not necessarily dark ; 
 the wood may be inlaid, incrusted with pieces of metal 
 or stone, or painted. In pale blue, white, or green, 
 varnished and thoroughly dried before the books are 
 put in, bookshelves may be made a real addition in 
 beauty. The colour should depend on that of the walls 
 and ceiling. A pale blue and white * Morris ' paper 
 adjoins pleasantly pale blue shelves ; the niches may be 
 lined with Japanese gilt papers, and the doors painted 
 with flowers, insects, shells, crests or more ambitious 
 subjects.' The pots may be Delft, Nankedn, Gres de 
 Flandres, or yellow Crackle ; with such a room the 
 ceiling may be scarlet, and the doors black and blue and 
 white. 
 
 With a room papered with a reddish paper, the 
 
BOOKCASES. 
 
 305 
 
 shelves may be white or sea-green. The niches may 
 correspond with the wall, or they may have a purple 
 tinge lighted up with silver points. The pots may be 
 Cinquecento Italian ware, or Oriental. The ceihng 
 
 Fig. 62. — Design for a bookcase. 
 
 should carry out the colour of the pottery or of the 
 niches. 
 
 Inlaid shelves — in a kind of soft-coloured mar- 
 queterie— go with almost any colour in furniture or 
 
 X 
 
3c6 GENERAL APPLICATIOXS. 
 
 wall. A plain murrey-coloured wall with amber velvet 
 hangings would have a very elegant effect. 
 
 I prefer the furniture of a study or library a little 
 gay in colour, because a mass of books, even gilt-backed, 
 unreHeved, always tells dark and heavy ; still the walls 
 should not be so obtrusively gay that the colour distracts 
 attention from the books. I once knew a bookworm 
 who, feeling the want of colour, painted his wall blood- 
 red, his doors arsenic-green ; and the ideas of butchery 
 and poisoning which these two foul hues aroused in 
 some minds sensitive to colour-influences, were really 
 distressing. 
 
 A soft light-red and a kindly moss-green such as a 
 wood grows in midsummer, would have had a different 
 effect ; but most colours are painful in too large amass, 
 and should be relieved by variations in the mouldings, 
 or by pictures in parcel-gilt frames — filagree are best — 
 and a little china, or cloisonne, or German glass, sturdy 
 and quaint. 
 
 The books in one place and the china in another^ 
 each in its own glazed case, appears to me a joyless 
 arrangement. Marry the gay colours of the one to the 
 sober coats and bright thoughts of the other ; mix pots 
 and books in such a manner as that neither shall inter- 
 fere with the other ; and you get an artistically good 
 effect. Moreover the depth of the niches is sufficient to 
 prevent accidents, and a cloth hooked up during the 
 sweeping out of the sanctum (which must be done, in 
 spite of the prejudices of bookworms) preserves all 
 together. 
 
 A pretty curtain, by the way, is a permanent pro- 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 307 
 
 tectlon from daily dust ; and does not ofTer the same 
 obstacles to reaching a book hastily as glass, or that 
 worse device against theft, wire-netting. It should be 
 in a thin material such as cretonne, or coloured Corah 
 silk, and should slip to and fro on smooth and silent 
 
 ^latc anti Cutlctp* 
 
 Modern plate is a sore point with those who have 
 learnt what plate can and ought to be, by collecting old 
 plate. 
 
 It is extraordinary how ambitious and obtrusive, how 
 elaborate and varied, are the vast pieces exhibited by 
 the great silversmiths, and chiefly manufactured for 
 purposes of presentation : how skilful and minute is 
 sometimes the workmanship — and how weak, how coarse, 
 how vulgar, how innocent of all anatomical and botanical 
 knowledge, is the design ! 
 
 When an English workman chooses to reproduce a 
 piece of old or Oriental plate of fine design> how perfectly 
 can he do it— he has appliances such as man never had 
 before, and he is paid nobiy. If designs were furnished 
 to him by Leighton or Watts, for his candelabra, his 
 plateaux or his clocks, he could carry them out with 
 surpassing skill. But what do we see t ceaseless 
 attempts of the unknown designer to run before he can 
 walk : feverish efforts to be ' showy.' He will design a 
 grove of palm-trees without taking the trouble to spend 
 a day at Kew and observe the real form of a palm. — he 
 will surround it with cavalcades of camels and elephants 
 
3o8 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 without a bone in their bodies, and frequently standing 
 at an impossible angle : he will niggle over the ground 
 with pebbles and footmarks not one of which is beyond 
 criticism, set the whole abomination with looking-glass, 
 and sell it to the Lord Mayor, firmly believing, in the 
 words of his catalogue, that it is a ' superb masterpiece 
 of magnificent design.' 
 
 And the mermaids ! and the cupids ! and the 
 nymphs ! with all their muscles wrongly placed : their 
 throats mere cylinders of shapeless metal bent to fit the 
 head — which is often grotesquely too small ; their arms 
 and legs smooth and tapering, without action or the 
 possibility of action, minus muscles. The hands, 
 supposed to be grasping something which they do not 
 touch ; the boneless fingers like elastic caterpillars, each 
 one nearly S-shaped ; the feet too small to support 
 such length of frame ; the ears put in the wrong place ; 
 the ankles bent in attitudes quite opposed to the power 
 of the joint — the whole torso, which the modellers delight 
 in exposing, as hideously out of drawing as frame can 
 be, and the folds of crowded drapery * done out of their 
 heads.' 
 
 There are no doubt sins to be avoided in old sculp- 
 ture. The ancients, though conscientious, were not 
 impeccable. The Venus de Medici with fingers too taper 
 to admit of an internal bone, rnay be our precedent for 
 shapeless extremities : her tortoise-like cranium may ex- 
 cuse a similar modern blot. Still we know that her hands 
 and head are not Greek. Many a mediaeval Madonna 
 is frameless beneath her massy folds, and great liberties 
 have been taken with her muscles. Raphael himself 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 309 
 
 was partial to a leg bending inward at the knee, and 
 outward at the ankle as (I believe) no leg, not even an 
 acrobat's, can humanly bend. But we will not emulate 
 the sins, only the virtues, of dead genius ; and it would 
 cost trade capitalists very little extra to get a good 
 design from a Royal Academician and reproduce it fre- 
 quently ; Marochetti with all his faults was surely 
 superior to the common English designer. 
 
 One of the merits of David, in the time of the Empire, 
 was to check that inane style of modelling which during 
 the decadence of taste under Louis XV. had begun to be 
 tolerated, and to encourage something more robust and 
 interesting. I have seen a scythed * Time ' surmount- 
 ing an old brazen clock, whose limbs showed the 
 discriminating pressure of instructed finger and thumb 
 upon the yielding clay, the torso well understood, the 
 head well-set, the limbs nervous, decided, and full of life ; 
 yet the design was rough, there were no signs of mean 
 and niggling finish, which like a specious edifice built on 
 faulty foundations betrays the want of knowledge and 
 integrity beneath. 
 
 The Phaetonic horses of the same period, though 
 drawn servilely from classic types, were strong, muscular, 
 equine — there was some modelling in them. The modern 
 clock or centrepiece has a horse like a sausage, a rider 
 that does not fit his back, or a nymph cast flat on one 
 side and soldered on in relief, so that the first glance 
 confuses the eye with parts round and parts flat. 
 
 The abominations found in pieces of the utmost 
 costliness and labour have no excuse. Our museums, 
 our schools of art, our Botanic and Zoological Gardens, 
 
3IO GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 and books of incredible worth and cheapness, await a 
 visit, a glance from our designers — but glance they will 
 not, in the mental congestion of their dense ignorance 
 and self-satisfaction ; and the public o\ight to insist upon 
 something better for their money. 
 
 What I said about the purchaser educating the work- 
 man to make good furniture holds doubly true in this 
 higher department of design : for the material is more 
 precious, and the cost is proportionately greater. I ex- 
 hort the public to buy antiques, and not modern plate 
 — for the education of their own eye, so that they may 
 see the difference between them, and may have definite 
 ground to go upon in criticising modern work, and be 
 independent of the salesman's salaried * opinion.' 
 
 It is too melancholy for those who know something 
 about old plate to sit all dinner-time opposite some 
 horrible Presentation piece, only fit for the smelting-pot, 
 whither may the burglar soon despatch it ! watching the 
 bad soldering, the coarse castings of rocks and goddesses, 
 the industrious frosting which strives to divert the eye 
 from ill-modelled and balanced figures, with limbs of 
 unequal length, extremities of unequal size. 
 
 Where are the neat finish, the well-hammered sur- 
 faces, the careful graving, the delicate repousses patterns 
 which make old plate, however plain, full of interest .? 
 The plate of early Georgian times, simple as the patterns 
 often were, ugly sometimes, compares with Victorian 
 inimitably to the latter's disadvantage. The genuine 
 old plate of Stuart times, far rarer, and far more beau- 
 tiful, shouts our reproof still loudlier. Who can forget 
 the lovely dish and ewer of Renascence work, and that 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 
 
 3'i 
 
 still older and finer Tudor cup, belonging to St. John's 
 College, Cambridge ? Who can forget that Briot, Luca 
 Delia Robbia, Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Verrocchio, 
 Leonardo da V^inci, Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, and La 
 Francia — with other names as great — were at one time 
 
 Fig. 63.— Candlestick, Italian, sixteenth century. 
 
 working goldsmiths : that Jan van Eyck and Holbein 
 designed continually for plate, if they did not actually 
 hammer it : and that even in England plate used to be 
 deemed so essentially the artist's business, that court- 
 painters were indiscriminately described as ' goldsmith,' 
 ' carver,' * portrait-painter/ and ' embosser ' to royalty^ 
 
312 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth ? This we 
 have repeated authority for. And when we study the 
 ancient gold and silver ornaments of Greece and Rome, 
 and read the long list of names of goldsmiths which 
 have been preserved to us from this remote antiquity — 
 when we hear of the microscopic groups worked by 
 Callicrates of Lacedaemon and Myrmecides of Miletus, 
 so small as to be hidden beneath a fly's wing, and scruti- 
 nise the foreign treasures which Cook's tickets have 
 rendered so accessible — why, we ask again and again, 
 are we to put up with these poor and vulgar table- 
 * ornaments ' (?) which we pay so exorbitantly for ? 
 
 One very curious fact is, that many an artist, chal- 
 lenged to defend the plate on his own dinner-table, will 
 hesitate, or stammer out the lamest excuses. ' Mustn't 
 look a gift horse in the mouth,' one will say (a proverb 
 which reflects on the honesty of benefactors !) — * I really 
 never looked at the thing before,' another answers ; or 
 ' Well, it is rather a good design, I thought, without 
 being too critical.' 
 
 Thus, artists will sometimes say English designs are 
 good, as musicians will say English bells are good, be- 
 cause habit is so strong that they cannot rid their judg- 
 ment of implied conditions. Their praise means 'good 
 enough for bells,' ' good enough for plate.' It has never 
 entered the musician's head to judge a bell as a musical 
 instrument ; it has never entered the artist's head to 
 judge of his plate by the same standard as he judges 
 pictures by. The thing has always occupied a lower 
 place in h\s mind, and has not been thought of as belong- 
 ing to art at all. 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 313 
 
 But if an artist, like any other cultivated man, has 
 collected a few pieces of old plate, he knows the differ- 
 ence very well : his attention has been awakened to un- 
 foreseen possibilities, and he will no longer have a word 
 to say in favour of the bits of presentation plate which 
 have ceased to deface his table. 
 
 A bit of finely-modelled pewter gives a cultured eye 
 more pleasure than a monstrosity in pure gold. I wish 
 that those who can, would sometimes practise the art of 
 working in the above humble metal which was not beneath 
 the attention of Frangois Briot, nor despised at the tables 
 of Marie d'Anjou and Francis I. There are one or two 
 amateur goldsmiths in England who have it in their 
 power to redeem our name among the nations. 
 
 Meantime, the safest investments in modern work 
 are the copies of Cellini's standard patterns (however 
 impaired), and good Indian and Persian designs, which 
 are very common, happily. 
 
 Until the public taste has risen to the critical level of 
 our seventeenth-century ancestors, or the Athenian 
 populace, the English designer will do no better than he 
 does. 
 
 French designs are no loftier, though thf workman- 
 ship is by some considered more refined. As to the 
 humbler requisites of the table — the mere forks and 
 spoons and knives, in which we hardly require elaborate 
 workmanship since they must undergo rougher usage 
 than salt-cellars, tankards, and centrepieces — they might 
 be greatly improved -without being more costly or more 
 troublesome. 
 
 In the first place, the four prongs should dwindle 
 
314 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 to three, which admit of a more elegant curve from the 
 handle, and are quite as serviceable for all probable 
 purposes. Spoons should be of two shapes, round and 
 oval in the bowl, but never as large and heavy as most 
 modern dessert and table-spoons, which are only fit for an 
 ogre's jaw. The old Apostle spoons are better suited 
 in shape to serv^e fruit or cream than oval spoons, but 
 less so to drink soup than the present kind. A spoon 
 should never be too large to be taken into the mouth ; 
 otherwise we might just as v/ell sip from a bowl's edge, 
 as our grandmothers sipped a ' dish of tea.' 
 
 The handles of most modern table plate, whether 
 silver or electro-plated, are utterly destitute of refine- 
 ment in design. The fiddle-patterned fork with its 
 inconvenient edges quite forgets the outline of a fiddle, 
 and is smothered under ornamentation such as the so- 
 called ' shell ' which really is a base imitation of the 
 Greek honeysuckle, or other caricatures of Renascence 
 detail under a fancy name ; because this kind of clumsy 
 prominent work suits trade purposes admirably. In 
 silver it adds enormously to the weight, and conse- 
 quently the cost. In electro it grows shabby speedily, 
 because the spoon or fork always falls on the ornament, 
 and forces us to replace the set before long. 
 
 The industrious collectors of Queen Anne plate 
 {I'cally Queen Anne this time), who do good service 
 to art in giving us the opportunity to compare old 
 silversmith work with new, nurse an enmity to en- 
 graved patterns which I do not wholly understand. 
 Whilst repousse work, well and delicately done, is cer- 
 tainly the most showy with its many reflected lights, 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 315 
 
 fine incised patterns seem to me admirable in many 
 ways ; and for such things as spoons and forks would 
 be far more suitable and agreeable to the touch than 
 embossed lumps. The admirers of Queen Anne plate 
 admire chiefly its plain surfaces and solid worth of exe- 
 cution. No doubt in an age of debased design, the 
 simplest design is usually the best ; but simplicity is not 
 art, for the highest art aims at decorating and beautifying, 
 without marring the purpose ; and satisfactory to the 
 mind as is the small hammer-mark on the flat surface of 
 an antique bowl or ewer because we prefer the thorough- 
 ness of patient handwork to the specious ingenuity of 
 machines ; yet the work which contains similar skill 
 superadded to brilliant fancy, as in designs still more 
 antique, must be far more satisfactory ; and so a delicate 
 7'epoiissc or engraved punch bowl of, say, Stuart times, 
 must rank higher than a plain one of Queen Anne's or 
 the Georges' day, because more nearly influenced by a 
 capital school of art. The value no doubt depends on 
 the merit of the work ; but the artist's share cannot 
 rank so decidedly below the artisan's that the addition 
 of ornament detracts from the true value of the object. 
 
 Conventional forms alone are suited to the humble 
 purposes of sugar-basins, butter-dishes and castors. The 
 butter can never taste sweet which is covered by a straw 
 hat, or a kitten. The pepper shaken out of a top-boot 
 though of silver, must spoil one's appetite. Salt should 
 not be dug out of an animal's back, nor sugar picked up 
 by a harlequin's legs. Now that our minor objects of 
 daily use are no longer needed to point a moral or 
 adorn a tale, as in mediaeval times, and we do not care 
 
3i6 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 for the stones of saints and the songs of troubadours 
 appeaHng to us from under our hands ; now that we 
 have no longer the leisure and enthusiasm to evolve a 
 new school of splendid design as the Renascence artists 
 did, we had better adhere to careful reproductions of the 
 works of those who could think and labour in the right 
 way, else we shall surely fall back on the vulgarities of 
 beasts and old wearing-apparel upon our tables. 
 
 In cutlery, people as usual do not know the differ- 
 ence between good and bad. It is strange, but true, that 
 sterling hammered steel knife blades can hardly be got 
 now, and only at an enormous price. We observe that 
 our knives last for a very short period, as compared with 
 our fathers', and we observe, too, that dinner knives are 
 increasingly cheap. The blades, like fire-irons and grids, 
 are merely cast, not hammered at all, and therefore they 
 are brittle and soft, stand no wear, soon rust and chip, 
 and fall out of the handles. The handles themselves 
 turn yellow and crack before they have been in use a 
 year or two, and the razor-fine blade worn down to the 
 shape and size of an oyster-knife, in its strong and goodly 
 setting, is a thing of the past. 
 
 As to shape, nothing can be clumsier than the 
 fashionable one, which grows ever larger and heavier, it is 
 true, but which can have had no utilitarian origin unless 
 in days when the master of the house was so commonly 
 in liquor at his meals that round-ended knives were 
 thought safest for his eyes. This may explain, too, the 
 wafer-like disc which ends some old-fashioned pointed 
 blades. At any rate the pointed end, with blade and 
 handle both sufificiently curved to give the hand a good 
 
PLATE AND CUTLERY. 
 
 Z^7 
 
 purchase, lasted throughout the seventeenth century into 
 the eighteenth, as we see in the old silver-handled 
 William III.'s knives and forks, blades and prongs being 
 steel. Some old knives have blades so curved that they 
 suggest some upright use of them in the fist, perhaps to 
 pick up hot bits before forks were common. That this 
 was comparatively late is shown by Coryat's account of 
 being 'chaffed' by a friend for his Italian habits, 'who 
 in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table 
 
 Fig. 64.— Ancient knives nnd forks. 
 
 fiircifcT, only for using a forke in feeding, but for no 
 other cause.' Furcifer in Latin meant literally fork- 
 carrier, but it also signified a villain, who deserved the 
 gallows. Hence we get no table-forks for feeding before 
 temp. James I. 
 
 Silver-handled knives and forks, however, are very 
 cold to the touch, hardly pleasant in winter, though they 
 admit of delicate ornaments which please the eye. Ele- 
 phant's tooth, mother-of-pearl, coloured bone, shagreen, 
 and above all, damascened steel, ought to supersede the 
 monotonous bone or ivory in richly appointed houses. 
 
 There is no reason why high art, sensibly applied, 
 should not invade the forgotten ranks of implements we 
 
3 1 8 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 have to see and use so constantly as knives, forks, and 
 spoons. 
 
 The subject of table glass is treated at some length 
 in my ' Art of Beauty.' 
 
 There is nothing in the whole family of furniture so 
 unmanageable as the modern pianoforte, and yet in 
 every house where all-round culture is appreciated, a 
 piano must be. The grand piano takes up as much room 
 as a dozen people, and in the most cantankerous fashion, 
 all elbows and angles, and wherever it stands it looks 
 ponderous and unwieldy, like a big three-legged monster 
 without a head. The small cottage presents a most un- 
 picturesque front, and a still more unpleasing back, the 
 high gloss and machine-cut face over silk are supported 
 by a squat parallelogram of a body and the goutiest 
 legs. The coarse designs which happened to accompany 
 improved mechanism seem to have convinced many that 
 nothing can be done for the pianoforte ; but of course, 
 if the same qualities of mind are brought to bear on 
 pianoforte cases as have been devoted to other articles of 
 furniture, a beautiful form is not beyond human power. 
 Given the talent, enthusiasm, and fastidious skill which 
 Palissy, and Boule, and Gibbons, and Martin lavished on 
 their designs, joined to full understanding of the me- 
 chanical requirements, and why may not the pianoforte 
 appeal as delightfully to the eye as to the ear } 
 
 It never seems to occur to people that this piece of 
 furniture, as much as a curtain, or cabinet, or carpet, has 
 
PIANOFORTES. 
 
 319 
 
 its own part in the good or bad ensemble of the drawing- 
 room, its effect upon the inhabitants ' becoming ' or the 
 reverse, as much as any other prominent detail of back- 
 ground. People with otherwise good taste will force a 
 large pianoforte of rosewood into a drawing-room which 
 boasts no other scrap of rosewood to bear out the colour, 
 and nothing else big enough to balance it. This kind 
 
 Fig. 65. — 'Cottage' pianoforte, with decorated back. 
 
 of blunder cannot be excused by a love of music, any 
 more than a mere partiality for clothes can excuse such 
 garments as are ugly and useless. The question is, how 
 to remedy it. 
 
 It does not require a very soaring genius to devise 
 something better than flat dark surfaces, where the 
 colour does not affect the resonance of the wood nor the 
 
320 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 shape add materially to the tone, as in a violin. Slender 
 columns supporting a slightly projecting cornice would 
 in no wise injure the tonal value of a cottage Erard. 
 Some tracery or arches of Gothic form might replace the 
 patch of green cotton at back ; these, when the piano- 
 forte stood well out in the room, could be filled by 
 handsome Oriental jars without contact with the in- 
 strument. Marqueterie would be harmless, too, for even 
 a Straduarius violin, that miracle of resonance, ha> its 
 dainty purfling, though it does not wear vulgar lumps 
 of machine-carving on its edges. A parallelogram 
 4^ X 4 X I foot is surely capable of being treated archi- 
 tecturally in such a manner as to make it a beautiful 
 and agreeable object ; and if the cover were arched, or 
 roof-shaped, there would no longer be a possibility of 
 its being used as the general shelf. 
 
 The size of a grand piano cannot be interfered with, 
 as this represents the length and disposition of the 
 strings ; but its shape could of course be improved and 
 its colour varied to any extent. Instead of having to be 
 concealed by silken hangings, as in aesthetic houses it is, 
 why should not the vast expanse of top be inlaid with 
 metals, or even treated pictorially, since the surface is, or 
 ought to be, kept free from standing objects t so that in 
 opening it during performance, a subject of real interest 
 would offer a handsome apology for the erect mass of 
 wood. 
 
 The Dutch used to paint pictures on their tables ; 
 why should we not paint pictures on grand piano-lids — 
 a more seemly place than a table-top } 
 
 Inside the covers, various small cavities offer as many 
 
PIANOFORTES. • 321 
 
 opportunities for decoration as did the old ' spinets ' of 
 Tudor times, and here miniatures of appropriate scenes 
 would not only interest the mind, but soften the general 
 tone of colour, making it more becoming to the hand, 
 and in better harmony with a well-decorated room and 
 a picturesque //^;^2>/^. 
 
 In fact the vast expanse of one unbroken tint, and 
 that gloomy, presented by a grand pianoforte is the 
 reproach of modern art. It should be softened by plen- 
 teous and minute ornament, so as to have a pleasant 
 bloom when seen from afar, as well as to reward the eye 
 for close scrutiny. 
 
 A timid movement in the right direction has already 
 been set on foot, and it is significant that pianoforte- 
 makers have at last condescended to listen to suggestions 
 and try experiments, for until lately the dreams of 
 artistic designers were promptly crushed before they 
 reached a fair circulation among the public. Mr. Alma 
 Tadema and Mr. Burne Jones have lately cut the Gor- 
 dian knot by simply decorating, without changing 
 materially, the standard pianoforte pattern ; and their 
 two sumptuous instruments have been on view at Broad- 
 wood's long enough to convince the public that a piano- 
 forte may be a picturesque object. 
 
 But some years ago a still more ambitious attempt 
 was made, and alas ! failed. ' Steward's Patent 
 Euphonicon ' was brought out 40 or 50 years ago, by a 
 man of immense ability who, of course, paid by speedy ruin 
 for being somewhat in advance of his age. A very small 
 number of these instruments were issued at a moderate 
 cost of about I2d/. apiece. They were really beautiful in 
 
 y 
 
322 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 form, firstrate In execution, every surface which required 
 to be decorated (in a very chaste and simple manner) 
 without interfering with the demands of musical con- 
 struction, was so decorated, here with a small floriated 
 pattern in gold, there with well-cut open-work, here 
 again with some little monogram or device. 
 
 The instrument can be studied at the South 
 Kensington Museum, to which we were able to commit 
 a Euphonlcon piano some years ago. It is very 
 pretty ; the utmost length of string Is drawn upward on 
 a harp-shaped Iron frame, and the strings are exposed 
 like a harp's, with a similar effect. The shorter strings 
 are hidden in cases which present somewhat the appear- 
 ance of reversed violoncellos ; these are made of good 
 light-coloured wood, contrasting pleasantly with the 
 dark glossy rosewood of the fore-part. On these cases 
 are painted slight patterns in gold, and a little gold is 
 carried up the harp-like frame. The hammers and other 
 mechanism which in a grand pianoforte are situated 
 nearest the keyboard, are concealed in the lower part of 
 the Instrument, In fact the machinery of strings appears 
 to be upside down, and the Euphonlcon is therefore 
 tuned from the bottom. 
 
 Personal experience of the Euphonlcon must admit 
 that the iron frame renders it heavier than an ordinary 
 cottage pianoforte, whilst the exposure of the strings 
 probably renders the tone, though sweet, less powerful 
 than when they are stretched against a sound board-^ 
 at least for concerted music. 
 
 For drawing-room use, however, and for the voice, 
 the Euphonlcon seems to me as much more suitable 
 
PIAAOFORTES. 323 
 
 than a loud Erard, or Broadwood, as it is more grace- 
 ful : it is in fact an effort of genius, a new and poetic 
 creation, not founded at all on the usual pattern, but 
 wholly distinct. 
 
 It is to be hoped that some enterprising firm will 
 one day revive this artistic and neat design, which ought 
 to drive out of the field the vulgarities of the clumsy 
 form we have borne with so long, as we bore all the 
 other eyesores fashionable between 1820 and i860. 
 
 The old spinet was no eyesore : nor were harpsi- 
 chord, virginal, clavichord, the gentle steps to modern 
 mechanical perfection. Mary Queen of Scots had a 
 virginal made of oak, inlaid with cedar and richly 
 ornamented with gold. Birds, flowers, and leaves were 
 painted on the cover and sides, of which the colours 
 are still bright, and the lid is illuminated with a grand 
 procession of warriors, whom a bevy of fair ladies are 
 propitiating by presents of wine and fruit. How far 
 back the pretty old name carries us, to picturesque times 
 when devout nuns played upon their precious virginal 
 soft minor hymns to Mary Mother, at evensong, unwitting 
 of the almost ferociously loud effects required by future 
 ears ! Queen Elizabeth is described in the ' Memoirs ' 
 of Sir James Melvil, as playing ' excellently well ' on 
 the virginals, better than her sister of Scotland. 
 
 The harpsichord was pretty, too, its two keyboards 
 gave it dignity, though Sebastian Bach liked it less than 
 the clavichord, with its smaller scale but more flexible 
 quality of tone. In 1760 a first-class harpsichord by 
 Rijcker cost one hundred guineas. 
 
 Evelyn speaks of ' a new invented instrument of 
 
324 GEXERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 musiq, being a harpsichord with gut strings, sounding 
 like a concert of viols with an organ, made vocal by a 
 wheel, and a zone of parchment that rubb'd horizontally 
 against the strings' (1663). 
 
 At the South Kensington Museum there are various 
 instruments which might give us hints for clothing a 
 machine to which we owe so much intellectual delight, 
 and which is already worth a large sum, eyesore as it is. 
 We are told that forty-eight different materials are used 
 in constructing a piano, laying sixteen different countries 
 under contribution, and employing forty-two different 
 hands. In the Great Exhibition of 1851 there were 
 some handsomely cased pianofortes : Erard s grand was 
 valued at 1,000/., Broadwood's at 1,200/. ; but I have 
 hardly seen any really picturesque case if we exclude 
 Mr. Alma Tadema's and Mr. Burne Jones' pianos and 
 the Euphonicon. Even Mr. Alfred Morrison's inlaid case 
 designed by Owen Jones is rather staring than refined. 
 Indeed, the whole outline requires modification. The 
 pictorial decorations of the old instruments with keys 
 of precious stones and agate, and exquisite inlaying 
 wherein the seams are only visible by a magnifying 
 glass, are the best ensamples for modern skill and daily 
 improving taste. 
 
 The old square flat piano of the Empire time is less 
 objectionable than the ordinary one, and I have seen a 
 modern pianoforte of that flat shape, made in light wood, 
 which by comparison is almost pleasing. 
 
 A totally novel design for an upright grand piano- 
 forte, and one which has many advantages, is well worth 
 quoting. 
 
PIANOFORTES. 
 
 325 
 
 The design, which requires further working out, is 
 founded on sound knowledge of the mechanical require- 
 ments, and for the first time raises the player upon a 
 
 Fic. 66. — Novel design for a pianoforte, side view. 
 
 platform, which renders him visible as he has never 
 hitherto been in a crowded room, and gives purchase and 
 breadth to the sound. Many pianofortes at chamber 
 
 Fig. 67. — Back view of the same. 
 
 concerts have a little platform built for them at con- 
 siderable expense, but such an instrument as is shown 
 in the diagram would do away with that necessity, the 
 
326 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 seated player being naturally raised to a proper height 
 for a standing audience, instead of being buried at a 
 breathless level. This piano would also take less room 
 than a grand piano upon a platform : it would occupy 
 the area of a cottage piano. The keyboard is in fact 
 built on a level with the uppermost part of the body ; 
 the length of string commonly carried into a bulky 
 obstacle which conceals the player from half the hearers, 
 whether he faces them or not. and must to some extent 
 damage the sound, is here carried down into the platform 
 beneath his feet. It should be strung diagonally. The 
 square parallelogram is thus of the ordinary scope, but 
 the platform itself is utilised as a sound-board ; and this 
 platform may be open or closed, decorated or plain, ac- 
 cording to choice, and the portion occupied by the player 
 detached if necessary from the portion required for the 
 sound-board. The effect would be much better than the 
 present unpopular cottage grand, without being as un- 
 wieldy as the flat grand. Of course the platform, light, 
 but strengthened by beams, would be furnished with 
 sunk castors. 
 
 The smaller stratagems for mending the ugliness of 
 pianos are seldom very successful. Some persons who 
 do not care to incur the expense of a new case, carry 
 bookshelves all round the piano, which then seems set in 
 a deep niche, which has an organ-like effect, the front of 
 the case being replaced by painted or gilt canvas, or 
 embroidery. This usually, however, prevents the lid 
 from properly opening, and deadens the sound. 
 
 Others have the whole flat glossy case incised in 
 good conventional patterns, and tinted (no costly process), 
 
DOORS. 327 
 
 which simulates inlaid woods and carving. But these are 
 all makeshifts. 
 
 The shape of a pianoforte ought at least to be as mobile 
 as a sideboard, in which the patterns vary greatly, 
 though all founded on the primal ideal of shelves, 
 drawers, and cellarets. 
 
 If we could use the decorative properties of strings 
 as in the Euphonicon, and mount the body, flat or up- 
 right, upon supports better than the two, or three, 
 swelled legs, such as well-cut arches, or masterly statu- 
 ettes, or even mere Doric columns or spirals in sufficient 
 number to form a proper base for so heavy a mass of 
 dark colour — we should already have gained an impor- 
 tant victory over the last and most stubborn relic of 
 tasteless vulgarity. 
 
 Doors always look better carried up to the cornice, 
 either arched or ending in a well-modelled lintel. Geor- 
 gian houses have sometimes charming doors of solid 
 mahogany, which compare favourably with our ordinary 
 deal door of poor design, painted white or smeared 
 with stain and varnish to look 'ecclesiastical.' A hand- 
 some headpiece can always be added to a mean door 
 with improved effect, such as those bas-reliefs of classic 
 aim we see in last-century houses, and which bear pick- 
 ing out with colour very well. Or a picture may be set 
 there panel-wise, to annihilate the unmeaning space 
 between the top of the door and the ceiling. The 
 picture should be a life-size head (this is a good refuge 
 
328 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 for a Kneller daub), not some minute landscape which 
 tortures the eye with uncertainty every time it meets it ; 
 and a similar moulding to that of the door should form 
 its frame. Down the sides of the door carvino:s of 
 
 Fig. 68.— Iron bolt, French, about 1550. 
 
 Gibbons's school may be carried, wreaths or scrolls, 
 heavy or slight, painted or plain. 
 
 In a house with some pretensions to mediaeval treat- 
 ment the doors may be ornamented with elaborate 
 hinges, or even bolts, a form of decoration so elegant 
 that it is curious how seldom it is employed. These 
 look best on a flat door, and may be underlaid with 
 
DOORS. 
 
 crimson velvet, the metal being brass or iron, t^ckW ,^, '^ff^ 
 
 parcel-gilt. (^^1^5? ^ 
 
 The projecting hinges still seen on Frencfi ^^rs *io Jj 
 are, I think, more picturesque than our own, wl^i^fji/j^il^ ^ ^ 
 strength is sacrificed to neatness ; but this is a faT§<?^*.,il^*'..^L*^ 
 motive ; it is more honourable to acknowledge the 
 inevitable and make the best of it, even when it is a 
 door-hinge. 
 
 Mediaeval carpenters never denied the existence of 
 their hinges, but they made the hinge an ornament, as 
 also the illuminators did not avoid a flaw in the vellum- 
 page, but they made the flaw an excuse for another 
 flower or dragon. 
 
 Handles should be small and pretty, w^orked into the 
 semblance of a conventional rose, or shell, or group — see 
 what the Bernese can do with the subject of a bear, 
 what the Scotch can do with the eagle's foot, and the 
 Romans with the wolf! 
 
 A pretty design for door-handles is often seen in old 
 Georgian houses, which is artistically good enough to 
 reproduce, for even in cast metal it would be better than 
 what we now use ; in hard, worked metal it might be- 
 come a gem, in chiselled bone or wood it would be less 
 disagreeably cold to the touch. The union of handle 
 and keyhole in a single frame prettily waved and carried 
 to the edge of the wood, is very happy ; the conventional 
 bead and sunflower are well combined. It will be seen 
 that the handle is very small, meet for the grasp of 
 a lady's hand ; not a clumsy lump which escapes a girl's 
 fingers and quite defeats a child's. 
 
 I believe I was one of the first to show that the 
 
330 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIOhS. 
 
 panels of doors offer a good field for decoration, and it 
 has become needless to observe that these must receive 
 attention, for people now rather overtrim their doors. 
 Panels of Japanese or English paper of fine design may 
 Content those who cannot obtain something better, and 
 I have seen doors very well papered. Others may paint 
 or get artists to paint such panels with flowers in the 
 Japanese style, treating the panels as window-openings 
 
 Fig. 69.— Georgian lock. 
 
 behind which the boughs appear, and allowing the jamb 
 to cut through the design where necessary. Gold panels 
 may be treated in a variety of ways ; shields of arms 
 are suitable to panels, and so no doubt are 'subjects' of 
 higher pretension — portraits, views, and illustrations 
 from favourite authors. 
 
 Many people complain that having made their doors 
 beautiful and having therefore got fond of them, they 
 have to quit them when their lease is up. This, how- 
 ever, is a delusion, as doors are easy to lift off their 
 
DOORS. 331 
 
 hinges, and not costly to replace ; and, if they were 
 worth it, ought as fairly to follow their owner as his 
 water-colour sketches and carpets. I have seen doors 
 decorated by upholsterers to represent mother-of-pearl 
 inlaying. Why not have the real mother-of-pearl in- 
 stead of the effete resemblance ? 
 
 Those whose houses belong to them might take far 
 m.ore trouble with so conspicuous a part of the building 
 than they do. They might indulge in doors such as 
 the late Mr. William Surges designed for his own house, 
 in bronze, with charming bas-reliefs full of humour 
 and grace, which remind one of Florence and Ghiberti. 
 With easy hinges bronze is not too heavy a material 
 for a door, and the effect is certainly extremely fine, the 
 bronze wears into such splendid colouring. 
 
 The delicate bas-reliefs on the doors of Pisa 
 Cathedral can never be forgotten by those who have 
 studied them : it is difficult to know which to prefer, the 
 lower part which by constant handling has become 
 brown and gold, or the upper part which has grown 
 green with the gieenness of the summer sea, through 
 never being touched at all — and the designs of home- 
 doors may be of any kind, from small arabesques to 
 the history of England. The bronze may be solid, 
 or applied in thin repousses plates ; and when you 
 have accepted the notion of metal ornament, the ad- 
 ditional decorations, such as minute quantities of gold 
 or the introduction of crystal, agate, and pebbles, crowd 
 upon the aspiring mind with Aladdin-like splendour. 
 Instead of which, people such as the Italians and 
 Parisians paint deal to look like bronze ! 
 
332 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 Why people should hang works of art on walla 
 betzveen doors where often they can hardly be enjoyed 
 for the chairs that intervene and the people that scuffle, 
 yet never place them tipon doors which must face you, 
 and you only, as you open them, and are always within 
 the line of sight, is one of those many problems for 
 which our century is remarkable. In old days the re- 
 verse plan was adopted — but then the benighted folk 
 did not consider that canvas and coloured pastes were 
 the sole vehicle fit for first-class artistic talent, and that 
 every other material was infra dig. I wonder whether 
 Ghiberti, and Rucker, and Vischer, and Krafft, and. 
 Gibbons, would be admitted to the Royal Academy if 
 they sent up their works to-day, or whether they would 
 be ejected as ironmongers and founders and carpenters 
 because they had not used paint or marble ? I am sure 
 that very few private persons would employ them— those 
 many brave Britons who go to the Royal Academy 
 with a dealer, and ask him what pictures they shall buy. 
 
 As a rule, one side of every door should be protected 
 by a curtain for the prevention of those icy draughts 
 which every thoughtful builder constructs for the benefit 
 of his brother the undertaker. Such a screen increases 
 the comfort of every room, even when the fire is big 
 enough to burn John Huss. It actually saves coal, by 
 dispensing with such a bonfire, and the outlay in a pretty 
 dhurrie or rug for this purpose is the more repaying if it 
 diminishes in any degree the creation of yellow fog. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON FIRE-PLACES AND FIRES. 
 
 TOVES are a problem still. How to obtain 
 the maximum of heat with the minimum of 
 waste ; how to make the fire-place an orna- 
 ment as well as a refuge, it is very difficult 
 to say. The handsomest fire-place is no doubt the old- 
 fashioned kind, large, roomy, important, as should 
 be the Englishman's sacred hearth, which is, moreover, 
 the most interesting part of the room for at least two- 
 thirds of the year. Built proudly up to the cornice, or 
 nearly, in finely carved stone or marble, like a shrine, 
 probably enclosing a fine old portrait, the designs found 
 in old Italian and German mansions, and in our own as 
 well, are full of interest and character ; those belonging 
 to the Renascence are more or less florid and orna- 
 mental, but the carefully-modelled figures and draperies 
 are often grouped with perfect taste. I have seen 
 charming old Jacobean mantel-pieces where the dark 
 oak has framed the fire with - small but elaborate 
 
334 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 carvings of hunting and other scenes, some of the 
 smaller panels forming drawers convenient for cigars, 
 brushes, string, &c., that are wanted always handy ; 
 some forming small shelves, on which a blue tobacco -jar 
 or a bit of majolica looks delightful. 
 
 But the chimney itself is always of one construction, 
 wide and open, and the fire has to be very large which 
 will warm a big room or hall where there is that tremen- 
 dous draught. 
 
 In the eighteenth century the passion for Chinese 
 porcelain, magots, and the imitations in Delft pottery (a 
 taste imported by William III.), extended the shelves 
 from the walls to the mantel-pieces. At Hampton Court, 
 &c., we see the woodwork adapted to hold these innu- 
 merable collections. 
 
 In the seventeenth century Old Stone and his 
 father, master-mason to James I., probably worked at 
 mantel-shelf designs. Evelyn says he went ' to Lam- 
 beth, to that rare magazine of marble, to take order for 
 chimney-pieces, &c., for Mr. Godolphin's house. The 
 owner of the workes had built for himselfe a pretty 
 dwelling-house ; this Dutchman had contracted with the 
 Genoese for all their marble.' Grinling Gibbons carved fo- 
 liage and busts on chimney-pieces of lime and other white 
 woods; and he founded a school of excellent carvers, who 
 continued, throughout the following century, working 
 in soft woods, which demand great precision of hand, 
 because admitting of no tentative cuts or after-polishing 
 with sandpaper, and in which blunders cannot be amended. 
 The Georgian carvers contemporary with Louis XV. have 
 left many fine chimney-pieces in old houses. 
 
MANTEL-PIECES. 
 
 335 
 
 In mnny old houses a flat paaelling in linen-pattern 
 or diaper above a simple shelf has a very good effect, 
 
 s- -" 1 : 
 
 Fig. 70. — Inlaid pillar, in the church of Ara Coeli, at Rome. 
 
336 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 and marks the separation of the fire-place and its whole 
 backing from the remainder of the walls, which I think 
 ought always to be suggested — something of the shrine 
 look. Decorative pillars, which may well be appropriate 
 in supporting the weight of a loaded shelf or chimney 
 glass, might be designed from the Italian spiral columns 
 in the church of Ara Coeli at Rome : fine and elaborate 
 work \\ ould be quite in place. 
 
 A large mirror (pace all Empire-Annites) always 
 looks well above the fire, if the shelf be low, as a window 
 does; and is convenient there, because one can look at 
 oneself and warm one's feet simultaneously ; but unless 
 the frame of the glass is truly a work of art it ought to 
 be unnoticeable, and in the latter case it is far better 
 treated as a panel and built into the wall, than laid 
 against it. I incline to think the mirror-frame ought 
 to be of similar material to the mantel-piece and ap • 
 parently part of it. A bevelled mirror usually looks 
 handsomer than a plain one. 
 
 Whilst searching for ideas for a very poor fire-place 
 of my own I vainly overhauled the many manuals of 
 good advice now daily pouring from the press — among 
 them * House Decoration ' in the Art at Home series — 
 a series, by the way, which, considering how good was 
 the primal notion, has been ill-carried out by the writers, 
 and is meagre in suggestions to a miracle. Not a hint 
 for the real beautifying of stoves, nor of the house inside 
 or out, was to be found, save the time worn command 
 to destroy the mirrors and have ' Queen Anne ' fenders ; 
 and the illustrations, which are peculiarly American in 
 character, better suited the articles in ' Scribner's Illus- 
 
MANTEL-PIECES. zy] 
 
 trated Monthly,' where they first appeared, than the 
 EngHsh series, which they probably fettered. 
 
 Why will not those who set up to be teachers teach 
 the hungry public something ? Why have we no indus- 
 trious Le Pautre to give us designs which, bad or good, 
 are at least novel for furniture so conspicuous and ne- 
 cessary as the fire-place ? Panels of terra-cotta in relief, 
 like Luca della Robbia's, set in dainty oaken mouldings, 
 and divided by pilasters of carved ebony, might be sug- 
 gested, nay, actually tried ; jambs fitted with drawers set 
 with plaques of marble or contrasting wood, or incised 
 metal, might support a superstructure as rich as Giovanni 
 da Nola's work, enclosing pictures, or something less com- 
 mon than blue tea-cups and plates ; or tiles home-painted 
 in designs more worthy than seventeenth-century nursery 
 rhymes, illustrated by incorrect fourteenth-century figures, 
 or mottoes better than the senseless * Ye Pusse inne Bootes,* 
 &c., and set in a framework of bronze — a metal honestly 
 indigenous, and associated with Britain ever since the 
 Phoenicians traded in the mineral ores from Cornwall and 
 Devon a thousand years before Christ. 
 
 Ideas come freely as we call them, but money and 
 energy are required to bring them to life. There are 
 infinite possibilities beyond the foolish parallelogram of 
 flat or machine-bevelled marble — and why marble ? — a 
 material too conspicuous to be admitted without being 
 ' carried out ' by other objects of similar marble. There 
 are possibilities even beyond the solid, often hand- 
 some, Georgian wooden mantel-pieces, carved deep for 
 shadow's sake, which gradually deteriorated as Gibbons's 
 school died exhausted, and no other school of art suc- 
 
 z 
 
338 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 ceeded it. It would be no thankless effort now if some 
 of our Royal Academicians could bring themselves to 
 design fire-places of metal, wood, slate, and terra-cotta 
 which might become * standard,' and bring grist to 
 the mill as the public found good patterns within reach. 
 Nothing so disfigures a room as a meagre, mean little 
 fire-place — a mantel-piece of marble six inches broad, or 
 black composition polished like the mirror of some 
 infernal goddess. 
 
 But, being condemned to some such erection in a 
 leasehold house, let none fear that a fine looking glass 
 is out of place or cannot be well placed where people 
 are most likely to use it. Ability ottgJit to be able to 
 make good use of so fine a potential ornament. Let the 
 clock, too, inhabit the same conspicuous place — it is a 
 nuisance not to know where to seek the time of day — 
 but the clock must deserve its position. Some very fine 
 old Louis XV. and Louis XVL clocks, brass or gilt, 
 may still be picked up at sales, representing figures of 
 Time, or Phaeton with his horses, or Minerva helmed, 
 all modelled in good, nervous style, very different from 
 the boneless inanities which simper and lollop in clock- 
 shops. A few fine pieces of bronze, china, or damascened 
 work are suited on the mantel-shelf, which may be re- 
 quired for empty tea-cups, &c., and should therefore 
 offer a cranny or two within easy reach, even if the 
 main shelf is high. I wonder that green or streaky 
 slate is not oftener used for mantel-pieces ; it is not dear, 
 and would look well in a highly-coloured room. 
 
 The ordinary white marble mantel- piece is, as I have 
 said, a most disagreeable object. Not because it is of 
 
GRATES AND STOVES. 339 
 
 white marble, but because the machine-carving is dis- 
 gracefully coarse and inconsistent, and the material, 
 which is very conspicuous, is not carried out by marble 
 anywhere else. Inoffensive plainness is a shade better 
 than offensive ornament : either can be concealed by a 
 covering of embroidery, or velvet, stiff enough not to 
 droop, and stretched flat so as to admit of brushing. 
 Festooned velvet is always dirty, and not fit to be 
 touched ; lace, in my opinion, is unsuitable as aforesaid, 
 because it looks like dress-leavings, muslin most absurd 
 of all. The sides of an ugly mantel-piece may be hidden 
 by old bullion embroideries secured on thin wood with 
 very good effect. 
 
 I make these suggestions for those who, having their 
 house on lease, do not choose to make the landlord a 
 present of a new mantel-piece. For those who do, I 
 suggest carrying the marble jambs up the wall to enclose 
 the looking-glass. 
 
 The fault of most fires is that they do not warm the 
 room, while they do drain the pocket. Modern science 
 is seeking to provide a thin, vertical fire, about four or 
 five inches from back to front, which presents in fact the 
 smallest possible face to the chimney and the largest to 
 the room, thus economising fuel and gaining heat. How 
 to keep such a fire from going out, and how to make 
 the surrounding machinery picturesque, is, I think, 
 hardly yet a fait accompli. Most people are giving up 
 the large circular burnished eyesores which drive a 
 
340 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 conscientious housemaid wild, and yet at present this 
 kind of stove, well filled, throws out the most warmth. 
 It does so, however, only at a cost repugnant to 
 intellig-ence — the waste of two-thirds of the heat of 
 the fuel. This waste is not innocuous either, it clogs 
 the chimney with soot, it smothers the furniture with 
 blacks, it burns down the house, and it sows death 
 broadcast in the heavy brown fogs which exist upon the 
 fatal union of damp with coal-smoke. It ought to be a 
 stringent law that every household, like every factory in 
 town, should consume its own smoke ; but until we can 
 get that law passed it is a duty owed to something else 
 than our pocket, to diminish what goes up the chimney 
 or utilise it for its proper purpose, warmth within-doors. 
 The new anthracite coal promises to help us, but is 
 hardly yet sufficiently manageable or sufficiently cheap 
 to be recommended. 
 
 The greater the draught through the fire, the less 
 heat naturally passes into the room. Some stoves will 
 roar themselves hoarse, and yet their much cry betokens 
 little wool — they throw out no heat, and devour cease- 
 less scuttles of coal ; others smoulder sulkily all day, 
 though pampered with fuel, and will not even roar. 
 
 A certain basket-shaped stove :that used to be in 
 vogue in fashionable houses certainly throws out a good 
 deal of heat ; it is shallow, and the surface presented to 
 the room is broad, being mainly the summit of the fire ; 
 the draught is so managed as to carry the smoke up 
 the chimney, although this is set considerably backward. 
 The Norwich stove, which so many people have fled to 
 as a sure refuge, is moderately successful — not more. 
 
GRATES AND STOVES. 341 
 
 It throws out heat fairly well when filled high, and it 
 certainly economises fuel, because the bottom of the 
 grate is solid. The * Country Parson's Grate ' is better, 
 because it is wider and less deep, and made otherwise 
 on the same principle : thus the ideal of the thin vertical 
 fire is more nearly realised. 
 
 Norwich stoves have a certain prim quaintness of 
 build, w^hich accords prettily with some artistic rooms ; 
 but the fashions of bleak, level, precise Norwich, like all 
 the fashions of the Empire time, are less to be recom- 
 mended for beauty or pleasantness than for their tem- 
 porary novelty, and the blessed release they offer fr(Dm 
 curves in convulsions. The flat sides of this class of 
 stove, whether * Parson's ' or ' Norwich,' may be covered 
 with tiles of any design or colour, modern or antique 
 (Dutch blue seem to go very well with any kind of 
 decoration), and if the stove itself is brazen, not black, 
 the colouring is decidedly bright and pretty. But the 
 brass, like all things modern, is not meant to last long, 
 and the trouble of keeping it clean is ill-repaid by its 
 surface giving way in a disagreeably short time. Black 
 is, therefore, to be preferred, and costs less every way. 
 
 Were it not that the beauty of a burning fire is too 
 valuable to get rid of, even from the esthetic point of 
 view, I would recommend gas stoves and hot pipes as 
 far more comfortable, after the American fashion. A 
 big fire is either so hot that you cannot sit beside it — 
 and to sit anywhere else seems inconsistent when there 
 is a fire — or else it has a way of toasting bits of you 
 and leaving the other bits in the power of 'Jack 
 Frost.' It is horrible to have a cold nose and a burning 
 
342 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 hand ; it is more horrible to have a burning nose and 
 cold hands. Fried toes alone are small comfort, so is 
 one hot ear, yet it is really not possible to be equally 
 warm all round beside a fire. 
 
 The ideal condition of things would probably be a 
 small fire whereby one can sit sociably, whilst the rest 
 of the room is moderately warmed by pipes. Mode- 
 rately, I say advisedly, since most people who use pipes 
 accustom themselves to a temperature which is very apt 
 to cause congestion of the lungs on entering it after a 
 cold walk. In my opinion, a sitting-room over 55° 
 Fahrenheit is unhealthy, and extremely likely to induce 
 colds. . 
 
 Builders have very little regard to either comfort or 
 health in their machinations (by-the-bye, how often the 
 builder and plumber * undertake funerals ! '). In two 
 things they are incorrigible — scamping the drains and 
 making the door opposite the fire. 
 
 The economic similarity of London houses often 
 makes this latter plan necessary, and in such cases 
 screens and portieres ought to be largely used. People 
 often wonder how it is that they catch cold while sitting 
 by the fire, and they seldom consider that the door is 
 either at right angles or opposite to the stove, so that a 
 draught, always created by a fire, exactly catches them. 
 Children, too, often escape colds for weeks in a nursery 
 when a fire has not yet been admitted ; directly fires 
 are begun, colds are rampant ; this is caused by the 
 draught which is created by the fire. Here pipes again 
 ofifer a solution of the mystery how to be warm. 
 
 Gas might be more used than it is for kitchens, as 
 
GRATES AND STOVES. 343 
 
 well as rooms where fires are only occasionally wanted ; 
 and probably when the electric light comes into popular 
 use, such stoves will be the sole refuge of the gas 
 companies. 
 
 I consider most of the asbestos fires a delusion and 
 a snare, but it is not the fault of gas or asbestos, but 
 of the purveyors who advertise them at a certain price 
 but treble it in fitting, which renders such fires far more 
 expensive than most ordinary ones ; at least such is my 
 experience. 
 
 They do not throw out heat correspondingly with 
 their ill odour and propensity to get out of order, and 
 undoubtedly they burn unlimited quantities of gas. 
 
 Properly fitted and managed, however, gas ought to 
 be far more economic than coal, as the stove can take 
 up less room and the entire heat may be more easily 
 utilised. Soyer says he roasted a whole ox for the 
 Royal Agricultural Society's banquet in 1850 at a cost 
 of less than 5^. for gas, within a space of 6 ft. 6 in. in 
 length by 3 ft. 3 in. wide, a few bricks and a few sheets 
 of iron, with 216 small jets of gas coming through ^-inch 
 pipes, representing the whole apparatus. 
 
 Close gas stoves are much used in France, where 
 people are thrifty, and close stoves of every kind are of 
 course more economical than our open fire-places. 
 Kitchen stoves on the principle of the Leamington 
 ranges are recommended in all books upon cheap and 
 good cookery, as very little fuel is needed ; the fuel may 
 be of the cheapest kind, there is no fear of spoiling the 
 provisions by falling soot, or smoke getting under the 
 lids, and the cooking utensils required are not many. 
 
344 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 The best stoves for warming rooms are George's Calo- 
 rigen, which are made with a double pipe, for the pur- 
 pose of (i) carrying the foul air up the chimney or else- 
 where, and (2) admitting fresh air, which it warms 
 during admissio7i, the true secret of good ventilation. 
 
 Draperies about that pent-up tiger, the fire, as I 
 have already said, to me seem always a fault in taste. 
 However heavy, however unlikely to catch fire, they 
 always look as though they meant to, and with any 
 draught they are apt to balloon in an annoying fashion. 
 Norwich grates might surely be constructed with a 
 drawer-plate (which hardly ever slides down easily) 
 elongated so as, if required, to reach the hearth : this 
 flat surface, like a blind, would offer capital opportuni- 
 ties for wrought-iron decoration in bas-relief or simple 
 incision ; this protected by sufficient depth of ridge 
 at each side to admit of constant pulling up and down. 
 Nothing could be a better shield for this kind of stove ; 
 for the use of the idle grate would not be denied, 
 though decorated, and the tiles would remain visible. 
 
 When will somebody invent a fine bas-relief design in 
 lieu of the mock Japanese ornament which we are so 
 tired of in these grates } and when will it occur to some 
 one that bars might as well be twisted, knotted, or net- 
 work fashion, as the inevitable straight or bowed bit of 
 iron of clumsy thickness which forms the conspicuous 
 portion of every grate } People wander over France 
 and Germany seeking for those simple old iron fire- 
 
STOVE ORNAMENTS. 345 
 
 backs which are certainly a point of interest when the 
 fire is not piled ; but who ever heard of good hammered 
 iron ornaments being placed at the front of grate or hobs 
 — at least, since the old artists of Cellini's school perished, 
 who would have shov/n us Vulcan at his forge as grandly 
 modelled on the blower as any infant Bacchus on a cup 
 or hanap, and beaten the torch of Eros into hob or 
 andirons with twenty times the spirit and good sense 
 put into the vulgar cast-iron flowers (!) or ormolu shells 
 and birds (a cricket would be a better subject !) which 
 we hook into our burnished steel without a question or a 
 qualm. 
 
 What Ouentin Matsys, Benvenuto Cellini, Thomas 
 Rucker of Augsburg, Peter Vischer, would have done 
 with such an opportunity as a modern grate and fire-irons 
 — yea, and not rested till h.Q/iad done it — I sigh to think. 
 The Cluny Museum possesses magnificent fire-dogs of 
 various periods, and there are talented, conscientious 
 blacksmiths now a days whom a little instruction and 
 encouragement would develop into veritable pillars of 
 English art. I saw some iron foliage treated much in the 
 Matsys spirit at Powell's once, which gave me hope and 
 comfort ; however, I heard that the nineteenth-century 
 atmosphere had so far injured the workman that he 
 could only be got to work at a price which frightened 
 away most customers ; and the world is the loser by 
 the scarcity of good workmen to provide what so many 
 cultivated people are willing to pay a fair, if not a fancy, 
 price for. The next best wrought-iron I have seen in 
 England is in Ely Cathedral, provided by Skidmore, of 
 Coventry — very pretty work. 
 
346 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 i©t0usl^t4ton. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of iron as applied to 
 stoves, I may add a few words upon its merits in other 
 kinds of decoration. In the last century considerable 
 interest revived in iron as well as bronze for railings, 
 balustrades &c., through Caffieri's and Gallien's talent ; 
 in England we find first-rate designs under the Georges, 
 among them the common patterns of halberds erect 
 around the house is not unworthy of mention. But 
 the art of working and casting in iron is of remote 
 antiquity. Sculpture in cast-iron is attributed to 
 Theodore of Samos, 850 B.C. The chronicle of Pharos 
 places the invention of wTought-iron in the year 215 
 before the Trojan war ; but it was not till after that war 
 that the Greeks abandoned weapons of tempered brass 
 for weapons of iron, which must have awakened the 
 genius of many artists since the name of Hippasis, a 
 celebrated chaser in iron, has come down to us. In the 
 middle ages no hing can exceed the elaboration of arms, 
 of locks and keys, of hinges, false and real. In the 
 twelfth century skill was almost in perfection. In the 
 fourteenth century they mounted the iron lace-work on 
 red cloth for latches, the plates of locks, and to embellish 
 the chests. 
 
 The art is so thoroughly English, that the common- 
 ness of our name Smith has been attributed to the pre- 
 ponderance of workers in metal ; as has the average of 
 health and muscular prowess among families bearing 
 that name, to the fact that a good smith must be a 
 
WROUGHT-IRON. 
 
 347 
 
 strong man. Germany has been long renowned for her 
 wrought-iron ornaments, and there is exquisite French 
 work in this metal, from the fifteenth century to the 
 
 Fig. 71.— Iron bolt, sixteenth century. 
 
 sixteenth, as delicate as natural vegetation and refined 
 by advanced art knowledge. Some of the old keys are 
 perfect jewels of iron, containing historic and religious 
 
348 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 scenes of marvellous minuteness in labyrinths of foliage 
 and tracery ; the bolts and locks are often most beauti- 
 ful ; mirror-frames again are as elegant as silver, in 
 repousse and wrought-iron ; and how many a lamp in a 
 modern drawing room might humbly emulate the superb 
 lanterns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries! 
 
 Fig. 72.— Mirror with wrought-iron frame. 
 
 Work of this kind, though no doubt at a lower 
 standard than the old, can for the most part only be 
 obtained of German blacksmiths and cutlers. Time 
 seems too valuable in England to encourage any hope 
 of elaborate and loving labour ; whilst brain, curiously 
 
VVROUGHT-IRON. 349 
 
 enough, seems to be at a discount, and to fetch nothing 
 at all. Scamped work, even for high pay, is all we can 
 get. What else we want we must seek abroad where the 
 workmen are not yet spoilt, or better educated in the 
 right sense. It would be a useful work to employ some 
 Nuremberg or Swiss working smith to provide us with 
 lamp and flower-stands, fire-guards and screens, window- 
 blinds and balconies, fenders and stove-sides and fire- 
 dogs, besides gas-brackets, chandeliers, frames— nay, 
 clock-cases and candlesticks innumerable, from old 
 designs, how much more appropriate and well finished 
 than the cast, and moulded, and tricky objects in false 
 gold, and false silver, and even false brass, oh my 
 country ! made to break, which now choke the shops 
 called of cutlers, who will not even make dinner-knives 
 in decent hammered metal in these years of grace. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIGHTING AND VENTILATION. 
 
 25ccomin5 Higfjt^* 
 
 electric light 
 
 IS 
 
 more manageable 
 
 NTIL the 
 
 than it now is, there are but two ways of 
 lighting rooms — gas or lamps and candles. 
 Gas is the cheapest and the least trouble, but 
 it is the most destructive to furniture and pictures, the 
 least healthy, and the least becoming. Lamps are the 
 next best, if they can be induced not to smell ; wax candles 
 are the best of all, if they can be warranted not to bow. 
 * What is that candle looking down at me for } ' said 
 a suspicious child, watching one that was burning busily 
 upside down, and shedding as much grease as it could. 
 And it would be well if chandlers made candles a little 
 harder, so that a warm evening would not so affect their 
 spines. 
 
 The main light ought to be concentrated as much as 
 possible in one spot. This is nearest to a natural effect, 
 for the sun is never in two or three places at once, and 
 will be found becoming to faces and the folds of dresses 
 
BECOMING LIGHTS. 
 
 351 
 
 (when dresses have any). But lights will be required in 
 corners where obscurity is apt to become depressing and 
 to check conversation. People are like birds, they are 
 silent in a dark room, and think of ghosts, but they 
 begin to twitter as soon as they can see each other. On 
 
 The golden candlestick, from the Arch of Titus. 
 
 the whole, one big chandelier containing a great number 
 of candles, and a few candelabra, of some fine form 
 similar to that of the lost Jewish treasure carved roughly 
 from memory on the Arch of Titus, or candles standing 
 singly in pretty candlesticks, light a room best. Lamps 
 may be similarly arranged. But it should always be 
 
352 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 remembered that faces look best (if we may venture 
 to disagree with Queen EUzabeth) with their natural 
 shadows, which give that 'drawing' to them always 
 missed on the stage when the footlights glare up from 
 below — an unbecoming light, but one which is valuable 
 to actresses, whose faces would be left wholly in shade 
 by lights placed high, and thus invisible to the loftier 
 spectators. 
 
 A sensible woman will always have her sitting-room 
 light, for many reasons of health, convenience, and work 
 — but not too light. A woman who is 'getting on ' will 
 not sit with her back to the light, that negress-efifect is 
 not pretty, but she will sit at a respectful distance from 
 the light. She will have the window by day, the lamps 
 by night, so arranged as to throw broad, but not heavy 
 and not insignificant shadows. The light must not come 
 from too high a point ; else every slight inequality of 
 surface becomes accentuated, every cheek past its first 
 youth recalls a skull, every eye that does not require 
 them gains sunken hollows, and the flat eyes that do 
 need a shade beneath them are too few to make such a 
 cost worth while. Light, as in nature, should come from 
 above, but as in nature only when it is well diffused, not 
 concentrated as in artificial lighting. 
 
 Without some attention to these things, your room 
 gets the reputation of being an unbecoming room ; just 
 as some hostesses get the reputation of never having 
 pretty guests. Nobody wants to look ten or twenty 
 years older than he is : (at least until after eighty, when 
 it becomes a point of pride to emulate Methuselah) : 
 and the massive chiaroscuro which is admired in an old 
 
LAMP-FORMS. 353 
 
 head by Velasquez is properly unpopular in a drawing- 
 room devoted to social pleasure. It can nowhere be 
 better studied than at the Royal Institution ; at which 
 shrine of learning mundane and frivolous considerations 
 are very fitly set aside, and the youngest and prettiest 
 faces loom through a veil of stern, uncompromising 
 philosophy, and assume pro tern, at least a decade of 
 added years and gravity. This is caused by the colour 
 and the lighting. 
 
 The main light then should come from above so as to 
 ensure some shadows somewhere, but minor lights should 
 diffuse a comfortable and becoming clearness, sufficient 
 to cheer, but not impertinently criticise. 
 
 Slamtr^form^. 
 
 May I remind readers that a candlestick, lamp, or 
 any other support, ought to be a pretty and consistent 
 object .'' That Cleopatra's Needle alight at one end, 
 and streaked with pink and blue, is scarcely a work of 
 art } That pheasants and monkeys adhering to portions 
 of the rooms, and upholding lamps, are by many degrees 
 removed from a correct feeling for either art or nature ; 
 and that even such miserable shreds of humanity as 
 babes without bones, and Don Quixotes with nothing 
 else, are equally tasteless supports for moderators. If 
 the representation of humanity is desired for this purpose, 
 it ought to be in a strong material and in an attitude 
 suggesting physical force. 
 
 Large negro-lads with glass eyes and arsenic-green 
 draperies starred with gold, are not as suitable, even in 
 
 A A 
 
354 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 a great hall, as a bronze Hercules or a really well- 
 modelled elephant. I have seen copies in marble and 
 terra-cotta, of classic statues adapted to gas-jets and 
 lamps which they support in their hands, and the effect 
 is sometimes neither unnatural nor ugly, for a human 
 being can hold a lamp. Terra-cotta is a material so 
 facile and inexpensive that it might be oftener used to 
 reproduce really fine designs of artists of calibre, where 
 the sound knowledge of the frame, and the firm nervous 
 handling leave nothing to be desired. But anything 
 suggesting animal forms which is short of first-rate will 
 be avoided by people who either have taste or who wish 
 to seem to have it. And as almost all modern designs 
 in plate, biscuit, plaster gilt, bronze, &c. sold in big 
 shops are modelled by so-called ' artists ' with the best 
 intentions and soaring fancy, but no adequate knowledge 
 of anatomy, I think those who cannot employ a Royal 
 Academician for such ornaments had better either adhere 
 to standard reproductions of antiques, or — avoid animal 
 forms altogether. 
 
 Concealcti Hisljt^. 
 
 Concealed lights are not so much in use as they 
 might be. The effect of * a moon unseen albeit at full ' 
 may often be obtained for some faint-coloured picture, 
 hardly visible when a glaring lamp is held between it 
 and the eye, by a concealed lamp with the right kind of 
 shade. Luminous points, silvery, murky, rosy, are often 
 wanted for certain effects, little surprises behind screens 
 or in side-niches which seem fairly magical when the 
 
PUMPS AND PIPES. 355 
 
 source is hidden, and changes of white light for tinted 
 light are often very beautiful. 
 
 However, when the electric light comes into common 
 use, the problem how to light adequately a large room 
 without heating it will be solved. I have seen the 
 picture gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cambridge, 
 successfully lighted by electricity subdued by a tinted 
 globe ; Lord Salisbury has introduced it at Hatfield ; 
 but a revolution in dress-colours and wall-colours will 
 doubtless follow its introduction in private houses, for 
 some of our now fashionable colours, specially intended 
 for use by the yellow light of gas, are greatly altered 
 under the electric rays ; and the complexion itself suffers 
 at present. Blues and peacock-greens become painfully 
 vivid ; while yellow, which nearly disappears under gas, 
 keeps its natural colour. 
 
 Ventilation can only be considered in connection 
 with art and beauty because there can be no enjoyment 
 of either without health, and health is now seen to be 
 largely dependent on our sanitary conditions. A pretty 
 room stabbed through with knife-like draughts, or stuffy 
 and pervaded by drain-odours, no more agrees with the 
 lovers of the fit and beautiful than an airy comfortable 
 one coloured with Judson's dyes. But the difficulties of 
 ventilating rooms which are fashionably crowded are 
 nearly insuperable, because a certain number of cubic 
 feet of fresh air ought only to be breathed by a certain 
 number of lungs, whereas, when too many people inhabit 
 
356 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 the space, the air ought to be mechanically changed 
 with adequate speed, and this can surely only be done 
 by a pump. 
 
 Tobin's method, which brings the outside air into 
 rooms through pipes which are carried some feet up 
 the sides of walls, is perhaps the cheapest and most 
 efficacious. It can be applied by any intelligent 
 builder, and the pipes, whether angular or round, can be 
 decorated in such a way as to rather improve than 
 detract from the look of the room. Beauty in a room 
 does not consist in unbroken planes of colour from 
 corner to corner ; and any jutting object ought to be 
 hailed as an opportunity, as the old illuminators 
 hailed a flaw in the vellum. A pipe therefore can be 
 covered with arabesques in paint or moulded stucco, and 
 made part of the fabric of the wall with a little ingenuity. 
 It could be treated architecturally as the stalk of a large 
 conventionalised flower. See what the ancient Egyptians 
 did with the lotus, what innumerable subjects they drew 
 from that one plant ; and how easily they could have 
 made a Tobin pipe into a column or portion of a 
 column, fluted up into flower forms. A hollow flower 
 could easily disguise the ugly and lumpish point of 
 ingress for the air, which could be as well regulated 
 behind fluted petals as behind any other angles. Or 
 such pipes at regular intervals could be enlarged into 
 slight columns supporting a lightly relieved arcade, 
 forming well-shaped panels for decoration. Again, the 
 conventional halbert which relieves every corner in old 
 Dutch architecture at once suggests itself as a capital 
 cloak for Tobin pipes. A very little thought will model 
 
PUMPS AND PIPES, 357 
 
 such a halbert as would appear bound to the wall, its 
 fringed spike boldly relieved, in brass or iron, gilt or no. 
 People's fancy as to the proper height for the ingress of 
 the air varies. I have seen pipes only three or four feet 
 high, in a casing broad enough to support a vase which 
 pierced at bottom would seem to be standing on a 
 square bracket, while in reality it admitted the air. I 
 have seen others running up to within a short space of 
 the cornice, for which the halbert idea is adapted. 
 
 The low pipes certainly sometimes create disagree- 
 able draughts ; but probably if they were placed so that 
 the draughts were carried up instead of across the rooms 
 inconveniently near our shoulders, such annoyance 
 would not be felt. 
 
 The system adopted at the House of Commons, 
 whereby the admitted air is warmed by passing over 
 hot rollers, and moistened by spray, is most perfect of 
 all, but it is costly — not more so than many people 
 could afford, if they chose to spend their vast incomes 
 so wisely — but too costly for the majority of the ven- 
 tilating public. Gas is so apt to heat as well as desiccate 
 the air that some spray-apparatus for moistening the air 
 at evening parties would indeed be a boon. Meantime, 
 numerous revolving fountains (of water, not scent) or 
 large blocks of ice decorated with roses and creeping 
 ivy, are the nearest approach to it ; and while cooling 
 and moistening the air they form a very lovely orna- 
 ment. The latter plan has become common since I first 
 suggested it twelve years ago in 'St. Paul's Magazine,' 
 the more so as ice can be manufactured so easily and 
 inexpensively. 
 
358 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 Many persons object to windows being much open 
 during the summer on account of the invasions of blacks. 
 Many years ago I tried naiHng up a guard of thin strong 
 mushn, coloured green or red, which is certainly rather 
 useful in defeating the largest soot-flakes, and does not 
 exclude the air or light. It should be often changed 
 otherwise the soot with which it becomes charged de- 
 taches itself by its own weight from the muslin and 
 enters the room. Those London sufferers who use 
 white curtains will find the few pence required for the 
 muslin well spent on this harmless kind of— no pun, 
 please — black guard. 
 
 It is said that the register in stoves should never be 
 closed for the sake of ventilation ; but I think that 
 openings higher in the room where the air enters without 
 passing over a field of soot are far better, and the air 
 must be better and cleaner. The chance of a soot-fall 
 with its penetrating odour, to say nothing of a sore 
 down-draught of one's neighbours' smoke at any 
 moment, renders an open register a very disagreeable 
 means of ventilating a delicately -furnished room. 
 
 Hollow walls lend themselves better to purposes of 
 ventilation than solid ones, and keep the room warmer 
 in winter and cooler in summer, as the enclosed layer of 
 air is comparatively a non-conductor of heat. They 
 might be oftener used with advantage ; especially for 
 detached houses and those on a damp soil, as they 
 effectually keep out damp ; and they are said to keep 
 
DRAIN VENTILATION. 359 
 
 out sound better than solid walls — which would be a 
 blessing when the next-door neighbours like to play the 
 piano, and think they can. 
 
 Punkahs in some mechanical form might also be used 
 in this country for ventilation, particularly for crowded 
 drawing-rooms, schoolrooms, and churches. 
 
 SDrain Clcnttlation* 
 
 The drain-question is too serious to be resigned to 
 the doubtful integrity of builders or the bungling work- 
 manship of ignorant plumbers. It should be studied, 
 and mastered, by every householder on whom the health 
 and lives of others depend, for the ventilation of the 
 drains is of more consequence than that of any room, 
 because they are often hermetically sealed up, and thett 
 the smallest escape of the evil gases, generated by this 
 sealing, means death. 
 
 Ventilating pipes to the topmost point of the roof 
 are of the first importance to a healthy house, until the 
 circular road of progress brings us back, as it threatens 
 to do, to the old-fashioned system of open drains along 
 the street. Alas ! the negligence of one's neighbour 
 may be as fatal to one's own child as negligence at 
 home ; and it will be a red-letter- day when the measures 
 discussed by the Public Health Conference in June 
 1880 for competent sanitary inspection and insurance 
 {sic) of all dwellings, receive the sanction of the Legis- 
 lature. Mr. C. N. Cresswell proposes to classify all 
 dwellings and grant certificates of sanitary efficiency 
 in much the same way as Lloyd's Association grants 
 
36o GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 certificates of the sea-worthiness of vessels for the mer- 
 cantile marine. Why something of the kind has not been 
 arranged long ago is the natural question. Private 
 persons have indeed in rare cases insisted upon a sani- 
 tary certificate with their houses, renewable from time to 
 time ; but such precautions among a few are of little real 
 value, since one's neighbour's sins are as dangerous as 
 one's own. 
 
 The organisation of County Boards for the further- 
 ance of this object and the formation of public opinion 
 strong enough to check the interested opposition on the 
 part of owners of property is but a matter of time. 
 Every one of us may add his mite of pressure in a 
 movement so vital to the interests of those we love. 
 
 I am glad to hear that a number of distinguished 
 scientific men have already been elected on the Honorary 
 Council of the proposed Sanitary Assurance Society, 
 recently provisionally approved by the Board of Trade ; 
 among them Professors Tyndall and Frankland. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE BEAUTY OF FREEDOM. 
 
 S I near the end of my book, I am prepared for 
 the inevitable cry : * We have not been told 
 what to do. There is not a word about the 
 drawing-room — nor the bed-room — nor the 
 kitchen — not a hint what colour is proper for this 
 room, or what material for that ! ' 
 
 Would not such dogmatism be in total contradiction 
 to my first principles, most indolent lambs } It is the 
 upholsterer's, the penny-a-liner's, the tyro's business to 
 frame laws as of the Medes and Persians about that 
 which is independent of small shackles — it is mine to 
 emancipate you from their ignorant tyranny. There is 
 no ojcght in beauty, save your own feeling of delight, 
 and it is only the pleasure of the majority which deter- 
 mines art rules ; and the more capable you are of com- 
 paring one sensation with another, in fact, the more you 
 cultivate your eyes and minds, and the more fastidious 
 you become in arranging pleasant accessories, the higher 
 
362 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 is the form of beauty resultant from your efforts. A 
 very little, any bright scrap, pleases the uneducated 
 man, and to him it is beauty. As his brain develops 
 by study of its impressions and its favourite associations, 
 he is less easily satisfied ; demands change, relief from 
 the intensity of this or that sensation of pleasure or pain. 
 But comfort, pleasantness, propriety, on which beauty 
 depends, can only be determined by the nerves them- 
 selves, and as the faculties of individuals differ, like their 
 figures, the blatant customs of consecr^-ting this wood 
 to the dining-room, that to the boudoir — this fabric to 
 the chair, that to the curtain — deprive our homes of all 
 character, and English art of all vigour. 
 
 When beauty is tied down in a trap, she has the 
 faculty of evading it ; like the lark in the Chinese 
 palace, wherein she could not sing as in the wild free 
 woods. 
 
 Art is long, though life and its laws are brief. I 
 have tried to show how the broad principles enun- 
 ciated in my first chapters have been borne out by all 
 the schools of art furniture. 
 
 In the fourteenth-century room, the mass of mono- 
 tone necessary to relieve the bright frescoes, tapestries, 
 and costumes was provided — perhaps by dirt — certainly 
 by the broad shadows inseparable from low-pitched rooms 
 with thick walls and small windows. In a Louis XIV. 
 room, the necessary monotone was sought by the arti- 
 ficially chequered glow of Boule furniture, lighted up at 
 certain points artistically by metal mounts ; the Stuart 
 room had its dark oak wainscot and furniture, the 
 Georgian had its mottled wood-marquetry, and damask 
 
CHORDS IN COLOUR. z^z 
 
 walls ; the Louis Seize room provided plenteous grey 
 by means of its blended opal tints. Against a monotone 
 all bright objects look doubly effective ; but the mono- 
 tone must not be monotonous, it must be broken tip 
 discreetly ; not by small contrasting objects which have 
 a spotty effect, but by carefully regulated tones of similar 
 tint. A shady room requires no mass of monotone from 
 the decorator, it has it by nature. 
 
 No artist allows a large unbroken mass of one colour 
 in his picture, but he as carefully avoids patchiness and 
 spots. It is far more difficult to blend bright colours 
 beautifully than dull ones ; but the bright colours are 
 best, after all ; the sunny fields are fairer than the gloomy 
 ones, though of both we may say, 'behold, it is very good.' 
 
 If there were a fixed law that only one kind of art 
 had a sound basis — what would have become of all the 
 schools, all fresh effort, and honest ambition t we should 
 have had no choice offered us from this land or that. 
 We are free : let us use our freedom with discretion and 
 kindliness. 
 
 Cljorti^ in Coioun 
 
 I have written so much in my previous book, the 
 ' Art of Beauty,' upon the qualities of colours, and their 
 effect on human faces, that I may well refer my readers 
 to it for hints ; for the colours which are fit for dress 
 are fit for furniture, which is a kind of detached dress, 
 influencing appearance in somewhat the same way. 
 Certain combinations occur to every thoughtful student 
 of natural effects, in flowers, insects, minerals, &c., which 
 
364 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 are eminently suitable for our walls and our garments. 
 A few strike the mind at once, whether orthodox or not : — 
 
 1. Cream white and Turkey red. 
 
 2. Crimson velvet, pale blue, and salmon-colour — 
 of course I am asked, what is salmon-colour ? Look at 
 a piece of salmon. 
 
 3. Brown and crimson, making bronze or flame- 
 colour ; palest blue. 
 
 4. Cream and violet (the colour of a violet, not 
 aniline). The two should be carried into each other, by 
 slender arabesque designs of each colour upon the 
 other; or by the dull murrey-colour formed by their 
 mixture. 
 
 5. Blue and green ; care is required what blue and 
 what green. 
 
 6. Salmon-colour and chocolate, with sage-green. 
 
 7. Maroon and pallid sea-green. 
 
 8. Blue and pink with brown, sea-weed-like. 
 
 9. Turkey red and slate-colour shot. 
 
 10. Silver grey, mixed salmon and primrose — a com- 
 bination I have repeatedly tried with pleasant results. 
 
 11. Amber, orange, crimson, sage-green. 
 
 1 2. Pure white and carnation — very violent, requires 
 ci*aft to combine well. 
 
 / 13. Primrose and dark green. 
 
 14. Cowslip colours — observe one. 
 
 15. Pale yellow and chocolate — see common butter- 
 fly. 
 
 16. Dull lilac, rose-colour, and Tussore colour. 
 
 I could go on for ever, for the combinations are end- 
 less, and a room coloured after this or that natural 
 
BECOMING COLOURS: 365 
 
 object would be many degrees more beautiful and 
 * original ' — much abused word ! — than the common- 
 place mockeries of mud and mildew. 
 
 Everybody who knows a little about painting is 
 aware that warm and cold colours should alternate, gene- 
 rally speaking; that all good colour is gradated. People 
 are sure now, as they were not when I first said so in 
 print, that dark walls increase the apparent size of rooms, 
 while light walls contract it ; that a white or overbright 
 ceiling seems close to your head, and a well coloured 
 dark one retreats upward, because we all know that as 
 we see things better the nearer they are, so the less we 
 see them the farther off they seem. But the garden 
 and its inhabitants, the changing sky, the creeping sun- 
 beam, or even the half-empty decanter on the luncheon 
 table, will be better teachers as to where light should 
 soften into dark, or dark gradually explain itself in 
 colour or form, than a score of chapters written at the 
 instigation of a dozen firms. 
 
 25ccoming Colour^. 
 
 Now, if any woman rather shrewder than her fellows, 
 or any man having a pretty wife, ask me, * How shall 
 I know which combination best suits my especial needs } ' 
 I answer, Try it in a bonnet. No colours suit a room 
 that are not pleasing in dress. Place a mass of the 
 proposed tints around a healthy countenance, now this, 
 now that, for comparison's sake. Throw over it, when 
 chosen, a thin film of black Brussels net, which will tone 
 down the colour to somewhat the pitch of the shadows 
 
366 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 which inevitably fall upon the walls of a room : stand 
 off, give your whole great mind to the subject for a few 
 moments, and behold, you cannot fail to see what is 
 most becomirig. ErgOy what suits one fresh face, suits 
 another ; what suits one pale^ rubicund, sallow, brown or 
 grey face, suits another. 
 
 You cannot — it would be inhospitable to— paint your 
 walls with a colour that only becomes yourself ; you can 
 and you ought to select a general, warm, comfortable 
 tint that is agreeable to the majority. Exceptions must 
 of course take care of themselves. 
 
 A beautiful complexion, like grey hair, is easy 
 enough to cater for. Everything is becoming to it, and 
 it enhances most colours. But the ordinary healthy 
 face, neither beauteous nor plain, without any vivid 
 colours, is the safest guide. As we see when we lay our 
 hands on gay fabrics, every colour suggests its com- 
 plementary ; and the more vivid the colour, the more 
 pronounced the suggestion of its opposite. Blue is apt 
 to turn the skin yellow, and only suits those very fair 
 skins which need a little warmth and luminosity ; it 
 often suits the hair when it does not suit the face, and 
 so the cheek is unwisely sacrificed to the (so-called) 
 golden locks. Green, both dark and light, often creates 
 the same yellowness, a sallow pallor, but a v^txy yellow 
 green, like ripe moss, does the reverse. Red of a soft 
 subdued kind is very becoming : a vivid red like that 
 called Turkey, worn with daffodils, a violent mixture 
 much affected by prse-Raphaelites, should never be 
 braved without the safeguard of a lovely complexion — 
 cream and roses — it darkens the skin so much. I may 
 
HELPERS. 2>^y 
 
 add, colours so strong are really painful, irritating, to 
 some sensitive spectators ; and unselfish people should 
 not disregard a fact for which there is always a scientific 
 reason. I have known the comfort and the eloquence 
 of a distinguished man to be checked by the propinquity 
 of a mass of distasteful red. I can sympathise, since 
 there is a piercing, acrid, aniline blue, in a dress of which 
 I could hardly talk to my dearest friend (only I know 
 no friend would wear it). Yellow is extremely dis- 
 agreeable to many persons, although the colour really 
 suits most faces, which in London are always apt to be 
 sallow ; the brightest yellow pales down immensely by 
 gas or any yellow light, even if over-strong by the 
 electric light of the day. Primrose becomes white, and 
 like real white, that means grey. Of course every colour 
 is less violent on a wall than in a dress which constantly 
 crosses the light, on account of the softening influence 
 of the shadows and distance, and I have seen bright red 
 in a wall (not dark red, which is very difficult to light), 
 broken by ancient picture-frames of deep-cut, variegated 
 gold, form a good and not too obtrusive background to 
 persons who would have been ruined by dresses of such 
 red. 
 
 Of course you cannot yourselves paint your walls or 
 paper them ; I hope you have something better to do ! 
 A really thoughtful decorator who can mix paints and 
 respect your likings is invaluable. He will come if you 
 call for him — call loudly enough. 
 
368 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 If you want an industrious slave to furnish your room 
 after a given period because you have not patience to 
 collect the elements, that is one thing ; he lives round 
 the corner, and makes it his business to ' pick up/ or 
 rather fabricate, pieces of furniture which he thinks suit- 
 able. But if you want an adviser who, naturally gifted 
 with art feeling, has turned his powers in the direction 
 of house-decoration, and who decorates by harmonising 
 the laws of art with the tastes, habits, and needs of 
 the inmates — if you want such a man, you must wait 
 for him, he does not live round the corner ; he is not 
 ubiquitous. 
 
 Many houses decorated by Mr. William Wallace, 
 which are well relieved by individuality of the highest 
 class, deserve mention. Mr. John Stevenson's house, 
 built and decorated by himself, and several houses 
 decorated by Owen Jones, and especially by Cottier, are 
 valuable contributions to domestic art. The names of 
 bad decorators, large and dismal as my experience is both 
 of their powers and their prices, I forbear to give. 
 
 There are people who love light — large windows 
 which open easily, small carpets which are easily shaken, 
 gay colours. Let them have them. There are others 
 who like darkness, and prefer the smallest panes and 
 most difficult bolts and hinges : give them their way, 
 in no other wise can we get the individual element, 
 originality, in a room. There are shortsighted persons 
 who dread polished boards (which are no doubt a hateful 
 institution and destructive of all grace of gait) and the 
 up-turned corners of rugs : give them a secure large 
 single carpet. Some like short dumpy curtains that 
 
HELPERS. 369 
 
 just touch the floor ; others like the majestic Hnes of 
 sweeping folds. Both are to be respected. 
 
 It is not quiet tones, nor vivid tones, which make or 
 mar a beautiful room ; and there is no downright law as 
 to whether velvet is better than rep, or cotton than silk ; 
 why one should be sacred to this piece of furniture, or 
 that-to another. It is the thought and the skill which 
 can use all things fitly and well, and make them subserve 
 an intelligible purpose. It is the delicate, practised per- 
 ception which places such a colour here, such another 
 there — which feels how to craftily mingle richness with 
 paucity of colour, so as not to tire the senses by either 
 — how to avoid both pomposity and barrenness. The 
 proof of the pudding is in the eating. This discrimination 
 divides the born decorator from the mere purveyor of 
 reigning fashions, the artist from the upholsterer. 
 
 I know a few persons in almost every rank of life 
 who possess real native good taste : their rooms invari- 
 ably have the cachet of individuality — a bowl of red 
 berries, a little pot with some weed in it which for the 
 moment has its own pretty lesson to teach — some novel 
 use of the fender, with quaint trivets and gay dishes ; 
 some white tulip in a dark corner ; some bright apple 
 laid on a shelf that needs its shining rind — the original 
 touch comes unexpectedly, now this, now that : here, 
 like a sparkling dew-drop, gone, like a bird's wing. 
 
 There are moods of heart when the fairest hues cut 
 like a shrewd pain, when the softest curves feel harsh ; 
 when grave tones and severe lines lend a mute relief 
 because the eyes are holden by an inward enemy. Such 
 possibilities must be borne in mind in decorating a room 
 
 B B 
 
370 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 whose colours cannot be put off like a gown, and there- 
 fore a room does not admit of such violent contrasts and 
 surprises as dress which is soon changed. Still it is not 
 for such sad souls — at least in their sadness — that beauty- 
 ripens her free, sweet gifts ; and as the lesson of life is 
 to bear and to recover, it is a kindlier task to cheer than 
 to depress, though it should be done with tact and 
 tenderness. 
 
 Let, then, our homes reflect our warmest and most 
 sympathising moods so far as art has the making of 
 them, and let the art be the very best of its kind, how- 
 ever little. Let them fit our daily wants as the shell its 
 fish and the plume its bird. 
 
 I have said much about loving and studying art, and 
 much about the importance of thinking out one's own 
 conclusions ; but for the sake of the many who need a 
 helping hand at first, who must have aid to bring forth 
 the budding ideas without overmuch labour and sorrow, 
 I must add a word or two about our helpers. 
 
 Who are our helpers ? 
 
 The artists ought to be : those who have had the 
 energy, the advantages of study and education, and have 
 grown, or are growing, rich upon the popular interest in 
 aesthetics. But who would ever dream of sending for a 
 Royal Academician to paint his walls and ceilings now.? 
 
 To appreciate art, we must understand it ; to under- 
 stand it, we must have it sufficiently about us, within our 
 reach, awaiting the momentary glance or thought when 
 
HELPERS WHO HINDER. 371 
 
 the mind is open, easy, withdrawn from sordid preoccu- 
 pations. 
 
 But the artists themselves (I am speaking collect- 
 ively, with noble exceptions in my mind) hinder the 
 public from ever amending, by keeping the best art 
 beyond their reach, and granting them, for the maturing 
 of their taste, only the refuse of their own study. One 
 would think sometimes in hearing these gentlemen's 
 remarks, and especially in reading artists' written views 
 on art, that it is a prime privilege to gaze at their 
 pictures once or twice in a gallery, and that for this no 
 payment can be too high, no patience too great. But 
 what do we owe them 1 They seem to grudge the 
 unfortunate public every pearl (rf pearl it be) which they 
 scatter. They forget how costly it is for a family to 
 visit even the Royal Academy often. They talk of the 
 artist's ' noble independence ' of public opinion ; and of 
 his 'moral courage' in destroying whatever pleases the 
 outsider's eye, as the painter Leys is said to have done, 
 as though they hardly knew the meaning of the words 
 they use. 
 
 But they teach us little, and that grudgingly and of 
 necessity, without, I fear, being at all independent of the 
 buzzing admirers who buy their pictures. 
 
 It is true, we see in all English art of the highest 
 aim, from Watts's lofty and poetic conceptions to 
 Poynter's unmerciful portraits, from Leighton's sweet 
 opal ghosts to Millais's costly sketches, that art is 
 meant to be a thing apart, not for the herd : not to 
 teach the herd, nor gladden it, but to satisfy those who 
 can judge accurately of the skill expended. This in 
 
372 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 itself is no generous but a vainglorious instinct, under- 
 lying the artists' contempt for the unknowing, the 
 * beasts of the people.' 
 
 How can we thank, how greatly should we honour, 
 those few men who, repudiating class-prejudice, deign to 
 recognise the sole real function of the artist — to educate 
 the unknowing, to chronicle the best thoughts, aspirations, 
 sympathies of his period, represented by that * herd ' of 
 which he himself forms one atom, as the priest educates 
 and teaches those from whose ranks he sprang. Mr. 
 Walter Crane, Mr. Burne Jones, Mr. Charles Eastlake, 
 Mr. Morris, Mr. Owen Jones, Mr. William Burges, who 
 being an architect was peculiarly fitted to understand 
 how to harmonise colour and construction, have designed 
 for wall-papers, windows, curtains, plate ; Mr. Caldecott, 
 like Mr. Crane, for cheap childish books, and thus have 
 had more influence in raising public taste in ' some of 
 the least of these,' than the rest have had in half a 
 century's exhibiting at the Royal Academy and Bond 
 Street show-rooms. 
 
 Architects should all be decorators, and vice versd, 
 and no artists should be above designing for a ceiling or 
 panel now, as they never were of old. If it be ijifra dig: 
 to paint on plaster or wood, why not on thick rags — i.e. 
 canvas "i 
 
 But hozv is the artist to educate this public whom he 
 so scorns.^ By giving them his best work, by habitu- 
 ating them to good work in all things great and small 
 till they like it, just as the missionary habituates the 
 savage to civilised manners until they become necessary 
 to him. Far be it from me to speak disrespectfully of the 
 
HELPERS WHO HINDER. 373 
 
 public in comparing them to savages, but as the artist, 
 so soon as he puts pen to paper, is never tired of sneer- 
 ing at the helpless outside community who cannot paint, 
 I must use a simile he is likely to understand. 
 
 Some recent authoritative ' Lectures on Art ' are 
 typical of the common artistic mind, whose way of reason- 
 ing (however deft may be the hand, however devoted the 
 heart, in the cause of culture) is far from good or wise 
 or true, and whose mood towards the ladder which has 
 led up to fame is often most ungrateful and unreason- 
 able. 
 
 We find the real duties of the artist as priest and 
 counsellor in the religion of beauty, quite ignored ; we 
 find constant complaints of the difference in the aim 
 and results of our modern work as compared with that 
 of the ancients. This difference is enormously exag- 
 gerated, for the ancients were not so very unlike our- 
 selves. The main reason assigned for our ' fall ' is 
 ' that artists from motives of indolence or interest 
 have allowed themselves to be led by the opinion 
 of the public instead of being as of old indifferent 
 to it' To the first part of this amazing observation 
 the public may answer that their opinion has been 
 very little regarded, and hence the picture-buyers 
 are but a small section of the public, and that small 
 section is composed chiefly not of picture-lovers, nor of 
 people who care for art in its highest sense, but dealers 
 who buy to sell again. Naturally they like to ' buy 
 safe,' so does even a picture-lover ; and to object to that 
 opens the door to ugly suspicions. But the vast prices 
 given for certain works by no means prove that art is 
 
374 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 loved or encouraged by the masses (though the general 
 pubHc do care for art and for beauty when they can get 
 it). The public supports the picture galleries, public and 
 private, though the practice of paying one shilling per 
 head to see one picture for a few minutes is a wrong and 
 mischievous one. Our artists' pictures ought to be free 
 to all during some portion of the year. 
 
 The real reason of the difference between the aims 
 and results of ancient and modern art is that the public 
 having been excluded from .easy reach of the best art, 
 forget its true use and value ; and their ignorance re-acts 
 injuriously on the artist because he is, after all, one of 
 them, and cannot breathe another atmosphere than 
 that of his time. He is responsible for their dulness. 
 Certain people's affected admiration of Leys destroying 
 whatever pleased the outsider, combined with their 
 morbid objection to fault-finding (which they call 
 * criticism ') stamps them as fretful porcupines indeed. 
 If the public find fault, they are railed at : if they are 
 pleased, why then destroy the work — it must be worth- 
 less : if the public are silent, where is the proper en- 
 couragement of art } 
 
 The assertion that the old masters were indifferent 
 to their public, it is necessary to answer with a query — 
 When } and who t Not Holbein, painting portraits, 
 saddles, walls, designing for brooches and confectionery, 
 and anything else he was told to do. Not Cimabue, 
 sitting in his shed open to passers-by, and hearing their 
 criticisms pro and con. — and who knows how in con- 
 sequence he may have modified this and that, perceiving 
 that his meaning was not clear or that some stronger 
 
HELPERS WHO HINDER. 375 
 
 chord might be touched ? How grand was that strength 
 which bore and courted criticism and made it serve 
 him — for how else won he that tremendous popularity, 
 so that his Madonna was borne through the glad city 
 in a pageant — save by educating-up his public, being 
 always in contact with the public, expressing their 
 deepest emotions, the spirit of his time ? 
 
 How did all the Gothic painters and decorators 
 become great, but by speaking the heart of the people 
 out, in language they could all understand ? When 
 books were not, or few, the artist was the nation's 
 spokesman, and had he been deaf to what was wanted 
 in his time, he would have starved at the least. 
 
 How did the great Renascence painters win the world 
 but by the same sympathy with its impulses ? How did 
 Ghiberti triumph in the competition for the Cathedral 
 doors even against such rivals as Donatello and Bru- 
 nelleschi, but because he had courted criticism by work- 
 ing openly among the people, and so profited by hints in 
 praise and blame from every quarter whereby he carried 
 the whole city with him ? ^ Many another name rises 
 up to rebuke the morbid anger of artists with ' outsiders/ 
 Let the true knight enter the arena with robuster frame. 
 There is no surer sign of weakness than a dread of being 
 touched, be the critics wise or silly ; the power to 
 criticise, like the power of free-will, is a common right 
 which should be fostered, guided aright, not crushed. 
 
 The Gothic and Renascence masters became great 
 because they caught the spirit of the people and ex- 
 pressed it to perfection. They carried the language of 
 
 ' Vasari. 
 
376 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 art to its apex. Their mastery of the tools was com- 
 plete ; but it was not the mastery of tools which made 
 them great, but their having something to say, and not 
 only the sense to say it, but the determination to be 
 understood. 
 
 Probably this stupendous skilfulness has damaged 
 us somewhat. Ever since painting became technically 
 unsurpassable, ever since anatomy became a science, the 
 * afterborns ' have been numbed, petrified by their very 
 appreciation of the accomplished facts. None but those 
 who have tried it know the difficulties of technique, the 
 handicraft ; but admiration of genius ought not to stultify 
 effort in the new work that lies under our hand — it is like 
 being so amazed at the powers of Homer that we will 
 not write any new books. 
 
 Indeed, so necessary is it that art should be the spon- 
 taneous product of its own time, that we may be some- 
 times tempted to wish that there had never been any 
 ' old masters,' so fully has their skill nipped all future 
 originality, and so often has their position been made a 
 throne for servile incapacity. The great picture galleries 
 have paralysed the Italian painting of the nineteenth 
 century. Hogarth felt this about his own age : he 
 says, among his pithy remarks on the new Royal 
 Academy, ' I am told that one of their leading objects 
 will be, sending young men abroad to study the antique 
 statues, for such kind of studies may sometimes improve 
 an exalted genius, but they will not create it ; and 
 
THE OLD MASTERS' MISCHIEF. 377 
 
 whatever has been the cause, this same travelling to 
 Italy has, in several instances that I have seen, seduced 
 the student from nature and led him to paint marble 
 figures, in which he has availed himself of the great works 
 of antiquity, as a coward does when he puts on the annoiir 
 of an Alexander^ for with similar pretensions and similar 
 vanity the painter supposes he shall be adored as a 
 second Raphael Urbino.' 
 
 True : the great masters have been destructive by 
 their greatness, as a big tree is destructive of the grass 
 blades beneath its arms. Even Reynolds was blinded ; 
 * Study ' (he says) ' the great works of the great masters 
 for ever. Study nature attentively, but always with 
 those masters in your company ; consider them as 
 models which you are to imitate,' &c. 
 
 Had this been right reasoning and healthy truth, 
 Giotto would never have reformed art, for he had no old 
 masters to cling to. No one can learn to walk till he 
 quits hold of the guide. The much-lauded old masters 
 were robust, bold, feeling their feet, looking frankly 
 about them. They formed their own manner and 
 technique. They painted what they saw, felt, and heard 
 in their own way ; but they did not .sit apart sneering, 
 it is more probable that they talked, explained and 
 proved their meaning to crowds of pupils, They were 
 prized, because, as Emerson says, ' we love those who 
 tell us what we know — ' that teaches us to know it. 
 
 The priest must educate his flock ; he will do it, 
 never by scolding and sneering at the flock, but by 
 drawing it nearer, using it to what is good for it. Art 
 is for the people, and the people maintain their priest. 
 
378 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 iScfotm from 25cIolt)» 
 
 Probably we shall never get the priests who have 
 developed in the present unhealthy, unhelpful school to 
 do more for us. Still the demand will create the supply. 
 The reform will come from below — from the shops, in 
 fact. 
 
 As the tradesmen find that the public discriminate, 
 and insist on better designs and better work, they will 
 provide it. A superior level of designing power will be 
 found among the shop-designers, who will begin to 
 attend art-classes, and model from nature. Here and 
 there a man of genius will spring up, and the tradesman 
 will have sense to recognise him. Hosts of buyers will 
 support the improved standard of work ; thousands can 
 afford 5/. when not one in a thousand can afford 5( o/. 
 Wall-papers, gowns, jewellery, plate, chir;a, carpets, cabi- 
 nets, and numberless necessities of daily life will become 
 works of art. We shall get really good panels for our 
 rooms, really good fresco-painting, if we demand it, such 
 as may be obtained in Italy. 
 
 Then the Philistine will no more buy a sketch in oil 
 paint for a sum which might pension a soldier or 
 historian and his posterity for ever. The skilfullest 
 works will lose their fancy value, and will stand on 
 their merits. There are already rumours that pictures 
 * don't sell ' which would have sold a few years ago. 
 Tant mieux. We shall do without our artists — as they 
 pretend they can do without us ! — and we shall have 
 better art ! 
 
MISUSE OF PICTURES. 379 
 
 ^i^xx^t of ^icturc^* 
 
 After all, — when we shake off the fetters of associa- 
 tion- -what a ridiculous object is a ' picture,' hanging 
 on a wall by a string ! What connection has it with 
 the wall-colour, which it hides; or with the lines of 
 the panels, which it commonly contradicts ! Unless 
 built and fitted into its place, really or ostensibly, a 
 ' picture ' is surely an object contrary to good taste 
 — especially when a number are crowded together; and 
 the frame is often a shining eyehore. However beauti- 
 ful the work, is it not unmeaning where it hangs ? A 
 picture is really meant to deceive the eye ; to create a 
 false vista, through a supposed opening in the wall. 
 That is what pictures on walls were originally painted 
 for, to extend the apparent area, much as a mirror does 
 — pleasant where a fine real outlook was unattainable 
 To this end subjects were painted on classic walls, as 
 we find in the Roman House of GeruianiciiSy and in 
 Pompeiian frescoes, and .their frames were the architec- 
 tural structure of the wall. To this end tapestries were 
 woven in Gothic times, and pictures painted with archi- 
 tectural borders like alcoves, meant to be as deceptive as 
 possible. How entirely, then, we mistake the function of 
 a picture when we hang, for instance, a portrait, where 
 by no manner of means that person could be ! — when 
 we place a peaceful landscape close adjoining a battle- 
 scene or sea-scape — or set a subject with small figures 
 nigh one with big figures which belong to another focus 
 of sight altogether ! To the thoughtful spectator our 
 
38o GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 picture-hanging is chaos, and the classics would hoot us> 
 Annamaniacs and all. 
 
 Is not a picture, rightly understood, a portable wall 
 or panel, and not to be hung up, like a hat or coat, on a 
 peg ? Ought not the panel-edge, now gilt, because gold 
 sets off pictures well, to be echoed in other panels or 
 openings, windows, doors, &c., in similar pattern and 
 similar gold ? We may excuse ourselves by the exi- 
 gencies of poverty, or modern conditions — but the exi- 
 gencies should be removed, the fact remains. 
 
 Paint was intended to be applied in domestic art, as 
 Mr. William Burges applied it, as an outer finish to 
 permanent constructions of every kind ; if on a wall it 
 should form a panel, and may be treated in the round 
 as a supposed outlook : if on furniture, it should inter- 
 pret and adorn it, and should be treated in the flat ; 
 and this is a rational view. But the question whether 
 wall pictures ought ever to represent natural scenes, or 
 whether all mural decoration must be flat and conven- 
 tionally treated, as some decorators, like Owen Jones, 
 aver, we must leave the reformed artists of the future to 
 fight out between them. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON OUR STREETS. 
 
 For many a man that may not stand a pull, 
 Yet liketh it him at the wrestlyng for to be, 
 
 says Chaucer in his * Parliament of Birds ; ' and a dis^ 
 sertation on street-architecture would be as far from my 
 powers as it is outside the purpose of the present book. 
 Still, a humble plea for a little beauty in our streets may 
 not be quite out of place. 
 
 Black as are our old streets, crooked without pictur- 
 esqueness, and not over healthy, there is an interest at- 
 taching to them which we could not transfer to newty-built 
 rows of clean houses. Every narrow and muddy old road 
 has its associations, its haunting figures of the past which 
 we should be sorry to lose ; and the Thames Embank- 
 ment itself cost many a sigh to people not blind to the 
 advantages it offered. 
 
 But we might clean up, brighten, and add comfort 
 to our old streets without disturbing the lines or destroy 
 
382 GENERAL APPLICATIOXS. 
 
 ing associations worth keeping, in a good many cases 
 which we neglect. We might plant more trees, as in Paris 
 and all continental towns, which would not only improve 
 the look but the sanitary condition of the atmosphere. 
 We might materially improve the drainage in places by 
 legislating against family alliances between sanitary in- 
 spectors and bad landlords ; and we might invent a form 
 of cement or paint sufficiently waterproof to throw off 
 rainstreams without arresting the soot in them. 
 
 The advantage of trees in clearing the air of smuts 
 must be apparent to all who have trees near their houses. 
 Virginia creepers and other plants on house-fronts are a 
 perpetual refreshment to the eye in summer, and a few 
 boxes of gay flowers are a boon to all the passers-by as 
 well as oneself. 
 
 But plants, in our dull streets, do not tell against 
 dirty brick. I recently noticed, for the first time, a 
 creeper-smothered house in a narrow street 1 often pass ; 
 but the brickwork is so dingy that it neither throws up the 
 green, as red brick would do, nor is materially improved 
 by the leaves, which in the absence of much sunlight 
 form with it one uniform dingy tint. People ought 
 really to point their brick oftener, or cover it, like the 
 cleanly Dutch, with a coat of paint ; over this a quick- 
 growing creeper would be a really picturesque orna- 
 ment, as plants against a coloured fence invariably are. 
 For London-bred green things require a background 
 which exhibits them, as much as any other artistic 
 objects. 
 
 What a refreshment to the eye would be trees 
 planted along Regent Street, with an occasional seat 
 
OUR CHIMNEYS. 383 
 
 such as Paris found good and necessary. Even in 
 winter, when they are black and bare, the netted branches 
 break the blankness of the scene. The objection 
 hitherto urged is that our populace are more destructive 
 than the same class abroad ; and that all such decora- 
 tion would be visited by the street Arab's piopensity to 
 cut signs and wonders in the bark. But this is no longer 
 a valid objection. The Arab is mending his ways as we 
 mend him, and the hapless green strangers about the 
 Thames Embankment and Leicester Square have come 
 to no great harm. 
 
 Among trees, the plane appears one of the best suited 
 to London. It is less easily killed by soot than others, 
 owing to its cleanly personal habits. It strives so hard 
 to keep itself wholesome by changing its bark year by 
 year. The plane appears less popular with poets than 
 other trees, and is seldom mentioned ; it is hard to say 
 why. It is a very stately tree, with a broad, handsome, 
 well-cut leaf capitally adapted to crack on the fist after 
 the manner of schoolboys ; and the seeds, great balls of 
 soft green and brown velvet, are surely as pretty as 
 acorns ! 
 
 Let us beautify our streets by planting more trees ; 
 and let us cease to deface them by sticking up metal 
 chimneys. 
 
 The chimneys of London are indeed a remarkable 
 outcome of civilisation, and deserve more attention ; but 
 the English seldom lift their eyes in walking, being too 
 
384 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 much afraid of puddles, and hence the ornaments upon 
 the house-tops are greatly neglected. 
 
 I have often thought that a foreigner from the wilds 
 of Weissnichtwo, some Teufelsdrokh with a sense of 
 
 Fig. 74. — Our chimneys. 
 
 X. Where are you going, my dear ? 
 3. Jack Tar beset. 
 
 3. Conscious virtue. 
 
 4. Father, father, I come to confess ! 
 
 5. Any old hats ! Old hats to sell ! 
 
 6. Japanese art. 
 
 7. Esthetes in ecstasies. 
 
 humour, some Don Quixote, might easily suppose that 
 the attitudes of chimneys bore some intelligible mean- 
 ing. They really do look as though they meant some- 
 thing ; the roof being a legitimate and conspicuous 
 
COLOURED HOUSES. 385 
 
 quarter for large decorative figures, here as well as in 
 Greece. 
 
 May I venture to suggest the kind of moral lessons 
 likely to be conveyed, and to point out the opportunity 
 lost in not making them still clearer ? 
 
 But a truce to satire. Whilst criticising our streets 
 we must give our countrymen credit for one earnest 
 attempt at reform. 
 
 Colourcti I^ou^c^* 
 
 The latest product of Art-Protestantism in the way 
 of street ornament is the coloured house. A few years 
 ago, apart from a shop, such a thing was unknown in 
 London. When it came in, landlords wept for it, news- 
 papers railed at it, and the public sniffed and jeered. 
 But the painted house has gone through the usual 
 course of all reforms — abuse, pity, ridicule, imitation. 
 
 We have all suffered from the difficulty of finding 
 our way about such long, black, featureless ravines as 
 Harley, Wimpole, Welbeck Streets, St. George's and 
 Belgrave Roads, in Pimlico, or such dismal quadrangles 
 as Manchester, Portman, and Berkeley Squares — all the 
 houses looking alike, all painted a delicate creamy white, 
 and all equally black. Mayfair and Marylebone rivalled 
 each other in uniformity ; a new door-knob or a blue 
 door represented, but a very few years ago, the utmost 
 stretch of metropolitan imagination. To trifle with the 
 surface of a wall seemed not only a dangerous solecism, 
 but something like a defiance of the vestry, or even the 
 Board of Works. We are the slaves of uniformity ! It 
 
 C C 
 
386 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 is endeared to us even by soot. For generations we 
 have repressed most individual attempts to be better 
 than the rest, and particularly in dress and decoration 
 inside and outside the house. 
 
 Well, human faces all look alike if they are suffi- 
 ciently grimy. Were such griminess the rule, we should 
 hardly notice the features, but should have to devise 
 some system of numbering, like houses, in order to know 
 people apart. But Ave drew the line at faces, though 
 outside slovenliness and filth were the rule till recently 
 in the older neighbourhoods, whether patrician or 
 plebeian. How long the inhabitants of Manchester, 
 Berkeley, and Portman Squares tolerated dead cats on 
 the unkempt flower beds ! but they revolted at last, and 
 called for the dustman and the gardener. How long 
 have people bemoaned the want of mural architecture in 
 England, unconscious that what they really wanted was 
 colour, whereby to see what architecture they had got ! 
 Gazing up at the black faces of the clubhouses, no bas- 
 relief, no stucco pattern, or stone frieze caught the eye 
 — why } because the projections, which ought to tell 
 light against the shadows of depressions, grew blacker 
 than the depressions just in proportion to their projec- 
 tion into the sooty air. The result was that appear- 
 ance of flatness and a level tint, for only occasionally 
 have we sunshine enough to light up dark edges. 
 
 But indeed there is a good deal worth lighting up — 
 a good deal worth making visible — in our London 
 facades and porticos. At the beginning of the Greek 
 revival a century since, a large number of buildings 
 of considerable merit sprang up, designed by well- 
 
COLOURED HOUSES. 3^7 
 
 instructed architects, such as Inigo Jones, Chambers, 
 the Adamses — that is, the merit was that of a good 
 copy, the original being out of reach ; but with all their 
 research for Attic precedent, the Greco-maniacs over- 
 looked one thing which was unquestionably Greek — 
 colour in the streets. Excavation, and study, and the 
 laborious suture of fragments had taught them much — - 
 given us many beautiful things ; but these were, after all, 
 the bones without the flesh, the form without the life ; they 
 did not know then, as we know now, that the frieze of 
 the Parthenon was a blaze of colour, that all the capitals 
 and bases whose dead forms were lovely possessed an 
 added grace which had long decayed in the earth. 
 
 Pall Mall is a street of palaces, but the greater part 
 of us have only just begun to suspect it. The Regent's 
 Park possesses whole terraces of admirable construction ; 
 Marylebone is full of finely modelled lintels and porticos, 
 and even bas-reliefs inserted in the large blank spaces, 
 which deserve more attention. But in London it is 
 possible to live with a superb bas-relief under one's eyes 
 for years and not know it, owing, as I have said, first to 
 the absence of sunlight, and next to the fact that in our 
 sooty air the projecting portions get blacker than their 
 ground, and so a level tint is formed. But why the 
 dirt should be an argument against the only remedy for 
 dirt is inconceivable, and looks very much like a ' vicious 
 circle.' In a bright atmosphere no doubt colours are 
 more brilliant, perhaps more enjoyed, and last longer ; 
 but in a dull one it seems but common sense to try and 
 relieve monotony, even if it has to be done very often. 
 
 Often, indeed. And here another question obtrudes 
 
 c C 2 
 
388 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 itself Immediately. Why we should endure the nuisance 
 of dirt, costly as it is, British conservatism alone knows. 
 There have been many suggestions for clearing the 
 carbon-laden atmosphere of London and Manchester, 
 but they do not seem to be taken up by builders. The 
 system advocated by Mr. Spence in 1871, of each house 
 consuming its own smoke or utilising it by carrying it 
 through the drains, is one which ought to have received 
 more attention both from the philanthropic and aesthetic, 
 since the deodorising of the sewage by the ammonia 
 produced by burning coal might save many a precious 
 life per annum, and the purifying of the air by diverting 
 the smoke away from it would preserve, if not life, at 
 least paint ! Our darkest and most mischievous fogs are 
 largely composed of the smoke driven westward from 
 the east end of London. Our statistics show a grave 
 proportion of deaths by fog-poisoning as well as drain- 
 poisoning. Mr. Spence would persuade us that this fog 
 is really the right thing in the wrong place ; and it 
 is possible that some day new attention to sanitary 
 measures will render our dirty city not only more 
 healthy and more happy, but more beautiful, by admit- 
 ting here the sunlight that really often exists outside 
 London in winter as well as in summer, but cannot get 
 through our choking atmosphere. Mais reve?tons d nos 
 moiitoiis — our coloured houses. Welbeck Street (Rev. 
 H. R. Haweis) took the initiative in 1873 in a house 
 painted moss-green, relieved by red and black in the 
 reveals of the windows and the balcony— an effort 
 almost simultaneously supported by Townshend House 
 (Mr. Alma Tadema) in the Regent's Park. The shock 
 
COLOURED HOUSES. 389 
 
 was at first so great to the popular mind, that Httle 
 groups would collect and stare opposite, as if expecting 
 a raree-show to emerge. But in the year following one 
 or two neighbouring houses began to lay a little green 
 and chocolate on their window sills in timid recognition 
 of the improvement in the aspect. A second house in 
 Welbeck Street turned red, with a sage-green door. Sir 
 Charles Lyell, in Harley Street, had ventured on a 
 bright blue door ; but this vivid colour, being 
 unsupported by colour elsewhere on the fagade, 
 was not successful as a contribution to the world 
 of art 
 
 Year by year the parents of the movement were 
 amused to see how abuse was melting into that sincerest 
 form of flattery — imitation. As street after street began 
 to furbish itself up, and don rainbow hues, the obtusest 
 people suddenly awoke to perceive that they possessed 
 a pretty cornice, and they picked it out with two drabs 
 in lieu of one ; then they thought that pseudo-Greek 
 forms might venture upon the hues of Greek pottery — ' 
 black, red, and pale yellow. This having happily a 
 kind of precedent in the reviving admiration of clas- 
 sicism, caught the awakened fancy, and it is now curious 
 to see how in May fair and Belgravia numerous houses 
 have thus been copying each other in every shade of 
 black, red, and yellow — some exceedingly well done, 
 others unintelligently. Still the worst of them is an im- 
 provement on dirty white, for nothing in our climate 
 wears worse than that. 
 
 Cavendish Square boasts several coloured houses, 
 Gloucester Place many. Lady Combermere's house in 
 
390. GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 Belgrave Square, and that of Lady Herbert of Lea, 
 denote the conversion of the aristocracy. Wimpole and 
 Harley Streets show some pretty combinations of colour 
 — one lately painted with a capital mixture of dull- 
 red relieved by yellow (not Etruscan), another in 
 lavender with crimson lines, are real additions to the 
 movement, and form good and harmonious features. The 
 new hotel in Waterloo Place has thus made itself an 
 ornament to the street. The Athenaeum Club has 
 brought into view its fine frieze by colouring it in two 
 tints, throwing up the figures, pale yellow on a red 
 ground, an enormous improvement. My own house 
 proves how a skilful use of colour enlarges the apparent 
 size of the windows. Indeed, every little scrap cf good 
 architectural work can be enunciated by a little colour, 
 much to the relief of the maligned race of architects, 
 and to that of shortsighted pedestrians, who look for 
 the bright space of colour with far greater ease than 
 the half-obliterated lettering which may or may not 
 occur at the corner of the street. 
 
 It is amusing, too, how often people who have been 
 bitterest on these coloured houses when first painted are 
 heard to say that ' now that the colour has toned down ' 
 (in about six weeks) 'they really like it extremely.' 
 The fact is, the paint has not ' toned down,' there has 
 not been time ; but their eye has got ' toned up ' — and 
 so the circle widens. And who, looking at the sour, 
 viridescent spasms which attack stucco in wet weather, 
 can honestly think that definite colours well combined 
 are not an improvement .!* Colours last clean rather 
 better than white ; they need cost no more, or very 
 
STREET NOMENCLATURE. 391 
 
 little ; they are less trouble than 'pointing ' brick, and a 
 good advertisement for the house painter. 
 
 It will no doubt be necessary before long to legislate 
 for this almost intemperate fit of reform ; for such 
 terraces as Hanover and Sussex, &c., Regent's Park, 
 ought unquestionably to be coloured all at once, all 
 alike, and if possible by the same hand, and the con- 
 current taste of the inmates ought to be consulted by 
 the landlords. But in streets or squares where the most 
 heterogeneous architecture exists, heterogeneous colour 
 (with proper regard to laws of art) can fairly be allowed ; 
 and the selfishness which would relegate all brightness 
 and decoration to interiors ought to giv^e way to the 
 kinder impulse to put a little of what pleases us in our 
 homes, where the people can enjoy it — outside our 
 houses. 
 
 dStrcct |3omcncIature» 
 
 Many of the names of streets have a great historic 
 or legendary interest ; some, as in France, appear simply 
 quaint, such as Rjie dii Cherche Midi, Rue du Grand 
 Diable, 8ic. Great men, and great deeds, are, perhaps, 
 in no wise better remembered than by a street name, 
 which is in so many m.ouths so many times a day ; and 
 Paris appears alive to the fact, since almost every change 
 in her political system is commemorated by a most con- 
 fusing change in street names. 
 
 In Antwerp it is pleasant to see how the great 
 Flemings live unforgotten in their old haunts, the street 
 wherein they lived, or a street hard by, bearing their 
 
392 
 
 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 names like a perpetual monument. Rubens and Van 
 Dyck are recalled again and again, on the corners of the 
 streets, on the restaurants, on the quays, on the barges 
 gliding about the smooth Scheldt ; for they are ranked by 
 virtue of their genius as high as any wealthy noble, or 
 unscrupulous warrior, or successful cotton-spinner, is in 
 England. In fact, it is difficult to walk for five minutes 
 in any direction without seeing the name of Rubens or 
 Van Dyck. 
 
 In Italy the great men are remembered. The House 
 of Raphael, of Rienzi, of Pietro da Cortona, is pointed 
 out by every vethirino — where the great man was born, 
 where he worked, where he addressed the city, where he 
 died, is not forgotten. We have many old English 
 streets named after the trades or guilds to which they 
 were given up, as Cornhill, Bread Street, Poultry, Cord- 
 wainer and Silver Streets, Goldsmiths' Row, &c. ; and 
 this is as it should be in a commercial country. We 
 have a few which record proud deeds and names : 
 Southampton Street, Strand, is named after Lady 
 Rachel Russell, the perfect wife, who was daughter of 
 the Earl of Southampton ; Cumberland Street after the 
 victor of Cu-Uoden Field ; Trafalgar Square commemor- 
 ates a victory but not the victor's name. Some associa- 
 tions we should be sorry to give up: — e.g. Knightrider 
 Street was the route of knights riding to take part in 
 the Smithfield tourneys ; Essex Street, Strand, is named 
 after Elizabeth's ill-fated favourite ; Hare Court, Temple, 
 after Sir N. Hare, the same queen's Master of the Rolls. 
 
 Several Lothair Streets sprang up after Lord Beacons- 
 field's novel was published, and of course every little ill- 
 
STREET NOMENCLATURE, 393 
 
 built row of villas must be called ' Albert ' or ' Victoria.' 
 But how long will it be before England will think fit so 
 to honour her literary and artistic giants ? We are as 
 well off as our neighbours for shining lights of learning ; 
 worse off than mosi for novelty in nomenclature ; but 
 when shall we see a Chaucer Street, named after him 
 who first stamped the English tongue, the * fynder of 
 our faire language,' our first popular historian and novelist 
 and greatest poet ? When shall we see a Shakspere 
 Road, a Gainsborough or Reynolds Square, a Spenser 
 Place, a Newton or Faraday Crescent ? 
 
 There has been but one exception — Milton, to whom 
 the notorious Grub Street, sacred to unscrupulous scrib- 
 blers and the nursery of lampoons, was about fifty years 
 ago re-dedicated— a pleasing little attention for which 
 'tis pity he cannot feel grateful. The squalor and long- 
 established ill-fame of the place must have been thought 
 peculiarly appropriate to the memory of the refined and 
 conscientious ' Lady of Christchurch College ; ' or was 
 it because anyone seeking a ' Paradise Lost ' would 
 most surely find it in that agreeable spot "^ 
 
 I must compare the level of British interest in her 
 great dead with that in, say, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, 
 — almost anywhere — by a story told me by our distin- 
 guished tragedian, Mr. Irving — yea, even at Stratford-on- 
 Avon, where the munificent exertions of the Mayor and 
 others have preserved so many relics of Shakspere, and 
 might have been expected to arouse among the most 
 ignorant of the townsfolk some interest, and some pride, 
 in what Shakspere had done to deserve it. Mr. Irving, 
 then, was in Stratford-on-Avon, and caught a native 
 
394 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 who directed him to the celebrated birthplace. He was 
 moved by the man's manner to question him. ' Who was 
 this man Shakspere that they make this fuss over ? Did 
 he belong to the town, and what did he do } ' After a 
 perplexed pause, the man said hesitatingly : — ' I think, 
 sir, he was a — kind o' — writer.' ' What did he write } ' 
 pursued his questioner, ' was it in the newspapers .'* or the 
 magazines .'' or was he a sign-writer — can't you tell me 
 anything about him .?' 'I think, sir,' then said the man 
 after a still longer hesitation, ' I tJiink he writ in Bible.' 
 
 Mr. Irving added, after telling me this story, that he 
 considered this one of the highest tributes that could be 
 paid to Shakspere, 
 
 London is no doubt annually improving. Thirty 
 years ago our mothers said that beggars were fewer and 
 meeker than of yore ; and within the last ten or fifteen 
 years, certain well-known objects, bowed and twisted 
 and shivering, have disappeared, and I have not seen 
 the two Oxford Street cripples, one skating through life 
 on a little board, the other crawling onward by the aid 
 of clubbed feet and an extensive vocabulary, for some 
 time. Moreover, dead cats and egg-shells are rarer, and 
 the gardener and the dustman, as aforesaid, give atten- 
 tion to the once-neglected squares. So far, ugliness is 
 decreasing in our streets. But much remains to be done. 
 We could altogether dispense with the bloated and 
 purple- faced ' flower-girls ' who sell — horrid contrast ! — 
 violets and spring-flowers, and abuse you if you don't 
 
STREET NUISANCES. 395 
 
 buy ; and the street singers, whose mock-sorrow and 
 sharp glance warn you to keep your pocket-side away. 
 There are still times when the policeman would be the 
 greatest possible ornament to our streets — an ornament, 
 alas ! still rare, and without which no other charm can 
 exist. And we yet nurse a wild hope that in the far 
 future, which we may not live to see, covered streets, or 
 double streets, like the Chester Rows, may be provided 
 for those hapless foot-passengers who must walk in all 
 weathers, an arrangement which appears to succeed very 
 well in the long Rue Rivoli and the Victor Emanuel 
 Arcade at Milan ; and last, not least, clean cabs really 
 worth the somewhat high fares we already pay, which 
 we might enter without fear of vermin or infection. 
 
 In this last matter, not only every continental, but 
 every provincial English, town is better off than London, 
 

 CHAPTER XL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 HUMBLY trust that my strictures on modern 
 English decorations may open the eyes of a 
 few to the remediable flaws in taste, and 
 necessity for founding an English school of 
 design. This must be no poor copy of the thoughts of 
 other nations and races, and it must be rather Gothic 
 than Classic in its type. At present, on reviewing nearly 
 four centuries of British decorative work since the Renas- 
 cence, what may be said to stand forth as a truly indige- 
 nous growth, or to have originated anything like a school ? 
 Nothing, save perhaps Gibbons' carving, up to the present 
 century. Our goldsmiths and carvers may have been 
 many and talented ; they may have varied somewhat the 
 foreign methods and designs which they received ; in the 
 middle ages they undoubtedly gave a certain original 
 stamp to the architecture given us by Saxons and Nor-- 
 mans ; but art on the whole must be considered an exotic 
 
INDIGENOUS ART. 397 
 
 like many other things which we have used well when 
 they came to us. 
 
 Britain has always been ruled by foreigners both in 
 art and politics. Painting, engraving, chasing precious 
 metals, cameo-cutting, all these crafts came to us from 
 overseas, and chiefly after the Renascence. Our pro- 
 ficiency with the needle which once distinguished us 
 among the nations is practically ours no longer ; we have 
 no embroiderers to compare with the Italian and Spanish 
 lace-makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 any more than we have smiths to compare with Spanish 
 and German cutlers and iron- workers — though Smith is 
 so common a name ! And as for our carving in the boasted 
 oak of Old England, it is done by steam nowadays and 
 beneath contempt. 
 
 In the present century, however, our prse-Raphaelite 
 painters, — a very recent growth — ought to be excepted 
 as a definite and I think indigenous school ; the distinc- 
 tive element in it, the straightforward literalness mingled 
 oddly with a very tender fancy, is ' Gothic ' in its nature. 
 No people are more easily led by their imagination than 
 the seeming sluggish and phlegmatic Britons. 
 
 This band of painters have formed a peculiar scheme 
 of decoration which I do not find out of England, 
 depending on boldly variegated colour and much gold, 
 as though a true and natural advance upon early English 
 colouring, interrupted by the Renascence. 
 
 One of the best examples of this new kind of decora- 
 tion which I have seen is that in Trinity Chapel, Cam- 
 bridge, which is in tone at once tender and rich, and many 
 of the designs (perhaps adapted from antique ones) are 
 
398 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 extremely beautiful and suggestive both on ceiling and 
 walls. It is remarkable that during two recent visits to 
 Cambridge, I inquired of many residents, Fellows of 
 Colleges, &c., zvlio conducted the redecoration of this 
 important feature of Cambridge ; and totally failed to 
 find out. This is illustrative of the English interest in 
 art and good art-workmen. 
 
 After a year's patient inquiry I discovered that Mr. 
 Henry Holiday supervised the work, which accounts for 
 its merit. 
 
 Much remains to be done before England can claim 
 to be an artistic country. Modern teaching has corrected 
 some blots in the intolerable school of design which 
 ushered in the present century,- but it has not yet chased 
 from the domestic field the furniture which makes home 
 hideous, nor taught people to think for themselves. 
 
 We must throw off the ill-fitting classic garb, which, 
 as I have elsewhere shown, we have thrice tried and 
 found unmanageable, and only take from classic sources 
 the principles which made classic art great, applying 
 them as beseems our climate, our classes, and our 
 national character. The reform will not come from 
 above, but from below — from the people, not the selfish 
 and soporific ' aesthetes.' 
 
 It must start from Gothic times, before RapJiael, and 
 disregard nicknames if it would recover the graceful 
 facility and happy freedom which characterised English 
 fourteenth-century art, and made it a living product. 
 The spirit is not dead, but sleepeth. 
 
 When our museums are thrown open on the only day 
 in the week (Sunday) when the busy working man can 
 
HELP IN AMATEURS. 399 
 
 regularly visit them — and his visits must be frequent to 
 be fruitful, not only on Bank holidays with his arms full 
 of babies- -the English artisan may suck in ideas of his 
 own, and when he is a more cultivated individual than 
 at present he will love his work better, and prize his owh 
 good name. At present it is our fault, the customer's in 
 fact, that he is no better, and has never had the advan- 
 tages common to other European countries, where the 
 workman has been more lovingly educated and his name 
 better remembered. 
 
 The public, v,^ho purchase, must also learn to appre- 
 ciate what their artisans achieve, to distinguish good 
 work from scamped ; and not ignofantly censure, nor 
 ignorantly praise. 
 
 And each one of us individually may aid the nation by 
 self-culture ; may make his own house a standing lesson 
 and protest, by merely caring how his walls are covered, 
 and how his goods are placed in juxtaposition^ Whether 
 or not he knows better than the rest, his caring and 
 insisting on the right of individual thought and action 
 are a support and assistance. 
 
 ^clp in 3Ilmatcut^» 
 
 Nothing will help the reform better than the efforts 
 of art-loving amateurs. Amateur blacksmiths, gold- 
 smiths, carpenters, weavers, inlayers, will do more to 
 force merit into professional quarters than any amount 
 of letters in the 'Times' and preachments in books: 
 just as the victories of girl students at Girton and Newen- 
 ham have had some effect in shaming idlers in the 
 
400 GENERAL APPLICATIONS, 
 
 male universities. Amateurs seem as often as not to 
 win prizes in mixed exhibitions of china painting, and 
 in one or two other branches of industry we are sensible 
 of a movement as of life pecking at the shell.^ Of course 
 the reason is that the amateur, given equal talent, has 
 more time to give to the labour, and works for love of it : 
 but if we pay the trade at all, we pay for time and skill 
 both, and hurried or slovenly work ought to be cheap, 
 while patient, long-suffering labour demands a higher fee. 
 
 When iron factors find that amateur work can provide 
 for an existing demand, at a standard they cannot reach, 
 will they not labour to provide for it .-* When silver- 
 smiths find their coarse, showy vulgarities remain on 
 their hands, will they not speedily discover what the 
 public really want '^. If skill is required, skill will be 
 forthcoming ; if beauty is wanted, beauty will arise. 
 The demand educates the workman, and the general 
 level of understanding among the body of purchasers is 
 what really defines the standard of art in a country. 
 
 The designer and the workman can no longer be 
 one, as once they were, when a founder meant bell- 
 caster, cutler, maker of keys, guns, and statues, and 
 anything else that could be cast and hammered : when 
 a goldsmith was expected to be able to mould a vase 
 like Luca della Robbia, carve a helmet, and do a hun- 
 
 ' We may quote the beautiful goldsmith's work of the late Mr. George 
 Cayley, for one of whose salvers Mr. Millais offered a picture of his son ; 
 and the wrought-iron ornaments, panels, candelabra, &c. turned out by the 
 Messrs. Phelps, sons of the present Master of Sidney College, Cambridge, 
 who work with enthusiasm in their forge. Some of their iron was recently 
 exhibited at the Albert Hall Fine Arts Department. 
 
THE COURT PAINTER. 401 
 
 dred other things that demanded the art knowledge he 
 possessed. We cannot have all-round men in this position 
 now, for the minute subdivisions in trade are the neces- 
 sary result of a large and impatient demand. But wo. 
 can give intelligent workmen some interest in the com- 
 plete work of which they execute a portion : and there is 
 no reason why educated artists should not provide 
 designs, as did Le Pautre, for all kinds of decorative 
 work, with (be it understood) due knowledge of the limits 
 of each branch of art designed for, so that workmen have 
 not to complain of the technical ignorance of the 
 artist, as sometimes happens. 
 
 The designer for wrought iron must have some 
 notion of what is possible in iron-hammering, as the 
 architect of a fine palace must understand the science 
 of building ; a table or chair cannot be made from a 
 design which is independent of the first^ 
 joints. 
 
 The revival of the ancient and honourat 
 court painter and artist in ordinary to Her Majesty 
 would be a radical support to the cause of art in England : 
 for it would give prestige to a profession which, however 
 cursorily encouraged by royal favour here and there, has 
 for long received no direct recognition at Court like 
 divinity, letters, and medicine,^ 
 
 1 The position of ' historical painter ' to the Queen, now held by Mr. 
 Sant, R. A., does not refute such an assertion. An historical painter, without 
 continual occupation, or a definite effect on his age, is so far a dead letter. 
 
 D D 
 
402 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 The laureateship is, no doubt, an empty title, but it 
 is an honourable one. Chaplaincy to Her Majesty is 
 one equally honourable and equally empty. The former 
 has, perhaps, less raison d'etre than any other similar 
 post, for poems are not needful upon every occasion, and 
 it is but a minute branch of letters. 
 
 But the Court artist, were his position at all a revival 
 of the ancient one, would be never without employment. 
 He should be more or less an all-round man, such as 
 Sir F. Leighton or Alma-Tadema, not exclusively a 
 painter or architect, for the honour should not be confined 
 to one branch of art. He should be a designer — an 
 artist', capable of painting a portrait, designing a monu- 
 ment, or a fine building, a stencil pattern or a presenta- 
 tion sword : and he should be an Englishman. Designs 
 thus provided by a man of culture, and probably genius, 
 would filter down and gradually come into the market 
 bearing the Sovereign's name. This would encourage 
 others, and nurse the buds of native talent in very 
 diverse directions, which continually appear, and con- 
 tinually are crushed. 
 
 The post would be better without an emolument 
 which would cause violent jealousies among artists, 
 and it might be shared by several persons, like the 
 chaplaincy ; but the personal influence of royalty 
 and the pleasure of working even nominally under 
 a Sovereign singularly dear, would create a feeling 
 about art which has long been chrysalided if not 
 dead. 
 
 In the old days when artists were truly artists, and 
 felt it their vocation and right to beautify, without in- 
 
THE COURT PAINTER. 403 
 
 vidious distinctions and conditions, work of high standard 
 filled the channels it does not enter now. 
 
 I have earlier alluded to William the Florentine, 
 Court painter to Henry III., and master of the works at 
 Guildford Castle, supervising the wall decorations of 
 Henry's palace, according to the old records, planning 
 the drains, designing the stencils appropriate to various 
 domestic events : such as ' borders well painted with 
 images of our Lord and angels, with incense pots scat- 
 tered over it.' I have spoken of William Torell, the 
 goldsmith, who designed (probably hammered) Queen 
 Eleanor's metal tomb, and may not improbably be the 
 author of the sculptured crosses in her honour and the 
 monument of Aylmar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in 
 Westminster Abbey ; and William Austin, of London, 
 whom Flaxman praised so warmly. Who knows what 
 plate, what rails, what caskets, and keys, and brazen 
 fountains, as welt as designs for other irrelevant things, 
 were expected of Torell and Austin, and actually done 
 by them } Many names, at least as great as any we have 
 now, may be cited as men whose supreme talents were 
 happily not confined to one little runlet of art, but rushed, 
 or trickled, or flowed wheresoever the soil was ready for 
 the stream. 
 
 May not these be taken as a precedent and support .^ 
 Leonardo da Vinci fortified Florence, Holbein designed 
 mansions and brooches, Giotto built the campanile of S. 
 Maria del Flore, besides painting pictures. 
 
 There is something very noble in this calling of an 
 Artist as a beautifier, a mighty man — no mechanic bound 
 by the petty fetters of trades-unionism. 
 
404 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 % J©orti on aircljitccturc. 
 
 Perhaps one of the reasons why we get no fine, nor 
 even original, modern architecture is because the architect 
 is so completely dissevered from the painter. Good as is 
 much of his work, he has been educated in a groove of trim 
 lines and tried effects, which he cannot get out of, nor do 
 without. To the public, no doubt, a design which they 
 have not seen before is as dreadful as the Ancient Mari- 
 ner's glittering eye ; but the artist, unlike the mechanic, 
 educates his own public. Brunelleschi would not have 
 been deterred from works of genius by the cavils of a 
 vestry, nor William of Wykeham by the criticism of kings. 
 Holbein's architectural designs have been remarked upon 
 as resembUng paintings : he introduced enrichments of 
 terra-cotta, or moulded brickwork, inlaid his friezes with 
 coloured tiles, made free use of paint and variegated 
 bricks laid in zigzag patterns. The fact is, his painter's 
 eye yearned for that without which form is but dead ; 
 and he made his buildings alive both with colour and 
 form. The architect, with all his sense of proportion and 
 delicate knowledge of light and shade, lacks one sense 
 which the painter possesses, that of the value of colour. 
 He has educated it out of himself, and cannot learn it 
 from his books and measuring-tools. He is so hampered 
 by superstitions and opposition that he is often but an 
 upper class builder, when he ought to be a * phoenix for 
 fine and curious masonrie.' The painter's wider expe- 
 rience and love of changing and brilliant effects is hkely 
 to have originated many splendid architectural works 
 
A WORD ON ARCHITECTURE. 405 
 
 when it was, as once, associated with the builder's 
 science. The warm bloom of colour which covered 
 Greek buildings before time robbed them of their paint 
 vivified the chaste and simple forms, which without it 
 seem but cold and naked. Venetian Gothic was soft 
 and lovely with colour — 'the whole front,' says Ruskin, 
 ' of a Gothic palace in Venice may be simply described 
 as a field of subdued russet quartered with broad sculp- 
 tured masses of white and gold ; these latter being re- 
 lieved by smaller inlaid fragments of blue, purple, and 
 deep green.' English Gothic was coloured and gilt out- 
 side and in, and resonant with the * harmony ' of many 
 golden fanes, as I pointed out earlier. 
 
 Such buildings must perforce have been designed by 
 artists, not architects merely : they were buildings 
 wherein now colour modified the form, now was modified 
 by it as the design grew beneath the hand. Such was 
 the elasticity of the finest Gothic art, such the due use 
 of one material with another. 
 
 We have small precedent for naked stone save the 
 precedent of Decay, and the prejudices founded on 
 forgetfulness. 'The Renascence frosts came, and all 
 perished,' says Ruskin. But the artist and architect, 
 working hand in hand, might still produce new forms 
 guided by old principles, full of beauty, truly original, 
 not affected nor uncomfortable, without persecuting early 
 Gothic, Jacobian brick, or classic monuments with servile 
 and insolent parodies. 
 
 Glazed brick and tiles are capable of endless varia- 
 tions and durability beyond any other materials in our 
 humid air. With terra-cotta and stone successful 
 
4o6 GENERAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 experiments have already been tried by Mr. Street, Mr. 
 Norman Shaw, Sir Gilbert Scott and his son, and others. 
 But we shall never again have Brunelleschis and Buona- 
 rottis till our architects climb out of the slot of the 
 great Worm— Precedent— and begin to consider what 
 is really wanted in an English building : comfort, 
 light and shade, brightness, as well as grandeur of 
 effect. 
 
 A few of our decorators have effected a revolution in 
 the colouring of our rooms ; it is time for an artist of 
 sufficient calibre to attack the chairs and pianos, iron 
 bedsteads and wardrobes. Our drapers already repro- 
 duce very fine tissues from antique designs which they 
 have industriously studied ; it is time for the public to 
 insist that the material of which they are made is worth 
 the money paid, and not a specious concoction of 
 chemical mud which insults the purse and wastes the 
 patience. Outside our houses we have begun to be 
 clean, and occasionally handsome ; let us within doors 
 study to be both. If we admit pictures, let them be of 
 the highest quality, and properly set in the wall. Few 
 things and good are better than much refuse. If we 
 employ table-plate, let it be plain and inoffensive like 
 the well-hammered pieces in Anne's day, or really an 
 art-treasure like early Renascence plate. Let us aim at 
 producing a * first impression ' of comfort and pleasant- 
 ness, and let us see that the details of such an ensemble 
 do not disappoint a second or third glance. 
 
 In dress, I have long preached that reform is needful ; 
 even the reformers need reforming ; and it should be our 
 constant aim to check by our example the vagaries in- 
 
A WORD ON ARCHITECTURE. 407 
 
 variably resultant from vitiation of the accustomed eye 
 without confining fancy to a groove. 
 
 Let us handcuff no one ; individual opinion is too 
 precious to be sacrificed, and in art matters it is better 
 to bear with the blunders of those whose taste offends 
 you, if their taste results from thinking for themselves, 
 than to reduce everybody to a dead level of propriety by 
 Act of Parliament. Still criticism should be as free as 
 action, and the average opinion of the mass forms a 
 healthy law in itself 
 
 Culture is attained by plentiful experience, many 
 mistakes, and continual study of ' the Reason why ; ' 
 and this is possible only to those with open eyes and 
 open minds. 
 
 But the artist, the true Phoenix, whether cultured or 
 not, is born, not made. 
 
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