:A '.',.. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/artofdecorationOOhawerich DECORATION LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET U' / ■ y^t W-^*- )^- '• 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 ^^ 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