Our homes, and how to beautify them . of ennui, as a French poet has putit; and next to the vice of ill-regulated combina-tions is the unpardonable sin of sameness. Butthe variety must be in unity. There isdisaster in the sort of variety required by thelady who, when asked by her architect in whatstyle she would like her house built, said : Iwant it to fje nice and baronial. Queen Anneand Elizabethan and all that; kind of quaintNurembergy, you know; regular Old Englishwith French windows opening on the lawn, and Venetian blinds, and sort ofSwiss balconies, and a loggia ; but Fni sure you know
Our homes, and how to beautify them . of ennui, as a French poet has putit; and next to the vice of ill-regulated combina-tions is the unpardonable sin of sameness. Butthe variety must be in unity. There isdisaster in the sort of variety required by thelady who, when asked by her architect in whatstyle she would like her house built, said : Iwant it to fje nice and baronial. Queen Anneand Elizabethan and all that; kind of quaintNurembergy, you know; regular Old Englishwith French windows opening on the lawn, and Venetian blinds, and sort ofSwiss balconies, and a loggia ; but Fni sure you know what I mean. Another of these general laws is that all decoration should have a pointof departure either in the fixed ornament of the room, or in the character ofits movable furniture. This, of course, involves a careful consideration of therelative values of stationary and movable decoration ; and an appreciation ofthe formal, almost official, character of the one, and the individuality whichshould be accentuated in the other. ._ .. FIG. 37. L\TE iSTK century. FORM AND COLOUR. I ^HE decorator, however large may be his resources, however wide his experi-ence, has only two factors to deal with—form and colour. Stay, I amforgetting texture. Texture has an importance which follows closely on theheels of colour, to which indeed it is allied, and the place of which in somecases it fills. In this age of fondness for smooth and polished surfaces, not halfenough is made of texture. It is texture that catches the subtle glints of lightand reveals unsuspected effects of warmth and beauty, that imparts softness andtone to the most monotonous surface, and that gives an almost consciousindividuality to an old brick wall or a rough hewn beam of oak. Still, form andcolour are the leading factors at the decorators command. It is with these OUR HOMES, chiefly that he must produce his effects, create his illusions, give apparent height to low walls, turn bareness into cosiness, and make the ha
Size: 1264px × 1977px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectinterio, bookyear1902
