"WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR WALLS?"

I suppose it is easier to come back to the original wood-work in some places than it is in others. But, in New York, it is almost out of the question to hope for a return to the old style for a simple reason - the reason that controls so many schemes for decoration and improvement here - the narrowness of the lots. Slight as is the projection of a wainscot, even so little diminution of the width of one of our city rooms, tells, not only on its looks but on the actual comfort of the occupant. And beside, it is not really needed in city houses, at least, the need of it is not so pressing as to enable us to forget the discomfort of a few inches less of space to move in. Accordingly, we have agreed to compromise the matter by a simulated wainscot formed of the customary baseboard of the room, and the so-called chair-rail - a strip of wood either flat or else moulded, but not projecting more than half an inch at the most from the wall - and between these, wall-paper laid as usual upon the plaster.

I confess I do not like the modern way, the fashionable way, of treating this lower division of the wall. The cases must be few in which it will be advisable to treat it in any but the simplest manner. Remember, the prime use of the wainscot or dado was to protect the walls, or if not that, then to protect the persons who used the rooms from the damp and chilly stone or brick. When plaster came to be employed, the wainscot kept the lower part of the wall from getting knocked or defaced, and after all, that is the main reason for keeping up the semblance of the old device. To be sure, the Pompeians, from whom we get our way of treating the wall; painted the lower part with a design of its own, water-weeds and flowering plants, with aquatic birds, or, still-life pictures, a group of fish, lobsters, and other things of the sort, with a mischievous cat running away with a duck from the shelves of the pantry. But we differ from the Pompeians in this, that our rooms are generally so crowded with furniture, which, owing to the small dimension of the rooms, we are obliged for the most part to put against the wall - that we can not see whatever decoration may be upon the lower portion. Let the reader, as he reads this book, look about the room in which he is sitting and prove for himself, how small a portion of the base of the wall three feet up from the floor, he can see for more than a foot or two laterally. It is hid by the sofas and etageres, the piano, and the smaller tables. The Pompeians, on the other hand, had the least possible furniture, they lived much in the open air, and we may be sure, if they decorated their walls down to the floor, it was for the pleasure of seeing what was there, and not for the mere pride of knowing that it was there and paid for, even if it were covered up by furniture and never seen from one year's end to another's.

No, what is suitable to the lower part of a wall, if it is to be papered, is a rich, dark leather-paper in bronze, green, or leather-brown, or deep red, with a pattern in renaissance scrolls, arabesques, acanthus leaf, without gilding, or only heightened with gold. Of course, this applies only to such rooms as the drawing-room, the dining-room, or the living-room; and even then only when there is a certain elegance or richness in the furniture. In a room plainly furnished, or in the bedrooms, "plain handsomeness doth bear the bell." The color of the paper chosen should of course be in harmony with the general tone of the room. Such a dado as this will make a good background for the furniture, and will not usurp to itself any of the attention that ought to be given to more important portions of the decoration. At the same time, if the room to be papered is a summer one and lightly furnished, set out for instance with Chinese sofas of bamboo, light chairs of cane or Vienna bent wood, then it will be well enough to revert to the Pompeian plan and arrow-heads with ducks and turtles; only, these things ought to be more freely and artistically treated than is the wont with us.

And here I may ask - are we not too much wedded in these days to the notion that, in ornamentation, the natural forms and look of things should be altogether avoided? Of course, it is better, as a rule, to have the edge of imitation taken off, but if our taste enjoy this imitation, enough may be left to satisfy the picture-loving instinct all human beings have in a greater or less degree. There was a kind of tapestry made in Europe in the fifteenth century, in Flanders probably, in which there were represented gentlemen and ladies, the chatelaine and her suite, walking in the park of the chateau. The figures, the size of life, seem to be following the course of a slender stream which like Tennyson's "Brook" might sing.

"I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

 

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"With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set,
With willow-weed and mallow."

The park in which these noble folk are stiffly disporting is represented by a wide expanse of meadow guiltless of perspective, stretching up to the top of the piece of stuff itself, a meadow composed of leaves and flowers - blue-bells, daisies, and flowers without a name, giving the effect of a close mosaic of green, mottled with colored spots. On this meadow are scattered various figures of animals and birds - the lion, the unicorn, the stag and the rabbit. Here, too, are hawks and parrots, and in the upper part is a heron which has been brought down by a hawk and is struggling with the victor, some highly ornamental drops of blood on the heron's breast showing that he is done for. And, to return to the brook which winds along the bottom of the tapestry, it is curious to note that this part of the work is more real and directly natural in its treatment than the rest. The water is blue, and is varied by shading and by lines that show the movement of the stream; the plants and bushes growing along its borders are drawn with at least a conventional look of life, some violets and fleurs de lys being particularly well done; and in the stream itself are sailing several ducks, some pushing straight ahead, others nibbling the grass along the bank, and one, at least, diving to the bottom with tail and feet in the air.

Now if this realism and anecdote was good art in the fifteenth century, and if it commends itself now to our unsophisticated nineteenth century taste, why is it bad, why do the purists shrug their shoulders when we talk of repeating in spirit the designs approved by this old example? Partly this comes from a change of taste and manners - 'twas a tapestry-fashion and it passed away with tapestry itself; and partly 'tis the result of the mechanical art-teaching that has prevailed for the last fifty years or less, and that has had for its chief text the doctrine that we must avoid in design all direct reference to natural forms, or, if we use them, that we must conventionalize them out of all resemblance to their originals.

Good art never did this at any time. Art has always, when at its best, tried to give us as much nature as possible, and has only conventionalized so far as was necessary for the material framework that was to enclose the ornament. Botticelli, when he would decorate the dress of his Flora in the "Allegory of Spring," sets it all over with exquisitely-painted tufts of growing flowers which at a distance indeed look like embroidery, and remind us of Chaucer's description of the dress of the young squire:

"Short was his gowne with sleeves long and wide.

 

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Embroidered was he as it were a mede
All full of freshe flowers white and rede."

And even Saracens whose art seems purely geometrical are as far as possible from being scientifically or pedagogically formal and dry. They turn geometry to grace and beauty, and in the myriad involutions of their patterns appear to have discovered a new kingdom of nature which, while we contemplate it, seems almost more beautiful than flowers and gems. This is the very province of art, to make the whole world minister to its love of beauty, and in right hands art can find material for beauty in everything natural. Therefore we ought not to lay down a law that this, that, or the other design in wall-paper, in stuffs, in carpets, cannot be good, if it is what is called natural, that is if it consists of flowers, fruits or leaves that distinctly recall the objects of which it is composed. I think it capable of very easy demonstration that a decoration may be perfectly suitable and satisfactory in which the resemblance of the forms to nature is very close, the conventionalizing being carried only a little way.

So much for the wainscot. The middle portion of the wall being in the direct line of vision is, of course, the most important of the three. It is on this that our pictures, portraits, mirrors, sconces, are hung, and the choice of a paper to cover this, space is generally an extremely difficult matter for housekeepers. However, the decision may be sooner arrived at, if we are quite settled in our minds as to what use we intend making of this space. All depends upon whether we have things, be they few or many, that must be seen, and seen to advantage, or whether we have merely the ordinary, pretty or handsome things that happen to be in fashion. In the former case, it is the things that make the wall, and oblige us to subordinate all its coloring and ornamentation to them. In the latter case, we can presume that our pretty things, being themselves in the fashion, will go well enough with any fashionable paper we take a fancy to. And it may be that we shall wish to get off cheaply, and yet with good effect, too, and to that end shall find a rich paper, either dark with much gold, or gaily flowered, or with some entanglements of lines or masses of brilliant color, and so fill up the space between the dado and cornice with a background on which the varied objects that make up the decoration of a modern drawing-room shall find a place to their liking.

Also, we have to think of the situation of the room, and of the time of day in which it is most used. For, if the room have much sun in it during the day, we have to choose, either a coloring that will temper the brightness of the sun's light, or, one that will so chime with it as to be made more effective by it. The decision here depends on whether the husband or the wife is the one more concerned in the matter, for I believe it is commonly seen that men like a great deal of sunlight in the house, and are pleased with a decoration of gold or red, or colors in these keys, be they strong or pale, while ladies for the more part like somber tints or such at least as absorb rather than reflect the light. And, as the drawing-room is generally most used by the ladies of the family in the day time, they will have the natural right to be consulted as to the decoration.

If, however, the rooms to be papered are to be used much at night, colors that light up well, as the phrase is, must be employed. Many a room looks exceedingly pretty by day, or rich as a retreat from the too much brightness of the sun, and yet by night, when perhaps it is chiefly used, it cannot be made to look bright and gay, no matter how many lamps or candles we light up. This is owing solely to the colors employed on the walls, with which we always try to have the hangings correspond, so that all works together to the uncomfortable result. Lord Bacon, says, in his essay on "Masks and Triumphs" - "The colors that show best by candle-light are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green." he might have added others, and yellow among them, that is, gold or golden yellow, though it is not easy to hit upon the right shade. It should be of the most brilliant but soft dandelion-color, and unless used in small quantities is almost too brilliant for the day-time. But, at night, with flowers and with candles, which happily are come into fashion again, a yellow flock-paper in a large flowered or arabesque renaissance pattern has a very rich and exhilarating effect in a drawing-room.

It should be remembered that much of the effectiveness of wall-papers depends upon their being sparingly used. And, apart from all questions of utility, this is one of the main arguments in defense of the division of the wall which is now so much the fashion. The old style was, to cover the walls with one vast expanse of paper, from end to end, and from cornice to mop-board, and it would be hard to say which had the more disheartening effect upon the visitor, the sight of this desert when the paper was of a pale tint just off the white, or when it was of a dark ground with a sprawling design, or else with a very set pattern profusely relieved with gold. Nothing was commoner twenty or thirty years ago than to see such a room, and there are still plenty of them left, where these vast unadorned walls were unrelieved by any ornament, except a family-portrait or two, and the traditional vases on the mantle-shelf, always of Sevres or make-believe Sevres porcelain, painted with extremely artificial natural flowers, with an ormolu clock between them, and an ormolu candle-branch at either end. In addition, the carpet swore at the wall-paper, the stiffly-arranged curtains swore at the carpet, while a burst of profane jeers came from the chorus of sofas and chairs with their coverings in some irreconcilable color. But let not the modern reader exult too soon. In these desperate parlors often enough sat and talked people who were the delight of all who had the good fortune to know them - sensible, witty, hospitable, gay, - in whose society it would have been impossible for any but a coxcomb to have given a thought to the artistic barrenness of the room. Nay, has not the memory of these sterling souls almost made the rooms they lived in, beautiful in spite of their ugliness?

So far as getting the worth of one's money is concerned, this old way of papering rooms was far from being economical - that is, from the aesthetic point-of-view. There is so much of it that we do not see it; as the man said of the wood - "you could not see it, for the trees." A little of the paper would have been more effective. When the dado is dark, and the furniture covered with sober-hued stuffs - though 'tis a mistake to have all the pieces or even the greater number of them, covered with the same material - the central portion only of the wall should have a wall-paper of pronounced richness, and, as has been several times said, even this should be suited to the use that is to be made of the space - whether it is to be seen for itself, or made a background for the display of pictures and ornaments.

The frieze is by many at the present day considered an essential division of the wall, and should always be employed where the room is of a good height. I like to divide the frieze from the central portion by a picture-strip made strong enough to hold the smaller frames - water-colors, etchings, plaques of porcelain, &c., &c., a stronger and more solid looking strip being placed directly under the cornice for the suspension of the larger pictures. If arranged with judgment the perpendicular lines of the cords supporting these frames may be made effectively useful in correcting the horizontal divisions of the wall itself. And the number of the suspending cords may be diminished by employing for the smaller pictures and indeed for all but the very large ones - portraits and the like - a single cord instead of the usual to diverging ones.

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