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CHAPTER XIII
PERIOD ROOMS
We use the term "period rooms" with full knowledge of the difficulties
involved, in defining Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Directoire,
Jacobean, Empire, Georgian, Victorian and Colonial decorations. Each
period certainly has its distinctive earmarks in line and typical
decoration, but you must realise that a period gradually evolves, at
first exhibiting characteristics of its ancestors, then as it matures,
showing a definite new type, and, later, when the elation of success
has worn off, yielding to various foreign influences. By way of
example, note the Chinese decoration on some of the painted furniture
of the Louis XVI type, the Dutch influence on Chippendale in line, and
the Egyptian on Empire.
One fascinating way of becoming familiar with history, is to delve
into the origin and development of periods in furniture. The story of
Napoleon is recorded in the unpretentious Directoire, the ornate
Empire of Fontainebleau, while the conversion of round columns into
obelisk-like pilasters surmounted by heads, the bronze and gilded-wood
ornaments in the form of the Sphynx, are frank souvenirs of Egypt.
Every period, whether ascribed to England, France, Italy or Holland,
has found expression in all adjacent countries. An Italian Louis XVI
chair, mirror or applique is frequently sold in Paris or London as
French and Empire furniture was "made in Germany." Periods have no
restricted nationality; but nationality often declares itself in
periods. That is to say, lines may be copied; but workmanship is
another thing. Apropos of this take the French Empire furniture,
massive as much of it is, built squarely and solidly to the floor, but
showing most extraordinary grace on account of the amazing delicacy of
intricate designs, done by the greatest French sculptors of the time
and worked out in metal by the trained hands of men who had a special
genius for this art. At no other time, nor in any other country, has
an equal degree of perfection in the fine chiselling of metals so much
as approached the standard attained during the Louis
and the Empire periods. If in your wandering, you happen upon a genuine
bit of this work in silver or ormoulu, buy it. The writer once found in a New
Jersey antique shop, a rare Empire bronze vase, urn-shaped, a specimen
of the very finest kind of this metal engraving. The price asked for
it (in ignorance, of course) was $2.50! The piece would have brought
$40 in Paris. But the quest of the antique is another story.
When one realises the eternal borrowing of one country from another,
the ever-recurring renaissance of past periods and the legitimate and
illegitimate mixing of styles, it is no wonder that the amateur feels
nervously uncertain, or frankly ignorant. Many a professional
decorator hesitates to give a final judgment.
To take one case in point, we glibly speak of "Colonial" furniture,
that term which covers such a multitude of sins, and inspiring
virtues, too! We have the Colonial which closely resembles the Empire,
and we have what is sometimes styled the Chippendale Colonial,
following the Chippendale of England. Our Colonial cabinet-makers
used as models, beautiful pieces imported from England, Holland and
France by the wealthier members of our communities. Also a Chinese and
Japanese influence crept in, on account of the lacquer and carved teak
wood, brought home by our seafaring ancestors. It is quite possible
that the carved teak wood stimulated the clever maker of some of the
most beautiful Victorian furniture made in America, which is gradually
finding its way into the hands of collectors. Some of these
cabinet-makers glued together and put under heavy pressure seven to
nine layers of rosewood with the grain running at every angle, so as
to produce strength. When the layers had been crushed into a solid
block, they carved their open designs, using one continuous piece of
wood for the ornamental rim of even large sofas. The best of the
Victorian period is attractive, but how can we express our opinion of
those American monstrosities of the sixties or seventies, beds in
rosewood and walnut, the head-boards covering the side of a room,
bureaus proportionately huge, following out the idea that a piece of
furniture to be beautiful must be very large and very expensive! It
is to be hoped that the lovely rosewood and walnut wasted at that time
are to-day being rescued by wary cabinet-makers.
The art of furniture making, like every other art, came into being to
serve a clearly defined purpose. This must not be forgotten. A chair
and a sofa are to sit on; a mirror, to reflect. Remember this last
fact when hanging one. It is important that your mirror reflect one of
the most attractive parts of your room, and thus contribute its quota
to your scheme of decoration. It is interesting to note that chairs
were made with solid wooden seats when men wore armour, velvet
cushions followed more fragile raiment, and tapestries while always
mural decorations were first used in place of doors and partitions, in
feudal castles, before there were interior doors and partitions. Any
piece of furniture is artistically bad when it does not satisfactorily
serve its purpose. The equally fundamental law that everything useful
should at the same time be beautiful cannot be repeated too often.
Period rooms which slavishly repeat, in every piece of furniture and
ornament, only one type, have but a museum interest. If your rooms are
to serve as a home, give them a winning, human quality, keep before
your mind's eye, not royal palaces which have become museums, but
homes, built and furnished by men and women whose traditions and
associations gave them standards of beauty, so that they bought the
choicest furniture both at home and abroad. In such a home, whether it
be an intimate palace in Europe, a Colonial mansion in New England, or
a Victorian interior of the best type, an extraneous period is often
represented by some objet d'art as a delightful, because harmonious
note of contrast.
For example, in a Louis XVI salon, where the colour scheme is
harmonious, one gradually realises that one of the dominant ornaments
in the room is a rare old Chinese vase, brought back from the Orient
by one of the family and given a place of honour on account of its
uniqueness.
Every one understands and feels deeply the difference between the
museum palace or the period rooms of the commonplace decorator, and
such a marvellous, living, breathing, palatial home as that "Italian
palace" in Boston, Massachusetts, created, not inherited, by Mrs. John
L. Gardner. Here we have a splendid example to illustrate the point we
are trying to make; namely, regardless of its dimensions, make your
home home-like and like you, its owner. Never allow any one,
professional or amateur, to persuade you to put anything in it which
you do not like yourself; but if an expert advises against a thing,
give careful consideration to the advice before rejecting it. Mrs.
Gardner's house is unique among the great houses of America as having
that quality of the intimate palaces abroad,—a subtle mellowness
which in the old world took time and generations of cultivated lovers
of the rare and beautiful, to create. Adequate means, innate art
appreciation, experience and the knowledge which comes from keeping in
touch with experts, account for the intrinsic value of Mrs. Gardner's
collection; but the subtle quality of harmony and vitality is her own
personal touch. The colour scheme is so wisely chosen that it actually
does unite all periods and countries. One is surprised to note how
perfectly at home even the modern paintings appear in this version of
an old Italian palace.
Be sure that you aim at the same combination of beauty, usefulness,
and harmony between colour scheme and objets d'art. It is in colour
scheme that we feel the personality of our host or hostess, therefore
give attention to this point. Always have a colour scheme sympathetic
to you. Make your rooms take on the air of being your abode. It is
really very simple. What has been done with vast wealth can be just as
easily done by the man of one room and a bath. Know what you want, and
buy the best you can afford; by best, meaning useful things,
indisputably beautiful in line and colour. Use your Colonial
furniture; but if you find a wonderful Empire desk, with beautiful
brass mounts and like it, buy it. They are of the same period in point
of date, as it happens, and your Louis XVI bronze candlesticks will
add a touch of grace. The writer recalls a simple room which was
really a milestone in the development of taste, for it was so
completely harmonious in colouring, arrangement of furniture, and
placing of ornaments. Built for a painter's studio, with top light, it
was used, at the time of which we speak, for music, as a Steinway
grand indicated. The room was large, the floors painted black and
covered with faded Oriental rugs; woodwork and walls were dark-green,
as were the long, low, open bookcases, above which a large foliage
tapestry was hung. On the other walls were modern paintings with
antique frames of dulled gold, while a Louis XVI inlaid desk stood
across one corner, and there was an old Italian oval table of black
wood, with great, gold birds, as pedestal and legs, at which we dined
simply, using fine old silver, and foreign pottery. This room was
responsible for starting more than one person on the pursuit of the
antique, for pervading it was a magic atmosphere, that wizard touch
which comes of knowing, loving and demanding beautiful things, and
then treating them very humanly. Use your lovely vases for your
flowers. Hang your modern painting; but let its link with the faded
tapestry be the dull, old frame. To be explicit, use lustreless frames
and faded colours with old furniture and tapestry. Your grandmother
wears mauves and greys—not bright red.
If your taste is for modern painted furniture and vivid Bakst colours
in cushions and hangings, take your lovely old tapestry away. Speaking
of tapestries, do not imagine that they can never be used in small
rooms and narrow halls. Plate XIV shows an illustration of a hall in
an old-fashioned country house, that was so narrow that it aroused
despair. We call attention to the fact that it gains greatly in width
from the perspective shown in the tapestry, one of the rare, old,
painted kind, which depicts distance, wide vistas and a scene flooded
with light. (An architectural picture can often be used with equally
good results.) To increase size of this hall, the woodwork, walls and
carpets were kept the same shade of pale-grey. The landscape paper in
our Colonial houses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
often large in design, pushed back the walls to the same amazing
degree.
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