DECORATIVE ART IN AMERICA. 



247 



named. The most superb of them in texture 

 is called " Gazonga," meaning five aces, by 

 which the initiated understand that nothing 

 can be better. It unites three tints in differ- 

 ent proportions, and presents a broken sur- 

 face formed by the filaments of the filling pass- 

 ing irregularly through the warp. Through 

 the interstices the under threads are seen. 

 This produces a tone formed by the nnion of 

 the three colors in the eye, changing and melt- 

 ing from tint to tint as each color is seen in 

 greater or less proportion. The tapestry fabric 

 is woven to meet the needs of the tapestry 

 stitch. Its peculiarity consists in the dispropor- 

 tion of the threads, the filling being a bunch 

 of soft filaments and the warp a single thread. 

 The "Beirut," u Rajah," and " Momie," and 

 the thin silks resembling the Oriental fabrics, 

 have each a special end in view. The Beirut 

 and Momie silks are each to be remarked for 

 their blending of tints produced by different 

 weaving and for their splendid sheen. The 

 Spanish brocade is a somewhat unfortunate 

 name for a textile intended for wall-hangings. 

 This is in pure silk, and silk and cotton. A 

 certain dullness is given to the ground, while 

 the design is brought out in a lustrous brocade. 

 The most striking and original of these new 

 silks is called " Shadow silk," the name being 

 chosen with reference to the use of the design. 

 This can not better be expressed than as a 

 shadow in color, reproducing that shimmering 

 effect of foliage in motion. The texture itself 

 has a twill, and is of great beauty. 



The use of design in stuffs produeed here is 

 one of the most significant evidences of our 

 progress in decoration. The motives are new, 

 and are used with new meaning. In this re- 

 spect we are more akin to the Japanese than 

 to any other nation. This does not arise out 

 of any imitative intent, but proceeds legiti- 

 mately from those conditions that give us our 

 national idiosyncrasies. Thus, in going directly 

 to Nature for new motives, we perceive a free- 

 dom in drawing for decorative purposes that 

 finds no parallel in Europe, but we do find one 

 in Japanese art. This, in modern language, 

 is a tendency to realism, and true and healthily 

 balanced as we find it in the hands of men of 

 keen artistic sense, to whom the matter of 

 decoration has chiefly fallen, it is no less deco- 

 rative, even though it violates the canons of 

 decoration that obtain in Europe. 



Wail-Paper. In the Warren, Fuller & Co. 

 competition for wall-paper designs, the three 

 prizes were taken by Mrs. T. M. Wheeler, 

 Miss Ida L. Clark, and Miss Dora Wheeler, 

 three women educated in the fine arts, over 

 professional designers of this country and Eu- 

 rope. Mrs. Wheeler's design illustrates the 

 character of their work in respect to motives, 

 color, and manner of using them. The honey- 

 comb, bee hive, and clover unite in the design. 

 The clover is drawn with all the waywardness 

 of the natural growth ; the bees appear in va- 

 rious perspectives. These, in union with the 



silver honey-comb of the ground, and the flat 

 disks taken from the straw hives, unite the 

 conventional and real in a manner new and 

 attractive. A wall-paper by Louis 0. Tiffany 

 may also be mentioned. The design is an ar- 

 rangement of the clematis, with cobwebs unit- 

 ing the various masses of foliage. There is in 

 these a sense of perspective, leaf behind leaf, 

 rendered by tint as well as by line. 



Curtains. The well-known landscape curtain 

 of the Madison Square Theatre, by the Associ- 

 ated Artists, is an instance of picturesque deco- 

 ration. A landscape-curtain by La Farge car- 

 ries decorative realism still further. Here we 

 have the foreground carefully brought out in 

 embroidery. Through the middle distance runs 

 a stream, rendered by means of appliqu6 and 

 embroidery. In the background are distant 

 cloud-effects, and long reaches of perspective, 

 all accomplished without interfering with the 

 value of the decoration. Such work as this is 

 distinctly peculiar to this country. The de- 

 signs in the stuffs of the Associated Artists 

 are remarkable examples of such effects. A 

 nasturtium-bed, or a mass of climbing vines, 

 serves as the motive for a design. It is the 

 luxuriance of the mass of which we have a 

 sense. This is rendered now with distinct 

 sense of form and emphasis of color, and now 

 with vagueness, fainter tints, and a feeling of 

 light breaking through, which discovers out- 

 lines more or less distinct. These qualities 

 blend in a large, impressive design, distributed 

 and connected with great ingenuity over the 

 stuff. The designs on many of the thin silks 

 are curious examples of what Nature will fur- 

 nish in every detail if proper selection is only 

 used. Such are sprigs of wintergreen leaves 

 and berries, copied and used without adap- 

 tation. 



Color. The use of color is equally marked. 

 Less conventional than that of England, less 

 pronounced than that of France, it is distin- 

 guished by more subtilty than either. In the 

 language of Science, it illustrates the value of 

 the small interval, and its object is a result- 

 ant, not a positive tint. We have seen this 

 illustrated in the Villard house, in which the 

 union of tints in the decoration fills the eye. 

 In the stuffs this intent is more manifest. We 

 find the best opportunity for study of the value 

 of the small interval of color in the embroid- 

 eries of the Associated Artists ; and as an in- 

 stance of the particular significance of this fact, 

 it may be urged that an illustrative piece was 

 bought and taken to England as a characteristic 

 example of American decoration. In this work 

 the decoration consisted of a mass of flowers in 

 a vase, on a pale-yellow ground. The decora- 

 tive color begins in the deep red and greens of 

 the foliage, yellows mingle with the reds, and 

 reds with the green, in large proportion of the 

 one and less proportion of the other, as the 

 decoration rises, until the color is lost in pale- 

 yellow roses and foliage, into the ground-tint. 

 Such use of color is not universal, but this 



