HOUSES AND GARDENS 



the whole effect somewhat gloomy, and so it is desirable that the upper portion 

 should be in a lighter key, and thus the old formula of dark oak panelling, 

 with white plaster work above, forms a very reasonable solution of the 

 problem. In the use of middle tones for the background portion of the 

 wall it is important that they should keep their place and not compete with 

 the furniture and ornaments. The use of patterns in this connection is 

 chiefly valuable as a means of improving and enriching the quality of tone in 

 the background. 



I have insisted at some length on this subject of background because it is 

 the point most readily lost sight of in modern work. The practice of 

 exhibiting specimen rooms has led to a conception of an interior as something 

 to be looked at and admired for its own sake an arrangement of certain 

 colours and patterns which is pleasing to the eye, whereas the final test of a 

 successful room is that people look well in it. In the modern room the 

 individual withers and becomes but an incident, and often a discordant 

 incident, in a scheme which is complete and self-sufficing. The rooms of the 

 past, the Elizabethan hall for instance, with its wall spaces of dark oak, 

 appear incomplete without their inhabitants, and the individual seems to gain 

 an importance and dignity in a setting so rich and yet so subordinated. Or 

 again, in those French salons, which Orchardson paints, with their wall spaces 

 of white, an elegant company, is still more elegant, though here the white 

 background in emphasising outlines demands a gracefulness of form and 

 gesture which, with the more homely and less exacting dark background, is 

 less essential. 



Having decided to what extent structures shall form the decoration of the 

 walls, and in considering the question of superficial decoration, it will be 

 desirable to turn to Nature and think of the pleasantest natural surroundings 

 one can conceive. Thus we may wish to surround ourselves with the green 

 leafage of trees, where fruit gleams golden and blossoms white, where birds 

 cling and flutter in the branches, from between which one catches glimpses 

 of the blue sky. Here, where the greater part of the wall-surface is covered 

 with leafage, the pattern becomes naturally a better background than if 

 flowers are the motif, for, in conventionalising these, it may become necessary 

 to tone down the brightness of their colouring if the pattern is used on the 

 lower part of the walls, and they are, therefore, perhaps better adapted for 

 the decoration of friezes. 



But a certain reasonableness should govern the decorative scheme of the 

 wall ; and just as one should not be obliged to walk on flying birds and 

 trees laid out flat on a carpet, so flowers in the frieze should not bloom over 

 tree tops. 



