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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1905 



Helps to Home Building 



The Arts and the House 



VASE of porcelain, a piece of Japanese 

 bronze, a rare silk rug, a cherished writing 

 table that belonged to some remote ancestor, 

 may at first sight seem slight material on 

 which to build up a household interior; yet, 

 as a matter of fact, each one of these things 

 could very well be taken as the starting point on which very 

 beautiful rooms may be arranged. Comfort is, no doubt, the 

 first quality to be considered in a room; but it must also be 

 beautiful, or it will fall far short of being all that it might 

 be and all that it ought to be. 



As everything within a room helps in the finality of effect, 

 it is apparent that the ornaments and decorative objects have 

 a part to perform that is quite as real, and sometimes quite 

 as important, as the larger articles of furniture without which 

 every room would be unusable. In a popular sense, no 

 doubt, the word ornament implies something that is not use- 

 ful, something we can get along without, something that is 

 not needed, something that is purely unnecessary. In a literal 

 sense, and from the standpoint of the home maker, nothing 

 inside the house is without use, nothing of so slight a value 

 that its presence is simply tolerated with an affected disre- 

 gard of its presence. 



Ornaments, however, have their use, and a very real use, 

 in the house, and that is to add to the beauty of the interior. 

 It is an unfortunate chance that gives to most new house- 

 holders a very miscellaneous collection of ornaments ac- 

 quired as wedding gifts. Well meant as many of these offer- 

 ings are, they are chosen, in most cases, without the slightest 

 regard to their future location or utilization. Terrible as it 

 is to think of many of these objects, it is much more terrible 

 to have them. But the outlook is by no means so dark as it 

 once was. The standards of good taste have risen markedly 

 in America in the last twenty-five years, and the movement 

 is still upward. The opportunities to purchase ugly orna- 

 ments — as if an ornament could, by its very nature, be ugly! 

 — are no longer so numerous as formerly. Better things 

 are made and more of them. The individual maker, who is 

 often an artist in a quite true sense, has entered the field of 

 commerce, and many beautiful and artistic ornamental ob- 

 jects can now be purchased almost everywhere. 



It is to be hoped that gaudiness has had its day, although, 

 without a widespread artistic culture that is true culture, it 

 would be rash to prophesy as to what may happen in the 

 world of art. Just now we are passing through an epoch of 

 novelty, in which the cry for something new is very loud and 

 penetrating. It is a painful period, for it introduces, as a 

 measure of art, a standard which is not only not artistic, but 

 which has nothing to do with art — the standard of newness. 

 It is a quite natural consequence that many strange, weird, 

 fearful things are manufactured and sold under the disguise 

 of art, simply because nothing like them was ever seen before. 

 It is a sad commentary on our art culture that several suc- 

 cessful industries have grown up around such a foolish notion. 

 If the young bride starts in with a more artistic group of 

 gifts than her mother began with, it is chiefly more due to the 

 fact that there are better things to buy than because of a 

 wider artistic culture among her acquaintanceship. But even 

 this is something to be thankful for, and were it not that 

 these offerings are selected by many persons, and entirely 

 without regard to their final disposition, a very good be- 

 ginning might be made in household ornamentation. 



From the householder's point of view ornaments may be 

 grouped into two classes: those which are given and those 

 which are acquired. With the former he has nothing to 

 do; he is the helpless victim who must take what he gets and 

 make the best use he can of it. The difficulties of the problem 

 are not lessened by the fact that every donor, even of the 

 most impossible gifts, expects his offering to be valued and 

 appreciated, and, if not actually given the place of honor in 

 the home, at least displayed in a conspicuous place, where it 

 can be seen by all. The acquired ornaments belong to quite 

 a different class, and constitute objects purchased by the 

 householder for his own particular delight and joy, and be- 

 cause they fit into some definite scheme of interior decora- 

 tion; are, in short, necessary to the artistic effect of certain 

 rooms. 



And they are more than that, for they are manifestations 

 of personal taste, and show, in a thoroughly unmistakable 

 way, how far one has progressed in personal art culture. Per- 

 haps this aspect of ornaments is seldom thought of, and per- 

 haps it is of no special value; for the whole home is a work 

 of art — or it should be — and the home that contains ugly 

 furniture and unsatisfactory curtains will not be redeemed by 

 a beautiful vase or an exquisitely turned candlestick, admir- 

 able as each may be. 



The lesser arts are entering the home more and more each 

 day. The personal note of the individual craftsman — the 

 genuine art worker — is now given to many objects which, not 

 long since, could only be obtained in factory-made form or 

 not at all. But only a beginning has been made. The de- 

 partment store is still with us, and vulgar art flourishes amaz- 

 ingly within it. The prices of individual or exclusive de- 

 signs, as they are sometimes called, is high, for the labor 

 expended in their production is costly and the markets are 

 somewhat restricted. One may rightly hesitate at paying 

 four dollars for a single candlestick, but the man or woman 

 who debates whether the candlestick shall cost twenty-five 

 cents or four dollars is hopelessly lost. 



Glass, pottery and metal, to name the materials of which 

 ornamental objects are chiefly made, are much more used in 

 the house than formerly. And not only are they more used, 

 but they are used in a better way, with more intelligence and 

 in more artistic forms. It is a good sign of the broadening 

 influence of art that this is so. And it is a good sign that 

 many people now appreciate and treasure such objects that, 

 not long since, scarcely knew them by name. 



With this increased use comes greater responsibility. It 

 is not sufficient simply to have objects; one must know how 

 to use them and get the best from them. The arrangement 

 of ornamental objects is quite as important as their posses- 

 sion, perhaps more so; for the most beautiful object loses 

 much of its value if it is improperly disposed, or so placed 

 that its fullest value is not given to the room in which it 

 stands. 



Over-crowding with ornaments is an atrocity that should 

 be avoided at all costs. Too many ornaments is distinctly 

 worse than none at all. No ornaments show want of 

 taste, a failure to realize to the utmost the possibility of room 

 decoration, and an ignorance of the refinements of life. Too 

 many ornaments show lack of proportion and amount to a 

 vulgar overloading of the rooms, which is even more dis- 

 heartening than none at all. Of few things is it truer than 

 that too much of a good thing may be bad. 



