22 
House & Garden 
Photograph by Johnston-Hewitt Studios 
The architecttiral axes of this dining-room are clearly marked. At the end of one is the fireplace with its 
over-mantel mirror. The other terminates in a console surmounted hy a Watteauesque panel that gives 
the room a just measure of color and life 
THE BEAUTY SPOT OF THE ROOM 
Over-Mantel Paintings and Their Place in the Modern Home 
A FIREPLACE is almost always the axis 
. of a room, the point on which the eye 
naturally focuses. Appreciating this fact, 
decorators have used their best resources to 
make it express at a glance the general 
character of the surroundings. When it is 
understandingly used, it strikes the keynote 
of the decorative scheme, and greatly aids 
in giving unity to the arrangement. On the 
contrary, if unskillfully planned, it becomes 
a discordant note which disrupts the har¬ 
mony that might otherwise be obtained. 
When a woman has a particularly attrac¬ 
tive feature, a nose that is perfect in its 
contour, a cheek that might tempt a painter’s 
brush, or a chin that might grace a Grecian 
statue, she takes a small piece of court 
plaster and puts it where it will direct atten¬ 
tion to that particular attraction. The orna¬ 
mentation over the fireplace of a room may 
be likened to such a beauty spot; with this 
difference, however, that it is something 
more than a pointer, being, if rightly used. 
PEYTON BOSWELL 
a vital part of the decoration itself. It is 
capable, even, of usurping the importance 
of the fireplace itself, so that one is con¬ 
scious of the over-mantel rather than the 
object which it decorates. When this is the 
case, the importance of the over-mantel be¬ 
comes correspondingly greater, and de¬ 
serves the very special attention of the 
person rationally planning a home. 
Over-mantels in the United States have 
gone the whole gamut of the development 
of interior decoration. The first over-man¬ 
tels were those of Virginia, and were 
brought bodily by the rich plantation owners 
from England. Their descendants and the 
descendants of the other colonists could 
not afford to import such elaborate objects 
of art and there grew up the Colonial style, 
which in over-mantel decoration, as well as 
furniture, was a potpourri of the English 
styles that followed the one after the other, 
a medley of Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepple- 
white and Adam ornamentation, with a mir¬ 
ror or a picture as the central piece. 
The Colonial style still persists, and it has 
its undeniable charm, even though it may be 
lacking in individuality. It is immeasurably 
better than the product of the period of 
over-ornamentation in interior decoration, 
from which the country, is only now gain¬ 
ing artistic relief. 
The tendency of the present day is 
toward simplicity of arrangement, and in¬ 
dividuality. This healthful development is 
one of the marked things in American dec¬ 
oration of the present day. It succeeds the 
era of extravagance, when American mil¬ 
lionaires lavished their money on interiors, 
which decorators were willing to make or¬ 
nate to the point of vulgarity because of the 
profit it gave. It must be said to the credit 
of the decorators of the present day that 
they are doing what they can to make their 
