j July, 1915 
the matter out of the hands of the merely 
commercial decorator and have imposed 
their tastes and trained judgment upon 
contemporary styles, instead of coming in 
as slavish martyrs by having to meet the 
business notions of popular demand. By 
such association and co-operation of manu¬ 
facturers and artist, the artist studies the 
market and gains a knowledge of mate¬ 
rials, and the manufacturer learns some¬ 
thing about the technical side of art as 
applied in industries. 
In Europe the individualistic movement 
in decorative textiles and the utilitarian 
arts reflect the national characteristics, and 
in them one reads the artist as if it were 
his handwriting. Indeed, the designing and 
printing of fabrics is such a fine art and 
represents so much care that a piece of 
decorative linen or silk is always selected 
according to the artist, just as one would 
buy a painting or an engraving. 
We recognize the combinations of black 
and white with the Persian effects which 
An effective linen corner in irregular square spots 
of rose and black on a natural tan ground 
Poiret uses; we see the fine patterning of 
silks and of wonderful linen that come 
from Professor Hoffman, the great Aus¬ 
trian architect and designer of decora¬ 
tions. The products of his country are 
full of vitality, elegance of line and har¬ 
monies of color. His designs and others 
of his school are particularly admired by 
the prominent decorators of New York. 
And so we in America have inherited, 
or will inherit in the near future, the 
great benefits to be derived from the art 
associations of the old world. We are too 
closely allied by every tie with the coun¬ 
tries of Europe to consider our life as 
entirely separate and apart from theirs. 
On the contrary we are bound to them 
in every way. They come to our shores 
and become a part of our national, our 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
The bouquet design is an arrangement of blue, 
orange, yellow and green printed or untinted linen 
industrial, our artistic and our daily life. 
They do not come empty-handed. As we 
open our doors to them, so do they bring 
to us all the Old World arts, their painting, 
their music, their hand-wrought textiles, 
their Old World customs and all that 
makes up their inner and their outer life, 
their thought and their feeling. Out of 
this cosmopolitan inheritance of charac¬ 
ter it is but natural that the spirit of 
democracy should grow and that its in¬ 
terior decoration should be in harmony 
with this spirit. 
To country homes and city apartment 
alike these linens are particularly well 
adapted. Their artistic designs run more 
on conventional than naturalistic lines and 
their strong, harmonious colors are ad¬ 
mirably adapted to rooms with plain walls. 
Such marked individuality in furnishing 
fabrics becomes the dominant note in a 
100m and should be used with a nice dis¬ 
crimination for good effects. Solid wall 
paper is the ideal background for fabrics 
of sucb vitality in line and color, and both 
woodwork and furniture should be of 
simple lines also, then these fabrics 
as furniture coverings, draperies and 
cushions add a desirable note of life and 
contrast. 
These New World chintzes disclose the 
feeling of the modernist movement as it 
has developed in Europe and with which 
are now blended features that express the 
young art life in America unfolding in 
industries. As one woman decorator ex¬ 
pressed her decided admiration of the 
wavy black lines in the piece of linen 
printed with the cup-like vase against 
which rise the yellow and red flower, the 
designer told her that those lines were 
put into the pattern especially as an in¬ 
terpretation of American taste. They 
tended to soften the whole print, which 
4 i 
would otherwise have held only the vase 
in bold relief on the natural linen ground. 
It is a great thing to be able to sense 
the feeling of a people so as to use suc¬ 
cessfully a soft color with a simple, strong 
design. In the square spot there is only 
a lovely, soft rose combined with black 
in a not too rigid square, printed on linen 
of the natural color. The effect is har¬ 
monious and delicate, with a pervading 
sense of dignity. 
In some of these modernist prints one 
can trace with much interest the influence 
of the art that has come from some far 
land and entered into the country life of 
its adoption until one is almost uncon¬ 
scious of its foreign ancestry. So in the 
piece that seems printed over with old- 
fashioned china plates that have the cor¬ 
ners cut off there is a suggestion of Sevres 
with a decided effect of the Japanese. 
The figures are printed in a blue, red and 
green decoration on a pale tan linen. 
Bird and animal figures disport in many 
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There is a suggestion of old French china in this 
fabric. The figures are blue, red and green 
favorite patterns that come from the dif¬ 
ferent Werkstaetten abroad. In this 
American workshop was seen a linen 
printed with a rabbit gaylv chasing a 
young girl in a red dress, and in another 
piece a gorgeous parrot flaunts itself in 
plumage of green, yellow, red and blue. 
The bird is printed in a large oval of the 
plain fabric, and between the ovals the 
background is striped, avoiding too large 
splotches of plain space. 
A very effective design shows generous 
bunches of chestnuts hanging against yel¬ 
low and green chestnut leaves, the whole 
backed by black and white stripes, which 
give to the print almost a solid effect, as 
in verdure tapestry. This is a very rich 
and interesting print. 
