30 
House & Garden 
MODERNIST DECORATION IN 
What Some of It Is Like and What Elements of It American 
Homes Can Adapt for Everyday Living 
I T is the easiest thing in 
the world to poke fun 
at the modernist movement 
in decoration. You can 
say that the colors are like 
the nightmares of a man 
in delirium tremens and 
the contours like the fig¬ 
ures in a Goldberg car¬ 
toon. Or, in a more sober 
mood, you can claim that 
interiors done in the mod¬ 
ernist style would be diffi¬ 
cult to live with. Or you 
can say that they do not 
fit our type of life here in 
America. 
Each of these criticisms 
contains an element of 
truth. But first we have 
to understand what the 
modernist decorators of 
Paris are trying to do. 
This will necessitate a 
quick visit to such shops 
as Martine, M a m and 
J ourdain. There are 
others, but we are choos¬ 
ing only the least extreme. 
Entering Martine, 
which is Paul Poiret’s es¬ 
say' in decoration on the 
Faubourg Rue St. Honore, you step 
from the ordinary busy street to an 
atmosphere that is a combination of 
Morocco, Negroid African and East¬ 
ern Europe. Poiret is quite frank in 
giving credit to Morocco, for much 
of his inspiration. A bank of pil¬ 
lows and cushions in all possible 
hues and shapes takes the place of 
an ordinary furniture group. Its 
colors intrigue the eye, they blend 
and astonish. They are reminiscent 
of the Thousand and One Nights. 
One wonders how far removed is 
such a downy bank from the atro¬ 
cious Turkish corners of a previous 
generation! In explaining his pas¬ 
sion for cushions and stools, Poiret 
gives the cost of a chair as the ex¬ 
cuse; chairs are expensive to make, 
cushions are relatively cheap. Be¬ 
sides, cushions and stools afford 
spots of color that are necessary to 
There is a flavor of early 
The colors are gay, and. 
■Victorianism in the painted tin corner stands for flowers, 
the stand made to contain four banks of potted plants. 
Courtesy of Martine 
working out his schemes. 
There are countless 
other things to see in Mar¬ 
tine—brilliant colored 
silks and linens, fascinat¬ 
ing folding seats, painted 
corner stands for flowers 
and a vast array of un¬ 
usual little boxes and 
knick-knacks that we now 
class under the head of 
bibelots. There are some 
interesting screens,too; one 
is illustrated here—a lat¬ 
tice of green up which 
clamber morning glories; a 
clipped shrub stands in 
the background. It is 
quite natural and honest 
and direct. You can vis¬ 
ualize that screen in a 
great many kinds of 
rooms. 
But having seen the 
gold bathroom and the 
lace beds and the banks 
of pillows and the floor 
lights made of crystal to 
simulate a fountain, you 
come back naturally to the 
bibelots. In these the 
Parisian excels; they are 
fascinating in their colors and de¬ 
signs and workmanship. The other 
expressions of modernism will be 
forgotten, these remain. 
Then going down the Faubourg 
Rue St. Honore to the Boulevard de 
la Madelaine you come eventually 
to Jourdain. Here is quite a dif¬ 
ferent atmosphere. Here you see the 
more usual sets of furniture devel¬ 
oped with a strange mathematical 
precision. They are studies in 
geometry—in the use of straight 
lines and the elimination of the 
curves that once characterized 
French furniture. Visualize gloried 
Mission furniture beautifully made 
and executed in silvery pear wood 
and ebony. Here is an oval dining 
table with a pear wood top around 
which runs a wide band of ebony. 
The chairs and sideboard are in the 
same style. The precision of the 
A new linen is boldly designed in A modernist Martine silk shows a 
cerise, yellow, black and. blue on a black ground, green tree limbs and 
natural ground brilliant yellow lizards 
Against a background of vivid silk, this black and gold chair 
stands out in excellent relief. The cushions are in yellow taffeta 
on one side and black velvet on the other. Chambord, Inc., 
decorators 
