SCREENS IN THE SCHEME OF DECORATION 
No Piece of Furniture Serves So Many Useful Purposes and Gives 
So Much Delight to the Eye 
KARL FREUND 
S PEAKING about screens we shall omit 
this time the fire screen, the light screen, 
the mosquito screen and the partitions 
called “screen” in architecture and on the 
stage, and just content ourselves with the 
screen called “Paravent” in French and al¬ 
luded to in these rhymes: 
Je ne suis ni arbre ni plante, 
Et porte feuilles en tout temps, 
On ne me voit que quand le froid augmente, 
Et je disparais an printemps. 
I resemble neither plants nor trees, 
But 1 bear leaves all through the year, 
You see me only when the frosts increase, 
And in the spring I disappear. 
It is quite clear to anyone that this operatic 
appearance and disappearance of the screen no 
longer exists. It has lost 
its temporary meaning and 
proudly remains in its po¬ 
sition through hot and 
cold as an important piece 
of furniture in the room. 
To combat the “courant 
d’ air” is rarely its object. 
The chief aim has become 
to hide: The pantry from 
the dining room or the 
diners from the pantry, 
the breakfast tray from the 
sleepers or the sleepers 
from the attendant. It 
hides the children, ser¬ 
vants, the piano, perambu¬ 
lator, phonograph, the 
sewing machine and an 
infinity of necessities 
which are destined to make 
us happy by all but their 
appearance. It is also 
called upon to cover an 
oversupply of unbalanced 
doors. 
The “Paravent” has be¬ 
come a 1 ‘Paralaideur”. The 
wind and cold weather 
screen of yore need not 
excuse its existence. It obviously protected 
against the draft sweeping through long corri¬ 
dors and under cracks of doors and through 
great halls with tall windows. It kept the 
chimney heat snugly around the hearth and 
while its lines remained stilted it warmed one’s 
heart by beauty of color and design whether 
covered with precious brocades or silks, needle¬ 
work or tapestries or made of tooled or painted 
leather lacquered in the Chinese style or on 
wood or canvas with pleasing and gallant 
subjects for decoration. 
What Screens Do 
The thing to be remembered about the 
screen as an object of decoration is its almost 
architectural quality. It breaks the line of the 
walls; it tempers the too uncompromising vista. 
It can be used to create a smaller intimate 
alcove within a larger space; it permits the 
making of an almost structural alteration in 
the shape and size of any room. The sheer 
size of the screen makes it imposing as no 
other detail of decoration can be. It brings 
the picture from the wall, and throws it boldly 
into the centre of the room; it lifts the color 
and pattern ■ of the carpet, and hangs it per¬ 
pendicularly, level with the eye. It creates a 
certain air of mysteriousness in an otherwise 
candid chamber; it conceals unknown things, 
it deepens the shadows in the corners of the 
room in which it stands. Its angled surface 
offers a peculiar variation of light and shade 
that is a decoration in itself. 
The Chinese were the first to invent the 
screen, as they were the first to invent almost 
everything else of value in the world. It is 
characteristic of the Chinese attitude to art and 
life that they should have lavished all their 
skill in the adornment of 
these shifting walls. They 
liked to bring art into the 
intimate details of their 
life—into the screen that 
sheltered them from the 
draught, into the porcelain 
that served their tables, 
into their fans and clothes, 
into everything with which 
they were daily in contact. 
The combination, easily 
conceivable in Europe, of 
a picture by a master-hand 
hanging on a hideous wall¬ 
paper invented by some 
obscure patternmaker de¬ 
void of any sense of color 
or design would be impos¬ 
sible among the Chinese. 
With them the picture and 
the wall-paper would be 
one and the same work of 
art—a screen. 
The screen of today is 
conscious of being a con¬ 
cealer and in handling this 
screen problem the deco¬ 
rator has one aim in mind: 
make the screen look nat- 
Hartlng 
When the shape oj the room is complex and unrestful, screens can be employed to give 
it the semblance of balanced harmony and to conceal unpleasant aspects, screens by 
Karl Freund 
