46 
House & Garden 
THE DISPUTE OVER WALL PAPERS 
Today We Use Them as Decorations, but an Earlier Generation 
Considered Them Merely as Backgrounds 
W ALL papers may be regarded from two 
opposite points of view. They may be 
allowed a positive value of their own as 
decorations, or a merely negative value as a 
background, which should be as unobtrusive as 
possible, for furniture and pictures. 
The history of the subject shows that, while 
there has probably never been an absolute con¬ 
sensus of opinion on the subject, one or other 
of these views has usually been predominant. 
From the first use of wall papers, which seems 
to have been in the 16th Century, until well on 
towards the end of the 18th Century, they were 
treated as substitutes. Flock papers were made 
in imitation of velvets; painted papers mim¬ 
icked marble, the grain of wood or tiles; and 
they were only seen in the less important rooms 
of the house. 
There was, however, a notable exception to 
this rule. About the time of the Restoration 
papers began to be imported from China, where 
they were specially manufactured for the Euro¬ 
pean market, hand-painted papers of bold de¬ 
sign and brilliant coloring repre¬ 
senting birds and plant growths. 
They were sometimes called India 
papers because they were brought 
to England by the East India 
merchantmen, and they were in 
high favor for more than a hun¬ 
dred years, being largely used in 
rooms furnished with lacquer. 
About the middle of the 18th 
Century a certain John Baptist 
Jackson set up a factory near 
London where he printed from 
wood blocks papers in chiaro¬ 
scuro, an art which he had studied 
in Italy. He wrote a pamphlet 
to advertise his wares and to dis¬ 
credit the Chinese papers with 
their gay “glaring colors ., . . 
which delight the eye that has no 
true judgment belonging to it.” 
His own aim was to produce 
“colors softening into one an¬ 
other, with harmony and repose, 
and true imitations of nature.” 
His designs consisted of would- 
be realistic representations of 
birds and animals, and of copies 
of antique statuary or of the land¬ 
scapes “surrounded with a mosaic 
work, in imitation of frames, or 
with festoons and garlands of 
flowers, with great elegance and 
taste.” They met with little suc¬ 
cess, and the specimens given at 
the end of the pamphlet show 
them to have deserved none. 
It was not until near the end 
of the century that the Oriental 
papers met with serious competi¬ 
tion. Then came the rather pom¬ 
pous Directoire designs, with 
their elaborate borders, and, of 
greater interest, the landscapes and figure pa¬ 
pers which with their freedom and brightness 
are of extraordinary decorative value. The 
period during which these latter were in vogue 
may be regarded as the golden age of European 
wall paper design. There was no question, 
then, of wall papers being considered as merely 
a neutral background for more important 
objects. 
That, however, was the official Victorian at¬ 
titude, as voiced in 1850 by Richard Red- 
grove, the Academician. “Paper-hanging,” he 
said, “has to form the background to all the 
furniture, the objects of taste and vertu, the 
pictures, and whatever else rare and valuable 
is contained in the apartment; nay, more, to 
enhance and support the fair faces that congre¬ 
gate there, or to enable us to study in the hu¬ 
man face the intellect of the assembled guests.” 
Naturally, therefore, he deprecated the use of 
vivid colors and violent contrasts. A critic in 
the “Journal of Design” pointed out that, 
though this was one perfectly legitimate point 
of view, wall paper might also be regarded as 
a decoration in itself and “so treated as to call 
attention more strongly to its own ornamenta¬ 
tion.” However, the various patterns shown 
in that journal suggest that the less attention 
the average papers of the time called to them¬ 
selves the better. 
Twenty years later Charles Lock Eastlake, in 
his “Hints on Household Taste,” which for a 
good while held the field as the amateur deco¬ 
rator’s most popular vade-mecum, was still ad¬ 
vocating timidity, and pleading for small and 
simple patterns on light grounds. But William 
Morris and Walter Crane were already at work, 
preaching the gospel of good design and prac¬ 
tising what they preached. 
Morris’s influence was undeniably salutary, 
but he had a weakness which in the hands of 
followers of lesser talent became a vice. This 
was the tendency to overwork a good idea. 
One can have too much of even the best de¬ 
signs. Hence the reaction towards unpatterned 
papers or plain painted walls. 
That reaction is working itself 
out. Patterned wall paper is 
coming into fashion again. New 
patterns are being designed and 
old ones revived. Both the Chi¬ 
nese papers of the 18th Century 
and the landscapes of the early 
19th are being imitated. Old 
wood blocks are being rescued 
and brought back into use. 
There is no question, nowa¬ 
days, of the papers being given a 
merely negative function. A 
characteristic of the present time 
is its cult of the positive, of the 
bold and bright and amusing. 
Such papers as it will use must 
have some quality of their own. 
Nevertheless, however high 
their intrinsic quality, wall papers 
have to be considered in relation- 
to the objects in contact with 
them. It is a problem for which 
there are many solutions, but per¬ 
haps certain general rules may be 
laid down. For instance, an as¬ 
sertive wall paper should not in¬ 
habit the same room as furniture 
covered in an assertive fabric of 
a totally different nature. There 
must either be harmony or a 
pleasant, not belligerent, contrast. 
Patterned fabrics and plain walls, 
or vice versa, are safe and usual; 
but there is no reason why pat¬ 
terns should not be used, if used 
discriminately, in both places. 
As a rule, plain walls are the 
best backgrounds for pictures. If 
unobtrusiveness is aimed at, how¬ 
ever, a small all-over pattern in 
quiet shades is more effective 
than a single unbroken color. 
Chinese papers are so beautiful in design and coloring that it is curious 
so little of our modern work is inspired by them. They are both deco¬ 
rative in themselves and serve as an amicable background for furniture 
