Land & Water 
March 14, 191 8 
House and Home : By Charles Marriott 
IT woulJ be an amusing and a not uiiprotitablc exercise 
to try to recreate the liouscs of different ages from 
. .mtemi-iorarv pictures. Not necessarily from pictures 
ui l)ou<es, or parts of houses, but from any sort of 
pictures, on the general principle of suitability in 
form and character to a particular sort of domestic interior. 
The earlier pictures would not afford much evidence because 
they were mostly painted for churches ; or, if not for churches, 
for'pfdaces; but from the seventeenth century onwards 
there would be plenty to help the imagination. Probably, 
too, it would be found that in the good pictures, the relation- 
ship to the house would be rather carefully considered. It 
was not for some time after the advent of the easel or framed 
picture, as distinct from the wall-painting, that artists lost 
sight of the close connection between painting and archi- 
tecture, and when and in proportion as they did lose sight 
of it, both arts undoubtedly suffered. 
To come to close quarters with the subject, there could be 
no more damaging criticism of the Royal Academy than the 
comparative lack in its exhibitions of any recognised connec- 
tion between pictures and household economy. Most of the 
pictures are obviouslj^ 
painted for the 
Academy, and among 
the rest there are 
very few that seem to 
anticipate any dis- 
position more con- 
sidered than that of 
the gamekeeper's lar- 
der. But honour where 
honour is due; and it 
was at the Academy 
that one of the earliest 
modern attempts to 
indicate the place of 
pictures in the house 
was made. Visitors to 
the summer exhibition 
of 191 1 were startled 
to see two small paint- 
ings — one of a ring of 
dancing girls, and the 
other of a village green 
at dusk — entirely dif- 
ferent in character 
from the pictures about 
them. They had the 
disconcerting effect 
of simple remeu^ks in 
the middle of elaborate 
and confused conversation about the servants or the neigh- 
bours. Instead of aiming at abolishing a section of wall 
by creating the optical illusion of trees and things, they 
really seemed to welcome the wall as a partner in their 
contribution to the refreshment of life. As if to mark the 
difference, each was called "living-room picture," without 
any other title ; and se far as I can make out, nobody who 
saw them has ever forgotten them. They were painted 
by an artist, fairly well known, whose work until then had 
been in the nature of additions to the expensive muddle 
that used to be called art in the home. Having painted 
them, he died, as if his message had been delivered. It 
would seem that, nearing his end, with the sudden illu- 
mination that approaching death often brings, he had 
.liscovered that pictures are meant to be lived with, to be 
part of the organi.sed beauty of the house ; and hastened 
to paint accordhigly. 
Not necessarily as a result of this pioneer effort, and seldom 
under the same title, from that time onwtu-d the living-room 
picture in fact has become quite common in our exhibitions. 
At anv of the more modern shows, .such as those of the New 
i:nglish Art Club or the London Group, there will be a reason- 
able number of pictures that look as if they were designed 
ior a definite place on the wall of a room not only occupied, 
Init used by intelligent people of the present day^ Observing 
tlie distinction between the wall-painting and ,the easel or 
named picture that is made necessary by the small interiors 
md shifting conditions of modern life, they do, nevertheless, 
lake tht; wall into their confidence. They assume that their 
mnction is to decorate the wall, and not "apparently to make 
.1 hole in it ; that pictures are part of the house. 
It is when you examine tln^ rli,ir;M ri>i-;«t;r^ ,,f f]ie Hving- 
The Sports Coat : By Walter Bayes 
room piciuu; that the matter becomes really interesting; 
and for that purpose we may tvirn to the pictures of i\Ir. 
Walter Bayes, on exhibition at the Leicester Galleries;' 
one of which is reproduced here. Obviously, subject has 
nothing to do with it, for Mr. Bayes has painted several 
subjects of widelv different character. It is a matter of 
treatment; and if "you study the treatment you will see that 
it is, so to speak, half-wav between the freedom of nature 
and the formality that would be adopted if the subject were 
to be carried out in stained glass or coloured wool, or any 
other obvious "material." So far as the attitude to nature 
is concerned, we might say that instead of paint being used 
in the service of nature, nature is used in the service of paint. 
There is no arbitrary alteration of the shapes and colours of 
nature, but thev are, so to speak, domesticated in paint, 
with such modifications as are suggested if not compelled by 
its characteristic employment. 
What it amounts to, briefly, is the recognition of paint ; 
and the moment paint is acknowledged, you are on the way 
to the rehabilitation of the house and of all the materials 
that enter into its composition. The importance of this can 
hardly be over-estimat- 
ed, for the very real 
evil that young rebels 
of the 'nineties de- 
nounced as " stuffy 
domesticity" was not 
a little due to the 
degradation of the 
house. Instead of 
being regarded as a 
living organism, active 
in every function, the 
house had declined to 
a mere " section of in- 
finite space," to quote 
Carlyle, which must 
be heavily upholstered 
before it could serve 
the purposes of the 
home. The transfor- 
mation of the house to 
the home, in fact, in- 
volved the fraudulent 
concealment of the 
house. 
There is no height 
that art cannot reach 
through and by the 
characteristic use of 
paint, and there is 
no dignity or refinement of domesticity that needs the 
neglect or concealment of the house. I do not wish to be 
transcendental, but the saying about the foxes having holes, 
and the birds of the air nests, is too good an illustration to 
be ignored. The right alternatives are either to renounce 
domesticity and have nowhere to lay one's head, or to 
accept the house frankly and use it worthily as a means to 
that condition. To pursue the same train of thought, the 
body may be scorned ih favour of the soul ; but if the body 
be accepted at aH, its needs are better considered frankly 
than huddled away out of siglit to be indulged in a stealthy 
and disorderly manner. Neither art nor domesticity caii 
really flourish in a house of which they seem to be ashamed. 
All this is implied in the existence and the name of living- 
room pictures ; hence their importance. They mean that 
their place and purpose have been considered ; that the 
house itself, and not merely the taste of its occupants, is 
regarded as worthy of them. The result in time should be 
a levelling up of the house in all its details of structure and 
function, so that, by accepting the house as part of the 
scheme of art, good painting may encourage good architec- 
ture. This cannot be if the picture seems to disclaim any 
interest in the house, 'as so many pictures do. A picture that 
you have to "get up to look at" is not reallv a part of the 
house, or part of the life of the house. It is evident that the 
pictures of :\Ir. Bayes do not need getting up to look at ; 
whether they happen to be forcible or delicate in scheme, 
tlieir clearness and simplicity will make them carry from 
their place on the wall. Their relation to the rest of the 
house, even to its foundations, is rightly that of blossoms 
which, though finer in texture, are closely and organically 
related to tlie rest of the plant— root, stem, and leaves. 
