The Complete Home

by Unknown

CHAPTER XII

HANGINGS, BRIC-A-BRAC, BOOKS, AND PICTURES

"Step by step" is a good thought to hold when we reach the fancifying of the house, as we only do after days of planning, nights of waking, over the must-be's. And, after all, these last accessories are divided from the necessaries by but a hair line, for it is they which give the home its soul—that beautiful, spiritual softness and radiance which we love and which differentiate the home from the house which is but its shell. The life and spirit of the home should be one of growth and development, which can only be achieved in a proper atmosphere and environment; and these it now rests with the home builder to supply in the radiant harmony and softness which flow from these final "trimmings," which not only create but reflect character.

THE CHARM OF DRAPERY

Hangings have a considerable share in making the home atmosphere, their mission being to soften harsh angles and outlines and warm cold, stiff plainness into comfort. Window curtains act as an equalizer in bringing the very best out of both light and dark rooms, serving at the same time as a partial background for their contents; while portières are not only aesthetic but useful in deadening sounds, cutting off draughts, and screening one room from another. "Drapes," those flimsy, go-as-you-please looking bunches of poor taste knotted, cascaded, and festooned over mantels, pictures, and chair backs, we have outgrown, confining our efforts in this line to the silk draught curtain to conceal the inelegant yawn of an open grate; and even this is being supplanted by the small screen.

CURTAINS

Windows must be curtained with relation to their shape and position and the nature of the room. The lower floor of the house, being naturally the heavier, can be curtained in a statelier manner than the lighter upper story. Here is the proper place for our handsome curtains of Irish point and other appliqués of muslin or lace on net, and of scrim with insertions and edges of Renaissance, Cluny, and other laces. These curtains are manufactured in three shades—dark cream or écru, light ivory, and pure white, the ivory being the richest and most desirable—and in simple, inexpensive designs as well as those costly and elaborate, and usually run about 50, 54, and 60 inches wide, and 3 1/2 yards long. The appliqué curtain wears better in an elaborate all-over design which holds the net together and gives it body, cheaper designs which can be had as low as $8 being coarser in quality and pattern. Nottingham curtains must be discredited among other imitations; they are well-meaning but both tasteless and cheaply ostentatious. Lace curtains are rarely draped, but hang in straight simplicity, most of the fullness being arranged in the body that the border design may not be lost in the folds. They are shirred with an inch heading on rods fastened outside of the window casing over which they extend, and care must be taken, if the pattern is prominent, that corresponding figures hang opposite each other. The double hem at the top is nearly twice the diameter of the pole, with the extra length turned over next to the window, the curtains, when hung, clearing the floor about 2 inches. They usually stretch down another inch, which brings them to just the right length. There is no between length in curtains; they must be either sill or floor length. Over curtains may or may not be used with the lace curtains. They are not necessary but have a certain decorative value, particularly in a large room. Raw silk, 30 inches wide, and costing from $0.75 to $1.50 a yard, is the only fabric sold now for this purpose for drawing-room use. The inner curtains may be simply side curtains, or made with a valance as well, and hang from a separate pole to obscure the top of the casement and just escape the floor, covering the outside edges of the lace curtains without concealing their borders. The over curtain should reproduce the coloring of the side wall and ceiling in a shade between the two in density, but if just the right tint cannot be caught, recourse to some soft, harmonious neutral tint will be necessary. Lining is not used unless there is an objection to the colored curtain showing from the street, when the lining silk or sateen must be of the shade of the lace curtain.

Almost any sort of pretty net or scrim curtain is appropriate for the downstairs windows, with a preference in favor of the more dignified lace in the drawing-room. With the other rooms we can take more liberty. The ruffled curtain is sash length and looped with a band of the same, or with a white cotton cord and tassel at the middle sash if the window be short, otherwise midway between it and the sill. There are fine fish nets, or tulle de Cadiz, 45, 50, and 60 inches wide at 50 cents a yard, which make charming living- or dining-room curtains, edged on three sides with the new 1-inch fringe or fancy edge, at 5 and 10 cents a yard, which comes for that purpose; and madras, plain or figured, is also good, a pretty combination being the fish net with colored madras over curtain. Raw-silk curtains are in use, too, but anything which stands too much between the home dwellers and the air and light is best avoided. Silk curtains are usually trimmed with a brush edge. Glass curtains are only necessary as a screen or to soften the harsh outline of a heavy curtain, and must be as transparent and inconspicuous as possible, the right side toward the glass. They are sill length, shirred to a small brass rod set inside the casing, and draped if the over curtain hangs straight, to maintain a balance. Those used on windows visible at once from the same quarter must be alike. The lace panels with a center design which we sometimes see in windows, but more frequently in doors, are too severe to be either graceful or ornamental. The vestibule door is best treated to correspond with the drawing-room windows, with an additional silk curtain to be drawn at night; or the silk curtain harmonizing with the woodwork of the hall may be used alone.

The curtaining of bedroom windows has already been discussed at some length. Swisses, dimities, figured muslins, and madras, either alone or supplemented by a valance, an over curtain, or both, of madras, chintz or cretonne, are preeminently the bedroom curtains, and may either be draped or hang straight, depending somewhat on the shape of the window. The long, narrow window needs the broadening effect of the draped curtain, the illusion of width being further increased by extending the curtain out to cover the casement, while the straight-hanging curtain gives additional length to the short window. Frilled curtains are usually looped, and seemingly increase the size of the room by enlarging the area of vision. An extra allowance of 6 inches is made for draping, with an additional inch or two for shrinkage. The charm of simplicity is always to be borne in mind when curtaining a room.

PORTIÈRES

Portières must serve their purpose, which is most emphatically not that of "drapery" in the sense in which the word has been so much used, but of convenience and utility, beauty, of course, being the twin sister of the latter nowadays. Figured portières with plain walls, and vice versa, are the rule, the coloring blending with both floor and walls and coming between the two in density. Again the neutral tint comes to the rescue if difficulty in matching is met. There is almost an embarrassment of riches in portière materials in plain and figured velours, woolen brocades, soft tapestries, furniture satins, damasks, velvets, etc., but we are learning the true art value of the simpler denims (plain and fancy), reps, cotton tapestries, rough, heavy linens, and monk's cloth—a kind of jute—for door hangings. The plain goods in dull, soft greens, blues, and browns, with conventional designs in appliqué or outlining, are not only inexpensive but artistic to a high degree, and are easily fashioned by home talent. Plain strips, too, are used for trimming, and stencil work, but the latter requires rather more artistic ability than most of us possess. Whatever the material, it must be soft enough to draw all the way back and leave a full opening, but not so thin as to be flimsy and stringy. The portiere is either shirred over the pole or hung from it by hook safety pins or rings sewed on at intervals of four inches. Double-faced goods have the hems on the side on which they will show least, with any extra length turned over as a valance on the same side. The finished curtain should hang one inch from the floor and will gradually stretch until it just escapes—the proper length. Single-faced materials are lined to harmonize with the room which receives the wrong side. Lengthwise stripes give a long, narrow effect, while crosswise stripes give an apparent additional width, and plain materials seem to increase the size of a doorway. Rods may be either of a wood corresponding with the other woodwork, or of brass, with rings, sockets, and brackets of the same material, the brass rod to be an inch in diameter and the wooden 1 1/2 inches or more and set inside the jambs.

Portières are also of service in softening the opening of a large bay window, making a cozy corner, or cutting off an awkward length of hall. When a doorway is very high it is better to carry the portière to within a foot or so of the top, leaving the opening unfilled, or supplying a simple grille of wood harmonizing with the wood of the door. A pretty fashion is to introduce into this space a shelf on which to place pieces of brass or pottery. Beaded, bamboo, and rope affairs are neither draperies nor curtains, graceful, useful nor ornamental, and are consequently not to be considered.

Men of science may cry "Down with draperies!"—but we members of that choicer cult known as domestic science stand loyally by them, for though in draperies there may he microbes, there is also largess of coziness and geniality.

BRIC-A-BRAC

The old-fashioned "whatnot" with its hungrily gaping shelves is responsible for many crimes committed in the name of bric-a-brac, and calls to mind sundry specimens with which proud owners were wont to satisfy its greed: the glass case of wax or feather flowers, flanked and reenforced by plush photograph frames, shells, china vases shining "giltily," silvered and beribboned toasters, peacock-feather fans, with perhaps a cup and saucer bearing testimony to our virtue with its "For a good girl," and other fill-upables, gone but not forgotten. And then followed a time when mantels and bookcase tops bore certain ills in the way of the more modern painted plaques, strings of gilded nuts, embroidered banners, and porcelain and brass clocks so gaudy and bedizened as to explain why time flies. But the architect has come to the rescue with his dignified, stately mantel which repels the trivial familiarity of meaningless decoration, and the bookcase whose simple, quiet elegance is in itself decorative. Blessed be the nothingness which allows Miladi to build her own art atmosphere untainted by gifts of well-intentioned but tasteless friends.

THE GROWTH OF GOOD TASTE

The germs of the capacity for good taste are born in most of us, but must be sedulously cultivated before they can rightly be called taste, and bric-a-brac presents the best of possibilities for their development. Begin by buying one piece which you know to be beautiful—simple and refined in outline, choice in design, modest in coloring, and fit for the use to which it is to be put—live with it, study it, master it. It will take on many unexpected charms as you grow to know it, and when you are ready to select the next piece you will find that the germ of your talent for discrimination has quietly become other ten talents and grown into a reliable ability to separate the chaff from the wheat. Each acquisition will have its own peculiar individuality which, once conquered, means a liberal education.

USEFULNESS WITH BEAUTY

While all bric-a-brac should be beautiful, some certain kinds, such as lamps, clocks, and jardinières, are also essentially useful, and these have undergone a wonderful transformation during recent years as a result of the movement toward simplicity, honesty of purpose, and fitness. It would be hard to imagine anything more incongruous than the porcelain lamp decorated with flowers of heroic endurance which blossomed unwiltingly on, regardless of the heat; or the frivolously decorated clock when the passing of time is so serious a matter; or the gaudy jardinière, whose coloring killed the green of the plant it held. But we have grown past this. Now our light at eventide is shed through a simple, plain-colored shade of porcelain or of Japan paper and bamboo (if one cannot afford the plain or mosaic shades of opalescent glass), from an oil tank fitted into a bowl of hand-hammered brass or copper, or of pottery, of which there are so many beautiful pieces of American manufacture in dull greens, blues, browns, grays, and reds. These lamps are not expensive—no more so than their onyx and brass forbears—and are quiet, restful, beneficent in their influence. Jardinières we find in the same wares and colorings, which not only throw the plant into relief but tone in with the other decorations of a room in which nothing stands out distinct from its fellows, but all things work together for harmony. Clocks no longer stare us out of countenance, but follow, in brass, copper, or rich, dark woods, the sturdy simplicity of their ancestor, the grandfather's clock, and so become worthy of the place of honor upon the mantel, where candlesticks, antique or modern, in brass or bronze, also find a congenial resting place.

[Illustration: The drawing-room.]

CONSIDERATIONS IN BUYING

There are so many vases, jugs, bronzes, medallions, jars, and bowls that one must needs walk steadfastly to avoid buying just for the pleasure of it, whereas each piece must be chosen with reference to the place it is to occupy and to its associates. Any piece of genuine Japanese art ware, of which Cloisonné is perhaps the best known; old or ancestral china; objects of historical interest; different examples of American pottery, among others the Grueby, Van Briggle, and Teco, with their soft, dull glazes, and the Rookwood with its brilliantly glazed rich, mellow browns, its delicately tinted dull Iris glaze, and other styles which are being brought out; Wedgwood with its cameo-like reliefs; the rainbow-tinted Favrile glass; the Copenhagen in dull blues and grays—all these embody, each in its individual way, the requirements of art bric-a-brac.

But the brown Rookwood will overshadow the Copenhagen, and the multicolored Cloisonné will kill the Iris, and so each piece must have a congenial companion if any. And above all, don't crowd! Bric-a-brac needs breathing room, and individual beauty is lost in the jumbling together of many pieces in a heterogeneous maze of color, which confuses and wearies the eye. All the fine-art product asks is to be let alone—a small boon to grant to so great worth.

"Tip-overable" flower holders defeat their own ends—utility—but there are many which are well balanced and beautiful, too: tall, wide-mouthed cut, Bohemian, or more simple glass for long-stemmed roses, carnations, or daisies; brown Van Briggle, Grueby, or Rookwood bowls for nasturtiums, golden rod, and black-eyed Susans; green for hollyhocks, dull red for dahlias, gladioli, etc., flowers and receptacles thus forming a true color symphony.

Parian and Carrara marble, immortally beautiful, we can but gaze at from afar, but masterpieces of the sculptor's chisel are ours at small cost in ivory-tinted plaster reproductions of the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, busts and medallions of famous personages, etc., which may with truth be called "art for art's sake."

Dining-room bric-a-brac generally consists of whatever occupies the plate rail—an interesting array of plates, pitchers, bowls, jars, cups and saucers, steins, cider mugs, and tankards. And here our cherished ancestral china finds a safe haven from which it surveys its young, modern descendants with benignant toleration.

BOOKS

A spirit of friendliness and companionship radiates from a good book—a geniality to be not only felt, but cultivated and enjoyed. The friendship of man is sometimes short-lived and evanescent, but the friendship of books abideth ever. Paraphrasing "Thanatopsis":

"For our gayer hours
They have a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and they glide
Into our darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere we are aware."

Truly, a book for every mood, and a mood for every book,

THEIR SELECTION

The true measure of a book is not "How well does it entertain," but "How much help does it give in the daily struggle to overcome the bad with the good," and as one makes friends with muscle-giving authors the fancy for light-minded acquaintances among books gradually wears away. Although different tastes require special gratification in certain directions, yet some few books must have place in every well-balanced library. First always, the Bible, with concordance complete for study purposes, a set of Shakespeare in small, easily handled volumes, a set of encyclopaedias, and a standard dictionary. Then some of the best known poets—Milton, Spenser, Pope, Goldsmith, Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, the Brownings, Byron, Homer, Dante, etc., with Longfellow, Riley, and some others of our best-loved American poets—for though we may not care for poetry we cannot afford to deny ourselves its elevating influence; standard histories of our own and other countries; familiar letters of great men which also mirror their times—Horace Walpole, Lord Macaulay, etc.; essays of Bacon, Addison, DeQuincey, Lamb, Irving, Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes; and certain works of fiction which have stood the test of time and criticism, with Dickens and Thackeray heading the list. Indulgence in all the so-called "popular" novels of the day, like any other dissipation, profits nothing, and vitiates one's taste for good literature at the same time. Therefore, hold fast that which is known to be good in novels, with here and there just a little spice of recent fiction; for man cannot live by spice alone, which causes a sort of mental dyspepsia which is very hard to overcome.

SETS

An appetite for "complete sets" is a perverted one which usually goes with a love for the shell of the book rather than its meat. It is better far to prune out the obscure works and buy, a few at a time if necessary, the best known works of favorite authors, than to clutter up one's bookshelves with volumes which will never be opened. Partial sets acquired in this way can be of uniform edition and gain in value from those which are left in the shop.

BINDING

Books, like our other friends, have an added attraction if tastily clothed. Good cloth bindings, not too ornate or strong in color, are substantial and usually best for the home library. Real leather bindings of morocco or pigskin are rich and suggestive of good food within, but imitation leather must join other domestic outcasts. Though it may look well at first it soon shows its quality of shabby-genteel. Calf has deteriorated because of the modern quick method of tanning by the use of acids, which dries the skin and causes it to crack. Books in party attire of white paper and parchment and very delicate colors are not good comrades, for the paper cover which must be put on to protect the binding is a nuisance, while without it "touch me not" seems to be written all over the book. Our best book friends are not of this kind, but permit us to be on terms of friendly intimacy with them, receiving as their reward all due meed of courteous treatment. There can be no true reverence for books in the heart of the vandal who leaves marks of disrespectful soiled fingers on their pages, turns down their leaves, and breaks their backs by laying them open, face down.

PAPER

Their paper should be of a good quality, not too heavy, and the type clear, both of which conditions usually obtain in an average-priced book. Their housing has much to do with their preservation. Dampness is, perhaps, their deadliest enemy, not only rotting and loosening the covers, but mildewing the leaves and taking out the "size" which gives them body. An outside wall is always more or less damp, and for this reason the bookcase must stand out from it at least a foot, if it stands there at all, and preferably at right angles to it. Dust is also an insidious enemy, from which, in very sooty, dirty localities, glass doors afford the best protection. These must be left open occasionally to ventilate the case, for books must have air and light to keep them fresh and sweet and free from dampness, but not sun to fade their covers. Intense artificial heat also affects them badly, wherefore, the upper part of the room being the hotter, cases should never be more than eight feet high, the use of window seat and other low cases having very decided advantages, apart from their decorative value. Whatever the design of the case—and, of course, it must harmonize with the other wood of the room—its shelves must be easily adjustable to books of different heights, standing in compact rows and not half opened to become permanently warped and spoiled. Varnished or painted shelves grow sticky with heat and form a strong attachment for their contents. The bookcase curtain is useful more as a protection against dust than as an art adjunct, for there is nothing more delightful to the cultivated eye than the brave front presented by even, symmetrical rows of well-bound volumes, so suggestive of hours of profitable companionship. All the books must be taken down frequently and first beaten separately, then in pairs, and dusted, top and covers, with a soft brush or a small feather duster.

"The true University of these days is a Collection of Books," and one's education cannot begin too early.

PICTURES

So many homes combining taste and elegance and refinement in their furnishing, still impress one with the feeling that somewhere within the lute there is a rift which destroys its perfect harmony, and that rift is not far to seek—it lies in the pictures. Cheap chromos, lithographs, and woodcuts have small excuse for being in these days of fine reproductions in photographs, photogravures, and engravings, and their presence in a home indicates not only a lopsided development of the artistic sense, but an indifference to that beauty of which art is but one of the expressions. Happy, indeed, is the homemaker in realizing the necessity and privilege of growing up to the works of artists who have seen beauty where she would have been blind, and felt to a depth which she has not known; for in that realization lies the promise of ability to rise to the point where she will at last be able to feel as the artist felt when he wrought.

ART SENSE

Mrs. Lofty, who never has to stop to count the cost, loses the valuable art education which our housewife all unconsciously acquires in the months which necessarily pass between her picture purchases—months in which she has time to discover new beauties, fresh interest, deeper meaning, in those she already has. All these new impressions she carries with her to the selection of her next treasure, and the result will probably be a choice of greater artistic merit than she would have been capable of making before. So long as there is something in a picture which impresses her, the fact that she does not fully understand its underlying meaning need be no obstacle to its purchase; the light of comprehension will come.

THE INFLUENCE OF PICTURES

The picturing of the home should be undertaken in no light humor, for better no pictures at all than poor ones. Little, trivial, meaningless nothings are like small talk—uninspiring and devitalizing—and therefore unprofitable; battle and other exciting scenes wear on the nerves; the constant presence of many persons is tiring in pictures as well as out; small figures and fine detail which cannot be distinguished across the room cause visual cramp; and the rearing horse which keeps one longing for the rockers cannot be called reposeful. Any picture in which one seeks in vain the rest and peace and quietude and inspiration which the home harmony demands, is but a travesty of art—domestically speaking. There is probably nothing more rest-giving than the marine view, and next come the pretty pastoral and cool woodland scenes, while madonnas and other pictures of religious significance express their own worth—just a few choice, well-selected photographs, etchings, and engravings of agreeable subjects, with a painting or two; that's all we want.

OIL PAINTINGS

Really fine oils are costly, and no house can stand more than one or two at most, because of the impossibility of giving them the correct lighting and the distance they require, without which their best effect is lost. Properly, an oil painting should be given a wall or even a whole room to itself, as water colors and colored prints seem colorless, and black-and-whites cold, by comparison. The deep gold frame is its best setting. Gold frames and mats are usually effective on colored pictures of any kind in bringing out certain colors, dark ones especially, though artists are growing to use wood frames filled to harmonize with and throw into relief some one tone in the picture, the mat taking the same color. Gilt has no place on photographs, etchings, or engravings, their simple, flat frames of oak, birch, sycamore, etc., with their mats, if mats are used, toning with the gray, brown, or black of the picture. Fantastically carved and decorated frames are things of the past, both frame and mat being now essentially a part of the picture and blending with it, while setting it off to the best advantage. Passepartout is an inexpensive substitute for framing, particularly of small pictures, and is effectively employed with a properly colored mat and binding. White mats are still in occasional use for water colors and for black-and-whites, but for photographs we find a more grateful warmth in following the tone of the picture.

ENGRAVINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Engravings and photogravures most satisfactorily reproduce paintings, as hand work always has more life than the photographic copy. All reproductions, however, bring the works of world-famous artists within our reach, and enable us to be on intimate terms with the animals of Rosa Bonheur, the peasants of Millet, the portraits of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Sargent, and Gainsborough, the landscapes of Corot, Daubigny, Dupre, and Turner, and the madonnas of Raphael, Botticelli, Bodenhauser, and Correggio. Amateur photography, with its soft pastel effects in black, green, white, red, and gray, is making rapid strides and doing much to advance the cause of art in the home. The hand-colored photograph is acceptable if the coloring is true and rightly applied, while certain charming colored French prints, so like water colors as to be hardly distinguishable from them, have distinct worth. Then there are the reproductions of our present-day illustrators, in both black-and-white and colors, and in which we seem to have a personal interest. Originals are always costly and hard to get, the exception being the obscure but worthy artist whose fame and fortune are yet to be won. The carved Florentine frame is a valuable setting for certain colored heads or painted medallions.

SUITABILITY OF SUBJECTS

Although any good picture may be hung with propriety in almost any of the first-floor rooms, heads of authors and pictures having historic and literary significance seem especially suggestive of the library; musicians and musical subjects of the music room, or wherever one's musical instruments may be; dignified subjects, such as cathedrals, with the game and animal pictures which used to hang in the dining room, of the hall; while we now picture our dining room with pretty landscapes or anything else cheery and attractive. Family portraits, if we must have them, hang better in one's own room, but really their room is better than their company, as a rule.

HANGING OF PICTURES

As to hanging pictures, the main thing is to have them on a level with the eye, and each subject in a good light—dark for light parts of the room, light for dark. Small pictures are most effective in groups, hung somewhat irregularly and compactly. All pictures lie close to the wall, suspended by either gilt or silvered wire, whichever tones best with the wall decoration. The use of two separate wires, each attached to its own hook, is preferable to the one wire, whose triangular effect is inharmonious with the horizontal and vertical lines of the room. Small pictures are best hung with their wires invisible, thus avoiding a network on the walls.