"There are in England two new, and in their origin, distinct methods of interior decoration. Gradually they have coalesced to a degree, although they will always retain their individual traits and differences. These two methods may be termed the Whistlerian, and the English or pre-Raphaelite; the one, spontaneous, fresh—simple, the other, a revival—complex—reformatory. Through many years, from the early days of the pre-Raphaelites down to the last meeting of the Painter-socialists, an outside influence—a personality—has been making itself felt in London in strange and subtle ways."
The Morris arts and crafts movement believes in patterned design and the dominant force of the material. Every material speaks its own language, and we must understand, before we can lend expression to it. When the actual moment of designing arrives, the artist-artisan should work with a piece of the material itself before his eyes—wood, stone, iron or plain silk, linen or wool stuff, according to circumstances. This memory of nature's forms, dominated by the momentary impression of the material, with its requirements, capabilities and limitations, would lead him to a more congenial and workmanlike result than all the contents of a natural history museum, botanical garden or library. In the same way as we can give to words a dramatic, epic or lyrical significance, so has wood, leather and glass their own sphere of expression. Harmony in every detail is the ultimate result. A room is no museum, every object must be related to the other, the candlestick must make a rhyme with the wall-paper, with the woodwork, the hangings, the table and chairs.
Whistler, on the other hand, was the apostle of Japanese simplicity, of suggestion rather than realization. He tried to express his own æsthetic creed, and that consisted of restful expanses of unbroken wall, of decorative devices and ornamental motifs, individual caprices accentuated by black, and, finally, by colour. Colour in interior decoration meant to him the same thing as tone in painting. It reigned supreme. Our feeling of beauty varies; it may find its expression in a certain flower, a certain hour of the day or season, in a certain poem or song or, as it was the case with Whistler, in a certain delicate colour tint, that would make a room look gay and cheerful. He tried to bring the sun into the house, even in a land of fog and cloud. Pale pink, brown, pale turquoise, primrose, saffron, sulphure and lemon-yellow were his favourite colours. These he endeavoured to express. It was the gesture of his soul translated into every object and material.
A colour is like a special metric form, and all lines, and every combination of tint—the sofa, the lamp, wall-paper—take the place of stanzas in a finished poem. In such a house we would see mirrors everywhere reflecting our own personality. Such were Whistler's creations. They reflected his own face, and echoed his own song. Whistler arrived at these conclusions early in his life. During his Stevens-Japanese print period he interested himself a good deal with decorative schemes. He had painted "The Princess of the Porcelain Land," which was purely decorative, and, in a way, served as inspiration for the Peacock Room, as the design for the latter was really invented to find a proper environment for the painting.
In a diary of William Michael Rossetti, the ever busy biographers have found a note referring to six schemes or projects of practically the same size. It reads: "Whistler is doing on a large scale, for Leyland, the subject of women with flowers." They were never executed, although some of the sketches are still in existence. He abandoned decorative schemes entirely in later years, but became more and more engrossed in the problems of interior decoration. In later years he intended to paint a grand decoration with full orchestration that he would call "The Symphony of Colours—Full Palette." This would have been indeed interesting, but I fear he went too deep into blacks to have accomplished it. In most instances he abstained from mural decoration,—the panels over the chimney-place, and the shutter and ceiling decoration of the Peacock Room for the Leyland home at Prince's Gate, London, were his only supreme effort in that direction. They show the right idea about decorative painting. He agreed with all decorative painters from Gozzoli to Bob Chanler, that it should be an arrangement of colours which, within its frame, affords a pleasant visual entertainment.
There is no intention to give food for thought. The peacocks in blue on gold and gold on blue relate as little as does an Oriental carpet. He merely wished to please the eye by depicting them more beautifully than they were in nature. But why did he select peacocks? Do they not convey an idea? Figures usually are story-telling symbols, but not necessarily so; with him they were vehicles of colour, to invent a pattern for their luminosity. Peacock designs occur frequently in Japanese art. No doubt, Whistler studied them. There is a certain resemblance, but he individualized them in his own way. The sharply silhouetted forms of the birds are a happy invention of luminous colour and interesting design. The Japanese would have made a more lavish use of gold, that is they would have left larger spaces untouched by any additional colour. Blank spaces of gold (or any colour) act in such instances like the musical silence of a pause between music, they represent the birth of beauty from luxury. But the Leyland room was overcrowded, with its elaborate ceiling, bulky chandelier and collection of blue and white porcelain on walnut shelves, broken by an endless repetition of perpendicular lines. He could not change the architecture of the place, so he went to work and decorated the few spaces that were available. To decorate the inside shutters with a peacock design was a unique performance, and to cover the moulding of the chandelier and the entire ceiling with conventionalized peacock feathers, utilizing the eyes of the feathers as accents, was even more marvellous. In the elegance of its scheme, and its individual perfection, splendour and restfulness it has no equal.
SHUTTER DECORATION, PEACOCK ROOM.
When Whistler moved into houses of his own, he had, like all ambitious house-owners, the desire to create a comfortable and beautiful home. None of his houses were ever completely decorated and finished; they had a look, as Pennell tells us, as if he had just moved in, or was just moving out; often there were packing cases and trunks about, but as much as was finished was always beautiful.