Our homes, and how to beautify them . oved lines. There are certain established principles of decoration ; certain laws which constitute what may be called its grammar. It may, for instance, be accepted as an axiom that there should be an obvious relation between an object and its use,—betweenthe decoration of an apartment, or a pieceof furniture, and its purpose. A disregardof this axiom involves us at once in a moreor less disturbing inconsistency. \^hatviolates the sense of the appropriate moresurely than a Gothic hatand umbrella stand?The ideas suggested by trefoils and cuspshave no sort o
Our homes, and how to beautify them . oved lines. There are certain established principles of decoration ; certain laws which constitute what may be called its grammar. It may, for instance, be accepted as an axiom that there should be an obvious relation between an object and its use,—betweenthe decoration of an apartment, or a pieceof furniture, and its purpose. A disregardof this axiom involves us at once in a moreor less disturbing inconsistency. \^hatviolates the sense of the appropriate moresurely than a Gothic hatand umbrella stand?The ideas suggested by trefoils and cuspshave no sort of analogy with those suggest-ed by pegs for silk hats or a receptacle forthe comparatively modern umbrella. Alibrary decorated in the st\le of LouisQuinze would be another example of thewant of that harmony which should prevailbetween the ornament and the prcttiness and redundanc\- of thatstyle have nothing in common with thecontemplations of the study and the.^:-;^;;Sl;;Hr^;^:,?™ innuence of thoughtaa AND HOW TO BEAUTIFY THEM. Another guiding principle of decoration isthat beauty proceeds from variety in , please to remember, is not designer who ignored the claims of varietywould find himself stranded on the shoals of adull, uninteresting uniformity. Uniformity isthe offspring of ennui, as a French poet has putit; and next to the vice of ill-regulated combina-tions is the unpardonable sin of sameness. Butthe variety must be in unity. There isdisaster in the sort of variety required by thelady who, when asked by her architect in whatstyle she would like her house built, said : Iwant it to fje nice and baronial. Queen Anneand Elizabethan and all that; kind of quaintNurembergy, you know; regular Old Englishwith French windows opening on the lawn, and Venetian blinds, and sort ofSwiss balconies, and a loggia ; but Fni sure you know what I mean. Another of these general laws is that all decoration should have a pointof depa
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectinterio, bookyear1902
