Interior Decoration as Art - How Knowledge of the Subject may be Gained - Suitability of Each Room and of the House as a Whole to Its Use - Sincerity in the Outward Expression of the Owner's Personality.

Interior Decoration As Art

The practice of interior decoration is in reality merely the exercise of common sense in relation to applied art - a recognition of relative values and a strict feeling of proportion. Common sense or good judgment can only be had, however, with a certain amount of experience through which knowledge of the subject has been gained.

Knowledge Must Be Gained

People in general do not sufficiently realize that some positive knowledge is absolutely necessary for the making of a successful plan for the furnishing of their own homes. There may be some fortunate individuals born, who are endowed at the beginning with a comprehension of balance, symmetry, and rhythm, who instinctively have a feeling for the harmonious beautiful, but these especially favored beings are few and far between, at least among the people of this country. Most Americans are not naturally alive to a strong feeling for art. There has been no place for it in their busy, money-making lives, and it is only recently that they have awakened to any feeling of lack. So the artistic common sense which the Americans of to-day exercise must be derived in its standards largely from the inherited knowledge of bygone days when a love of art for art's sake was the instinctive possession of even the most humble people.

Travel

There are two ways to accumulate these inheritances. The first and best is by traveling, by seeing in the various countries the best art treasures of all ages, in their natural environment. The collections in the great museums and in some of the best shops in this country are certainly worth attention, but they, after all, are only collections and can never give the inspiration which the occasional object of beauty gives in its native setting. The average citizen of the United States may see nothing in the palaces abroad which he could possibly copy in his own home, but he can gain general ideas of fundamental lines of beauty from them, and turn to the smaller chateaux of France and the manor houses of England for specific inspiration and for ideas in the furnishing of his own home. These smaller places exhibit the good taste and high standards of the royal mansions without that extravagance and lavishness which is unsuitable in every way to the average modern house. Many people who have made a careful study of period furniture are disappointed in the general effect which they have achieved by its use in their own homes, but they have made the mistake of feeling that beauty depends upon magnificence and so have copied the furnishings for their simple homes from too luxurious models. The result is a lack of proportion which cannot help but be strikingly bad taste.

Historical Study

The other way of gaining knowledge in the art of interior decoration is by the study of art in its relation to house furnishings, and the effect that the history of the world has had upon it. The underlying reasons for the changes in styles of furniture is learned in this way, and so a greater interest is felt in each style. When it is known that Marie Antoinette was very young when she became the bride of Louis XVI, that she disliked the court pomp and preferred to play as a child at the simple life of a shepherdess with a garlanded crook and pretty watering pot, it is easy to understand that the new royal taste must have had a great influence in the transition period from the rococo to the classical ideas of decoration. When it is known that hoop skirts were universally worn in the eighteenth century, it is also easy to understand why settees were made in such great numbers and why the chairs were designed with such wide-spreading arms. Every style in furniture had its relation to cause in, and relation to, some historical event or influence which produced a type of interior decoration well suited to its day of creation, but perhaps not at all suited to modern use. In this study of the causes and effects in the art of house furnishings, some of that sense of proportion, of the fitness of things, may be gained in a most pleasant manner.