Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery, and Other Details

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. Excerpt: ... is not a primary hue, has been recently raised by the, ingenious theories of Mr. Wm. Benson; and the new light which he has thrown on the subject of color generally may, in some degree, explain the difficulties hitherto felt in reconciling scientific data with principles of taste in chromatic decoration. need learn in no other. But this seems to be a conclusion which is not based on practical experience. The conditions of beauty in pictorial art are widely remote from those which are fulfilled in judicious decoration. An accurate knowledge of the proportions of the human form is doubtless indispensable to the loftiest inventions of the architect; but it will not of itself enable him to determine the best proportions for a building. No one is better acquainted with the subtle charms of nature's color than a good landscape painter; but what landscape painter--as such--could be trusted to design a paper for his drawing-room wall? The blue sky which is over our heads and the green grass which springs beneath our feet would not, even if we could match the delicacy of their hues, afford us a strict and perfect precedent for the color of our floors and ceilings; nor are the fairest flowers which bloom suitable objects to be copied literally for surface ornament. The art of the decorator is to typify, not to represent, the works of Nature, and it is just the difference between this artistic abstraction and pseudo-realisms which separates good and noble design from that which is commonplace and bad. There is usually a kind of frieze running round the top of a bookcase, between the books and the cornice above them. This space may well be decorated with painted ornament in the form of arabesques, armorial bearings, and appropriate texts. Any of...