OF FURNITURE. Part 2.
Thereis one point touched upon by Mr. Parker in his paper, about which I should like to say a few words: I refer to the question of simplicity in furnishing. I feel that in showing to an assembly of art workers many of the illustrations which we wish to show, some further explanation on this point is due.
There may be rooms required for state purposes in the palaces of kings or the mansions of the great, which call for elaborate & very ornate furnishing: such I do not propose now to consider. I would refer rather to the homes of average middle-class people, where this style of furnishing would be out of place.
Such people have usually thought it necessary for their houses to contain several sitting-rooms, calling them dining-room, drawing-room, and breakfast-room, although the means at the disposal of the great majority would not allow three decent rooms; and the desired number could only be obtained by reducing them all to tiny box-like chambers, not one of them large enough to make a comfortable living apartment. From this supposed necessity has sprung the typical modern suburban residence, which consists of a series of these small box-like chambers more or less cleverly fitted together; while to meet the demand thus caused, we find the warehouses filled with ready-made furniture, supposed to be suitable to theserooms, inscribed “drawing-room suite,” “dining-room suite,” and so on. These also I will not consider; they have no interest, no actual touch on life. Such houses and the furniture which is made for them are no more fitted to the lives of nine out of ten middle-class families than would be the old hall and solar of the middle ages with their rude fittings. My contention is that the great majority of middle-class families live in one sitting-room. It is even pathetic to watch their attempts to do this in houses which seem specially designed to make it as difficult as possible. Many make the dining-room serve them for a living-room, wasting the best room in the house by keeping it vacant, except on more or less state occasions; others live in the drawing-room, taking their meals only in the dining-room. But whatever the arrangement, they all alike seem to be hampered for want of a good comfortable living-room designed and furnished as such.
I want specially to speak of rooms of this class, in the designing and furnishing of which we are at once brought into touch with the daily life of the household, and have scope to consider and meet their actual requirements. In such a room, if they possessed it, most families would take some at any rate of their meals; suitable table and seats must therefore be provided, with something of the nature of a sideboard or dresser to hold the many accessories which are most conveniently kept in the room. The ladies would do their work here and should have cupboards or other provision for their numerous apparatus. A piano and place to keepmusic will generally need providing; while book shelves, cupboards or drawers for newspapers and magazines, will be required; and some kind of writing table or bureau properly fitted to contain the household stationery & business papers would mostly be a great boon. The room too should have cosy seats, and something in the way of a sofa or settle as the family will sit and rest here; and these must be comfortably placed in relation to the fire, door, and windows. A place would not uncommonly have to be found for children to spend at any rate part of the day, which implies a toy drawer and some space for play.
It is of course only in the smaller middle-class house—which by the way is numerically far the most important—that the whole of the family life is carried on in one sitting-room: but the need of a good living-room is none the less felt in many a larger house where the means of the occupants will allow of their having more rooms than one in regular use. In such houses some of the functions of the living room will no doubt be provided for separately. There will be a nursery or play-room for the bairns in one house; a special room for meals in another: in one, afternoon callers will be received in a boudoir; in another, a study or library will be set apart for more studious pursuits; while the tastes of some families may demand a room set apart for music. But whatever rooms may be added, still, in the great majority of cases, there will be needed one to serve as a general living-room. Just as in the middle ages the great hall was thecentre of the house, all the other chambers clustering round and being subordinate to it; so in the modern middle class house a good living room is the first essential, and all the other rooms should be considered in relation to it.
This living room requires furniture and fittings specially suited to its various functions, and its requirements can no more be met by a suite of dining-room or drawing-room furniture than they could by a set of kitchen things. If we remember that large numbers of such houses as we are speaking of are worked with one servant, and the majority with not more than two; it will be obvious that this room, which in so many cases will be used for an early breakfast, must be so arranged that it can be easily and quickly cleaned. If we consider further the great number of articles that must be kept handy in such a room, to say nothing of the people themselves who are to occupy it—for whom after all the room exists, and as a back-ground for whose life it alone has any reason for being—it will be evident that the furniture cannot well be too simple.
If the result is not to become a crowded jumble, ample allowance must be made, in considering the decorations and furnishing, for the life that is to come into the room, and for the hundred and one articles which we may call the implements of such life. These of themselves must form a large element, good or bad, in the decoration of a room; and could they all be obtained graceful and beautiful, there would be a liberal supply of ornament.But this is one of the greatest difficulties; for, while it is possible to find beautiful plaster-work, carving, gesso panels, and so forth, it is almost impossible to obtain the necessary implements of life even tolerably elegant.
In vain do we seek to make a room look beautiful by the elaboration of its decoration and furniture, irrespective of all that goes to make up the life that will be lived in it. The successful room is the one which looks well with all the life in it, not the one which looks its best before it is occupied. It is only by making proper allowance for this life that a living room can be made to look well. Great simplicity is needed in the treatment of a room which may so soon become crowded and restless; but which may also, if properly treated, be more charming and homelike than any other, just because it is so full of life and the evidences of life—a decoration after all by no means to be despised.
RAYMOND UNWIN.