Evening Star Newspaper, October 20, 1935, Page 96

4 Mucazine Section THIS WEEK October 20, 193 lllustration by Corinne Boyd Dillon Each object must be suitable for use and becoming to the place for which it is intended Good Taste Today Does the house or the room you are decorating obey the classic rules of form, line, scale, balance, proportion and suitability? If so, it will have beauty, says EMILY POST Author of “Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage,” “The Personality of a House,” Etc. 0 WRITE SO soon again about the beautifica- tion of a house is like running two trains a minute apart. I know that! But there are many reasons why it seems best to put off until next week the article I had intended for today, on the courtesies that saleswomen are expected to show their customers and the equal courtesies that customers should show to those who have no choice but to wait on them. This. then, will be my subject next week. Meanwhile it is high time to answer those, still busy with October house-furnishing, who have asked me to explain certain definite rules of good taste that every one who at- tempts to furnish or to arrange a house or a room should know. The very words, ‘‘Classic principles of ar- chitectural beauty,” sound duller than dull, don't they? On the other hand, there is really no sense in writing as I do from time to time about the personality of a house oraroomora piece of furniture and referring now and then to the rules by which the beauty of every ob- ject we own is measured, and saying never a single word in explanation of these definite exactions. Most people are apt to think of architec- ture as a subject as technical as the manu- facture of steel or the practice of surgery. In its designs for churches and public buildings this is true; but in its designs for houses — either great or small — the principles of archi- tectural beauty are of personal concern not only to every house owner, but to every young girl who hopes some day to have a home of her own — in short, to every young girl in the world. Briefly, then, the first requirement of beauty not only in the design and plan of a house, but in everything we choose or use, is suitability. The house in which we live may be palatial or it may be the smallest bungalow; but its plan and its furnishings must be suitable to our needs and to our personality. Moreover, each object in it must be suitable to the purpose for which it is to be used. and becom- ing to the place or to the occasion for which it is intended. Suitability to use, which is merely another name for utility, means that a dwelling should give the appearance of being inviting and friendly, unless the owner does not want to be friendly. In which case a welcoming effect of wide open doors and unshaded windows are as unsuitable to that particular owner as windowless outside walls and a barred en- trance would be to a family that loves to have the neighbors running in and out. Form, meaning merely the outline or shape of something, can not be judged unless we consider the qualifying attributes of propor- tion, and scale. Proportion means harmony in all relations of measure. Scale means the size of the decoration in proportion to the object decorated, or of detail to the whole of which it is a part. For instance, a room is in proportion when its height is suitable to its length and width. Its details are in scale when they are in pro- portion taq the size of the room and to one another. The rule made by that greatest of archi- tects, Inigo Jones, was that a building must be “solid, proportionable according torule, mas- culine and unaffected.” And these same re- quirements ideally describe the furnishing of a room for a man. Another attribute of architecture, essential to rooms to be used by a man, is strength. This is also more or less dependent upon an effect of substantial weight, since strength means obviously sufficient solid- ity for size and purpose. A chair likely to break if he throws him- self back in it — or teeters it back on its hind legs — or one that has a back reaching only to his waist, or a table that wabbles, or a drop-leaf one that tips over if he leans upon it, are all as unsuitable to a man’s comfort as a bed that is shorter than his own length. On the other hand, a too solid chunk of a house, so massively built that you feel it might easily be converted into a vault, has strength that is out of all proportion to the requirements of a dwelling. If a piece of furniture is intended to support something of great weight, then an appearance of solidity is as important as its actual strength. But a huge. block-shaped chair, large and strong enough to hold a hippopotamus, or a ton- weight sideboard supporting an ornament of fragile glass is an unsuitable exaggeration of weight. Nothing is more important to the pleasing arrangement of a room than balance, meaning the equilibrium between the furniture on one side of a room and that on another side. All tall pieces gathered at one end of a room produce the feeling that the room is capsizing. One tall piece on one side may, however, be balanced by a short object if it looks heavier than the tall piece. Two objects can, of course, be used to balance one. If you want to put a little picture on one side of the mantel and a big one on the other, the little picture can be made to balance the big one quite easily, if you put a lamp on a table under the little picture, but nothing under the big one. A difficult object to place in a room — without capsizing it -— is a grand piano, since it can scarcely be put in the middle of the floor! The usual way to balance it is to hang very high and rather dark curtains on the opposite side of the room, or else to place a unified group of furniture across from it. For instance, a whole wall-covering of tapestry, with a sofa under it, is not too much counterweight for a concert grand piano. A commode or long table, with a picture or mir- ror hung low enough to be included with it as a single unit of furnishing, will balance a baby grand. A piano is, of course, made still heavier if4t has an unusually large cover over it weighted down by a ponderous lamp, The extreme height in the average room is furnished by the window, and it is balanced by a mantel on the opposite wall, but a sofa — or possibly two sofas — next to the mantel and therefore an addition to its weight. must have something of important size to counter- balance it. In an excellent and very typical furnishing two small sofas are thrust out into the room from either side of the fireplace and a long sofa is placed in the center of a long wall opposite. A table with an important lamp and ornament is placed at either end of the large sofa, and an important picture, decorative panel, or tapestry is hung over the sofa. Let us say that tall panel-shaped mirrors are hung over two consoles to balance two windows on the opposite wall. They are not merely as high as the windows but, if the curtains are light in texture as well as color, they are in balance because you feel that the windows weigh less than the framed mirrors. The word texture, which means surface fin- ish, is applied to surface of wood or metal as well as to floor coverings or hangings ‘or upholstery. You wouldn't trim a chiffon even- ing dress with bands of tweed, or put a cover- ing of coarsest weave on a fragile satinwood chair. Texture can be fine, smooth, polished, and either soft or hard, or it can be rough, coarse or harsh. Usually texture, like color, must be harmonious, unless combined by an artist of great skill. Line means the edge of anything. The lines of a book are straight, and at right angles to one another. The form of a book is a flat rectangular block. A single object is often composed of innumerable lines that are paral- lel and right angled — such as doors and all straight-lined furniture. Other objects are composed of innumerable, beautifully related, or antagonistically unrelated curves. And this is an important point to notice. Too much repetition becomes monotonous. The chief objection to matching sets of fur- niture is that their monotony destroys per- sonality. What possible personality can be expressed in Pattern No. 987,654 in sixteen pieces? The same details sixteen times re- peated! After all, the variability of our own personal choice in assembling our rooms is the true expression of our personal taste and the factor of interest. Copyright, 1935, by Emily Post