Читать книгу The Library of Work and Play: Home Decoration - Charles Franklin Warner - Страница 16

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Arrangement Follows Selection.—The problem of furnishing a home is not fully settled when the questions of design have been answered and the right selections made. After selection comes arrangement, or, to speak more accurately, after a certain amount of selection a certain amount of arrangement; for, as has already been suggested, there is considerable dependence of one upon the other. It is not wise to drop the arrangement till the selection is complete, for the simple reason that the happiest choices are often the late ones, determined by the disposition of the earlier ones. And yet in the main the order as stated is the true one. It should be noted, too, that in arrangement there is a larger field for the exercise of individuality and taste. While artistic principles still hold sway, they yield more readily to exceptional interpretation by the ruling spirit of the household, to the demands of style, and to the larger number of possibilities for pleasing effects when the question is one of the arrangement of things already well chosen for their usefulness and for their artistic value.

A dainty bed in white maple

Utility the Controlling Principle.—The problems of arrangement, however, are by no means vague and uncertain. The natural law of adaptation to purpose is not difficult to follow. In some rooms obedience to it has become a settled custom. No one, for example, would think of placing the dining table in any other place than the centre of the dining-room or, if the room be a long one, in the centre of one end. The sideboard, serving table, and china closet likewise fall into their natural places. So also the bedroom and the hall, though perhaps to a less degree, present comparatively easy problems in furniture arrangement when due regard is paid to the purposes for which such rooms are designed.

Importance of Appropriateness.—But it is in the library and the living room that we find the most difficult and at the same time the most interesting problems. And this is due to the operation of the same law of adaptation to purpose. It is the variety of uses and the diversity of useful objects that make the problem somewhat complex. However refined and beautiful the different units may be, there must be some arrangement of them into working groups. The important elements should dominate and those of lesser importance should fall naturally into related but subordinate places. The easy corner with its couch, pillows, and its low seats, has a definite function to perform. So also have the piano and the music rack, the bookcases and library table, the Morris chairs and tabourettes, the window seats and screens, the writing desk and its proper lighting by window or lamp, the fireplace and all the accessories of comfort that may belong to it. The various centres of interest should be accentuated by grouping around them the most appropriate furnishings and the most suggestive decorative features. It may be well to add one word of caution, and that is that a proper balance should be maintained between the various centres of arrangement in order that no part of the room may seem neglected and bare.

The Danger of Overcrowding.—Finally, the one great danger to be avoided in meeting the requirements of good arrangement is the temptation to overcrowding. Many otherwise excellently appointed living rooms suffer from an embarrassment of riches. Such overcrowded rooms are worse than an overloaded ship because they cannot topple over and sink as one might well wish them to. To secure the right things and just enough of them, arranged with a proper balance between utility and beauty, is the true aim. It is as true to-day as it ever was in the arrangement and beautifying of the home, and, for that matter, in everything that concerns every-day life—just as true as it was in ancient times when men wrote those famous inscriptions over the doors of the temple at Delphi: over one, know thyself, and over the other, the golden mean of not too much.