The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-03-11
Household Decoration.

Household Decoration. s@
THE decoration of houses and of |
special apartments is the object at pres |
emit OF great deal of attention, and a
set OF artist-tradesmen have arisen, who
at heavy charge and at fancy
rates, furnish wares of nearly every sort
to- carry out the wishes of amateur
patrons.
But it is not in what Narcotic and his
brethren produce, nor even what East
lake and Cole recommend, that we are
just now interested, much as they deserve
attention, but rather with certain little
odds and ends, without pecuniary value,
that seem nearly as purely spun from the
spirit of some refined men and women
as the web of spider is drawn from its
body. Nearly everybody who is inter-
ested in such things is aware of the great
artistic beauty of Chinese Grape; and, in
the pictures of Armstrong, Cabanel, and
other eminent English and French paint
ers. we are constantly called upon to ad-
mire the clinging folds of this material,
that resemble the drapery on Greek
statues. Besides the natural grace of
this material, there is something very
exquisite in the way in which, when hung
against the light, its crumpled surface
transmits the sunshine, speckled and
streaked into surface as charming as
the broad petals of the poppy or the
hollyhock. But India Grape is costly,
and, while its delicate tissue makes it fit
for elegant garments, it is too fragile
in appearance for the coarser decora-
ton of room. But we saw lately in
New England city a cheap and salts
factory substitute for Grape, in the shape
of curtains suspended on big rings and
swinging in the sunshine, as soft in their
rich and heavy folds as Grape, and as
pleasantly streaked and clouded in trans
hitting light. These curtains, of tex
ture absolutely artistic, were made Of
strips of Russia crash toweling, costing a
few cents yard. Yet nobody, we
fancy, comparing these cheap dec
orations with the most expensive
German, French or English fabrics,
could fail to perceive the absolute
charm they possessed over COM
mon-place though costly draperies. One
of the most agreeable materials for cur
tanning windows is coarse, unbleached
cotton. The irregularity of the thread
and the roughness of the surface give its
soft folds much the charm of the Russia
crash, and its yellowish hue warns the
light Of cool, north windows almost to
the glow of sunshine. On the other
hand, the tints of daylight, passing
through the gray of crash, subdue the
glare of the room and harmonic green
or blue and pale walls and furniture into
refreshing, genial tone. Mrs. Skew
ton, in "Dombey s. Son." always ap-
peared under the glow of rose-colored
hangings. and every woman knows that
pink globes to gasburners enhance beau
ty. This matter of cool or warm day
light is great adjunct to the charm of a
sitting-room or library.
II is now fashionable to admire India
screens, curiously lackered and covered
with every queer beast, bird and flower.
One of the pleasantest of these articles
we have ever seen was an ordinary fire.
frame Of two or three leaves. over which
muslin, and upon which the owner, who
was an artist, had chalked out in black
crayOn Haunting sunfowers, cat o nine
| tails. and other coarse, strongly-marked
plants, that seemed to wave as in sum-
mer wind.
To be sure, everyone is not an artist,
but nearly every tolerably educated
women nowadays is capable of copying
and charging some natural object, such
as flowers or leaves, and then, with q
little fixative" of gum or varnish, she
can make for dollar or two screen as
pleasant in its way as the excessively
costly French or Indian ones, which only
vary in degree, not in kind, from such a
homemade one as we have described,
and which is true bit of household art.
Great use is made at present of autumn
leaves and, as one of the means to SIM
pie elegance, they seem to us next in
value to growing plants. In Europe the
simple window of the poor, curtained
with netted lace, the handiwork of the
inmates. is nearly always crowded with
gay, blossoming plants. The dark,
dreary houses of the lower classes in the
neighborhood of London have this orna.
men,, and in the high passes of Swltzer-
land the little wooden chalets also bios
som cheerfully. Hampton Court, with
its exquisite gardens, presents another
phase of the same life, and the banks of
flower-pots in the vestibules of the hotels
and houses of Paris and in Italy show
the same feeling and the same taste
everywhere.
This cultivation of flowers is obviously
becoming more common in this country
but there are sunless rooms where plants
cannot thrive, or apartments so occupied
that the doubt of the healthfulness of
plants renders their cultivation undesira.
| BILE; and in such rooms, without pictures
to cheer the walls, autumn leaves may be
made valuable accessory
The joyousness of American woods in
autumn is we'll known throughout the
civilized world, and we remember moth.
ing more delightful as a specimen of
full, intense color than the woods we
saw during walk in one of the forest
paths of Bartlett Mountain in North
Conway, N. H., on clear day in Octo-
Der. The trees were almost solely ma
pies, and were deeply yellow, with
scarcely flaw to mar the perfection of
the leaves. Looking up into the fringe
which they made against an intense blue
! sky above our path, it seemed to US then,
and it appears to us now, that for color
no stained glass or splendid fabric, not
| even brilliant gems or sunset skies, could
be more beautiful than this vast and
golden solitude of the deep woods.
Shakespeare, in one of his sonnets,
| speaks of the essences of flowers as
Liquid prisoners pent in walls of glass, -
which
Lose but their show,
Their substance still lives sweet.
Fortunately for us our autumn leaves
retain their colors with little abatement
for long period, and in stormy, foggy,
dark, cold days of winter little taste
and less trouble can cover disagreeable
windows overlooking back yards with
screens Of most exquisite shape and
color; maple-leaves, dark maroon twigs
Of oak, mountains ash, with their delicate
finger-shaped clusters of foliage, and
green pine-tips, forms having the abso-
lutte charm of Nature and colors as vivid
as flame. These leaves, tackled upon
thin gauze or opaque muslin, or placed
in punches of twigs grouped in vase of
sand, form really legitimate decora-
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