The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-09-30
New York Star. ]

i worth living ii 1t were not Tor tie crop
ping out of some new conceit. At pres
ent we are down with the mania for dec
Grafton; even the baby is plastering his
china doll with decaleomania, and the
cook wears nothing but conventional
daisies, feur de Lis and poppies in her
Sunday bonnet. Our maiden aunt is
devoting herself assiduously to crewel
work, and an enormous crop of bach.
elors buttons are being emblazoned upon
countless sofa Gu HONS for her pet
clergyman. The gooa old-fashioned fur
niture {bought last year) is pacssed off to
the auction room, to be replaced by sun
mahogony. eheeniiiized cherry and light ;isli
chairs, cabinets and desks, Ny My uaugn-
ter phlls has taken out her color-box,
and is painting group of cottony sheep
and an asthmatic sheperdess'upon the in
side of the lid of her Steinway grand.
Our drawing-room walls are even hung
with plates like kitchen.
Alas, | remember time when the old
horse-hair sofa, which stood grim and
alone in the dimly-lit, cool front parlor,
was looked upon as the capillary embodi-
ment of grace and elegance. The modest
pretty pink wall paper must be torn off
and supplanted by dado and frieze, and
daylight is to be absorbed by painting the
woodwork with lead-coIored, brown or
black paint. The cheerful light tints are
things of the past, and the somber modern
drawing-room looks much like the inte
rior of wei regulated family vault.
4 Our children have gone wild in pur-
suit of colormen and porcelain fir rs. The
kilns of the latter are filled with china
horseshoes, tiles and shaving mugs, COW
cred with conventional flowers, crooked
legged birds Or hydrocephalic cherubs,
which, after baking, come out sometimes
a mass of blurred color, 80 that the flesh
tints become sorrowful purple, as if the
cherubs had demonstrated at their bap-
tism of fire, or perhaps their treatment at
the hands Of the over ambitious amateur.
TO these people Walter Cranes toy
books have been an inestimable boon,
and, as the result, it is not extraordinary
to find at "Finkenaur's" or "Bennett's,"
any fair day, from ten to dozen tiles
bearing "Jack and Jilr' or "Old Mother
Hubbard" each painted by some differ
ent would-be Palissy, and each present.
ed, when burnt, to some indulgent grand
mother or doting swain as an original
production. Fashionable women have
been seized with the craze, and, when not
earning pin-money by selling their tiles
at the Decorative Art Rooms, they chat
ter about "faience," "maiolica," "Dres-
den," "Cloisonne," cover glaze" "under
glaze" and other things of which they
know not, and look very wise when they
are presented with a piece of china
marked with crossed swords, but are swim
dledaby the dealer in brc-a-brac who sells
them teacup and saucer, made in Tren-
ton, N. j., for "a genuine old English
willow pattern" They form themselves
into dignifed committees, and have loan
exhibitions, and study china painting
5, from some callow, freckled youth, whose
qualifications rest in the fact that he
perhaps, has served an apprenticeship
) decorating china door-knobs.
Thin young men, with falsetto voices
' accompany middle-aged women to auc
: ton sales, and chat about capo di monte
while their aged companions bid reckless
ly for cracked teapots.
In the frenzy of the times, other fash
:. ionable women determine not to be lef
S behind, and as they have not time, or in
S clination, or are too lazy to buy and rea'
e the blouse Beautiful; or, Twelve Lee
VI lures Upon Brass Ornamentation," hir
: Narcotic or Hester TO do the thing for 8
5 much room. This reminds me of tn
e old vulgarian who bought librar
# bound in Russia leather, which he visite'
IS only when he had guests. Upon one Q
:. these occasions he remarked "nice? VIII
l. it smells beautiful, doesn't it, now?'
7. We are deluged with tiles, staine
e glass and ornamental brass. Alread
1t our tailor displays his imported good
+ under blending Of yellow and red ray
+ while at our restaurant the coffee an
l. omelette assume an ecclesiastical tin
r that is borne in by the filtered sunligl
st from Broadway. Our daily paper is eve
IS kept by the newsboy under slab {
!, n green glass.
s The woodwork of the ferryboats, car
lie railway depots and even the paper eolls
le boxes bear an unmis akable shape an
es air, which we are informed is Eastlak
Us A wall paper is exposed in a shop vii
ne dow covered by sickly gilt vine. Th
is Morris.
This suddenly developed interest
IN decorative art has been regarded as tt
at evidence of an awakening of the mass
lis to development of cultured taste.
a is not. 1t is but a fashion which wi
n probably disappear to a great extent wit
the coming of the birds and straw hat
True artistic taste has no such spasmod
of origin, and is not displayed 50 extrav
he gantly. The present mania is ephemers
lg- and is the offspring of trashy book
in which as rule have inculcated vicio
IN doctrines. What is needed is the dew
ng opment of an appreciation of the e
ed mentary in art; the relations OF color
lis of form; of harmony Of both; of the
ars ness of things generally; of the histo
as of art. Renaissance has here chs
of actor of its own, but though conglol
.e