The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-09-23
Mr.. Cimabue Brown on the Defen-
Sive.
TBelgrayia1

OF the " mon mas us place.
Mr.. Cimabue Brown on the Defen-
sive.
[Belgravia.]
I, Cimabue Brown, am probably at this mo-
ment the best ridiculed and most slaughed-at
man in all England; and yet am not ashamed
of myself ask you to look at us as we really
are, not as you see us earicatured in Mr.. Du
Mauriers clever sketches or Mr.. Gilbert s
comic operas Come to one of my wife's
Wednesday evening At Homes, and you will
see, 1 can promise you, all the most aesthetic
people in Londen assembled together I &C
knowledge that you will find sunflower dec
grafton in the hall; and very pretty it is, too.
1 acknowledge also that you viii find old
china plates put up against the wall, and We
netian glass in the cabinet, and some good
Persian tiles around the fireplace, and pretty
Indian rug on the floor. allow that you will
find the girls dressed fopthe most part in pleas
ant neutral tints, not in crude and staring reds,
and greens and yelows; and that you will
hear more conversation about italian pictures
and Mr.. Lang's last Ballade than about the
latest fluctuations of the Stock Exchange, or
ions on the hundred and twentieth clause o E
the Irish Land bill. But if you see ANYBODY
posing in medieval attitudes after Fra Angel
co, or attempting to assume an expression
earnest ideality after Sandro Botticelli, or
talking the burlesque jargon about subtle in
fuences and utter intensity after Mr.. Du
Maurier, why then, promise you to forfeit
five hundred pounds down without murmnr
Ca a.. NJo--k r.,
able Idiots. And will use my first nomina-
ton as a Benefactor to insure that persons
immediate admission within the walls OF the
Institution.
If you turn from fancy to fact, the real thing
that we have accomplished is this; We have
obtained the general recognition of culture as
a distinct aim in English life. Even those
people who laugh at us most have really adopt
ed our principles and initiated our practice.
There is hardly middle class house in En-
gland where our wallpapers and our cretonnes
have not penetrated. The mantlepieces which
used to be covered with blue and gold vases
and ormolu clocks, are now decorated with
olive green Vallauris pottery and quantity
pretty Satsuma taapots. The girls who used
once to work Berlin wool tapestry with square
mosaic pictures of ladies and lapdogs and mon
strous realistic roses now work with crewels
in really beautiful decorative patterns drawn
to conventional Used designs Our women uni
versally dress in suDdued and delicate colors;
even our children play with toy books made
lovely for them by Kate Greenaway and WAL
ter Crane. Some OF the attempts that people
make at the beautiful are still doubtless pain
full and ridiculous enough; but at any rate,
they make the attempt instead of remaining
as of old in bligsful and contented state Of
utter Philistine ugliness. To know little
about art, abouts poetry, about the emotional
side of life altogether, has become an object
and desire with thousands and thousands of
people who never felt it 80 before. And that
result has been brought about in large part,
confidently assert, by us, the despised and
much-ridiculed "Bsthetes.
There are few other more serious objec-
tions, however, sometimes urged against the
great contemporary aesthetic movement typi-
fed by my unworthy personality, about which
objections should like to say O few words in
passing, now that l. have got you fairly but
tonholed in q corner by yourself. Thesirst Of
them,-a very common one-it that we "9s-
thetes" are sworn enemies to color There
never was greater mistake on this earth. We
reYel in color; perfectly roll in it, we live in
the midst of green and blue, and scarlet, and
purple all our days Nobody who has once
seen the interior of a really good modern
aesthetic house, could ever afterwards serious
ly commit such ridiculous blunder as to say
that it was "dingy' or gloomy, or faded
looking as a thousand Unthinking critics assert
unhesitatingly every day.
As a matter Of fact, it is the Philistne house
which eschews color. There Whitehead, cold,
pale, cherries white-forms the background
and keynote of the total decorative effect. The
ceiling is white all over. The wallpaper is
white with few patches of regularly disposed
gold ornamentatlon in geometrical squares.
The msntelpi piece is of white marble. The car
pet has white ground sprinkled with red apd
blue roses The cheap chromo-lithographS
which do duty for fine art have broad
white margins; and there is no deeper color
to balance and neutralize this chilly general
tone. The place of honor over the hearth is
filed by great gilt mirror, which reflects the
white ceiling. The chairs and sofas are COW
cred in pale blue satin. The vases are in whitish
glass. The ornaments are Paran statuettes,
alabaster boxes, and white spar knick-knacks.
There is hardly bit of color in the whole
room: and whatever there is consists OF crude
blue red and yellow, isolated in great harsh
patches amid the prevailing sea of inhospita-
BILE white. The place seems contrived on pur-
pose to repel one by its utter unhomeliness.
Now, just contrast such q room a, this with
my i tile drawing-room in the small house a.
Hampstead Our ceiling is covered with q
pretty continuous distenpered design; our
walls are broken into decorative dado OF
storks aad water plants beneath, and small
upper piecing above, with geometrlcai inter-
lacIng patterns in q contrasting hue. Our
floor is polished at the sides and has TWO or
three different rugs placed about between the
caaIrs and table. so every bit of the frame
work OF the room is simply full of color-sub-
dued, pleasant restful color for the most part,
| allow, with uuobtrusige patterns which
do not solicit or fatigue the eye, but still most
unmstakable color, las different as possible from
the poverty stricken white OF utter Phllisti&
Then we nave few pictures huag upon the
upper piecing; few decorative plates fastened
against the wall; cabinet with Venetian glass
and good old Chinese porcelain above the dark
red mantelpiece; aud hearth set above with
green and blue Persian tiles. We have Chairs
and sofas covered with pretty tapestry; we
have few crewel work anti-macassars (Which
myself detest, but endure for Mrs. Cimabue
Browns sake); We have flowers ID abundance;
and on reception nights we have the dresses
and faces of women enlivening the whole
scene. If you were to drop in at one Of our
Wednesday evenings I'm quite sure you would
say you never saw SO much color crowded into
single room ia all your lite before. Only the
color is not dispersed about lndiscriminstely in
great solitary patches; it is harmonized and
subdued and combined into single decorative
chromatic effect.
When I say know you would think so, 1
am not speaking quite at random, but am gem
eraliziAg snberIy frTn my psst experience
great neDy cassasl aeqa ,iatlnees Vt mae, VINO
have never bson 10 ny house. but have get
me SO trien6s' dinners, OF at our otiIJe (he Sec
rotary u Stats for Sc0A4ud's) haze $50 20 M.
"Well, Mr.. Brown. we're quite sure We should
( not like youT style Of furnishing; we've heard
| us so very severe aud aesthetic" But wheney-
| er I've asked them just to drop in and see II,
| fbav, ve almost invariably gone awaV NOT 0nlV