The San Francisco call., 1895-05-22

production and love of art which are increas-
ingly to be found in our large cities are doing
public taste and spread knowledge of the
true principles of beauty among the people.
But the best ally in this work is the esthetic
culture of the home AS one visits the loan
art exhibits so frequently held in our larger
towns and views their collections of articles of
beauty he is impressed with the truth that
much II not the greater part of the art activity
of our time is devoted to the decoration and
adornment of the home. Once art was the al
most exclusive possession of the palace and
the church, the forum and the theater. The
Greeks allowed their wealthy citizens only
moderate amount of objects of art in their pri-
yate houses, and the dwellings of the humber
classes were bare and mean. But to-day art
1ayishes her choicest treasures on the adorn-
ment of the temple OF the family life. 1t pro-
duces in vast abundance the elegant furniture
and fittings, the tapestries, carvings, kera-
mics and pictures that make home the most
beautiful shrine, the loveliest spot on earth
to u.s.
We know how very. slowly this has been ar
rived at in this New World, how pnrelentingly
our stern Puritan and Quaker ancestors
crushed out every manifestation of the in.
stinct for beauty. the craving to express it in
beauty was vile of the devil to lure the soul
to its destruction. studied plainness
and barrenness in the home was reck-
virtues. A golden crook-necked squash or
string of red and yellow onions
dependent from the rafters Of the ceiling, a
IL,
bits of color that lit up their somber dwelling.
This dread of art and ignorance of its true
principles has descended far into our own day.
Who does not remember the parlors of our
New England homes, with their green blinds
closely shut and shades drawn to keep the sun
from fading the carpet with its hideous pat
| terms in red, yellow and black; the hreboard
with its coarse wallpaper design; the hearth
rug, on which was revealed a reclining tiger
with sore eyes: the huge decalcomania vases
filled with sanded grasses or big bouquets of pa
per flowers while on the wall hung horrid daubs
! of landscapes or splotchy family portraits,
/ angular and staring, a faded sampler or two
| with pious doggerel worked in worsted; over
| representing q tomb, q weeping willow and q
discOnsolate mourner. If the head of the fam
| lily was widower or had married again the
silver coffin plate of his buried wife, with trne
New England thrift,was saved from the earth's
damps and decays and placed as the chief or
nament on the mantelpiece-perhaps also as q
| grim reminder to his second helpmeet.
Such was the art environment out of which
has been evolved the American home of to-
day. 1t is not to be wondered at that it should
still be SO lacking in true artistic feeling and
] taste.
AS one goes about and sees the
current attempt to express the beauti
| full, especially among humble people, he
ness and the pathos of their endeavor to empty
| ones china closet into the parlor, or skyline
enormous family portraits. or clutter up the
room with the rubbish from the ancestra
| beautiful nor artistic.
What is lacking in our American homes il
! not money chiefly but good taste. One woman
by an investment of thousands OF dollars il
succeed in proclaiming the more loudly he
| want OF artistic refinement Another woman
/ with tack hammer and a few brass nails anG
bits OF cheesecloth. with few cheap etching