Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-01
ITALIAN FEELING IN
HOME DECORATION
BY KATE aREENLEAF LOCKE.

One thing pre-eminently We may learn
from the Italians in our furnishing of
houses. and that is the value of contrast.
When one enters an American home-a
private house or an apartment build
ing-one is prepared. by the decorations
and furnishing Of the entrance, for any
amount Of gorgeousness within.
In Italy the entrances to some OF the
most beautiful palaces in Rome and Flor
ence are Of cold and forbidding aspect
The stone halls seem dim and chilly. and
the sta1rways are often rough and dark,
but when great door is magically opened
and one is ushered into the salon it's
charm seems doubled by the contrast
There is in Rome a room, the salon
OF an American who lives in an old
palace of the Caesars which combines
the modern American love for color and
luxury with ancient Italian severity and
magnifcence in a wonderful way 1t
is seventy-five feet long, the ceiling
with its Italian beauty and inlay and
1resco Is thirty feet high and marble
pliasters support it at intervals down
white marble. tesselIated with black. So
much for the Italian side. A difficult
problem, one would say, to make this
huge stone room warm and habitable in
effect.
But the American woman has accom-
plished 1t and endowed it with a surpass-
ing beauty in the style Of her decorations
and furnishing. The walls between the
pilasters are covered with crimson bro
cade, OF SO soft and rich a tone that it
enters into your being and conveys
warmth OF pleasure merely TO see it. The
length Of the room is also broken at in
tervals by long Venetian mirrors that
reach from the frieze Of frescoes to the
floor. These, in their glittering Venetian
frames. are things Of beauty in them
selves. Fires are kept burning brightly
in the great stone f1replaces. and oriental
rugs lie on the marble floor. A grand
piano is across an end of the room and,
with dts music stands and paraphernalia
Tor chamber concerts, Is suggestive of
much of the pleasure to which this room
is dedicated. The feature that lends to
me q greater charm than any other is
the way In which she has treated the
great windows that open from the floor
at the far end of the room. OF these she
has made veritable gardens. BY inclosing
the outside balconies with glass she has
secured in each conservatory, and one
looks into a wealth of blossoms and the
beauty of young orange trees through the
open windows.
In this matter of period furnishing or
of adopting the suggestions offered by
different nationalities, there is much to
be considered. Our country is the heir
of all the ages We may browse where
we will and Gull certain things from any
nation, and as long as we adopt only
what is beautiful and desirable and then
have the discretion and tact so to COM
bine 1t with our own ideas as to produce
still further beauty. it is worth while to
search the world and all time for them.
But to cling so closely to a period as to
reproduce the faults of that period, to
furnish a house with English. French,
Italian or Dutch treatment. and. I may
now add. with Chinese. Japanese. Per-
sian or Egyptian, SO that ii is complete
replica OF houses in those countries, is
not sensible.
When Chippendale used Chinese ideas
| in his first chairs he produced something
that was a distinct improvement on his
model. Bonaparte brought from Egypt
the spirit that informed the empire fur
niture. yet, although 1T is cumbersome
enough, it lacks the full ugliness of
| Egyptian heaviness