Mr. Whistler finished another room just before I
came away - a breakfast room in blue and yellow. The ceiling was a
light blue, the cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow
wood, the curtains at the windows were white and worked in yellow,
and when the table was set for breakfast with dainty blue china
nothing can be conceived at once so simple and so joyous.
The fault which I have observed in most of your rooms is that there
is apparent no definite scheme of colour. Everything is not
attuned to a key-note as it should be. The apartments are crowded
with pretty things which have no relation to one another. Again,
your artists must decorate what is more simply useful. In your art
schools I found no attempt to decorate such things as the vessels
for water. I know of nothing uglier than the ordinary jug or
pitcher. A museum could be filled with the different kinds of
water vessels which are used in hot countries. Yet we continue to
submit to the depressing jug with the handle all on one side. I do
not see the wisdom of decorating dinner-plates with sunsets and
soup-plates with moonlight scenes. I do not think it adds anything
to the pleasure of the canvas-back duck to take it out of such
glories.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177