Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/303

 INTERIOR FlxNISHlNG OF COTTAGES. ^79 and the styles and niils left plain, or the contrary. It is easy to conceive that there may be a great variety of stencil paneling adapted to plain cottages, which any cottager or emigrant, who' could mix milk whh ochres or any cheap universal colour, and use a blacking brush, miglit do for himself. 581. Papcrum lite U'ath of liooms is a very general practice in Britain; and is ap- plicable, to a certain extent, even to the humblest cottages. It is not adapted lor kitchens or other apartments in which the coarser domestic labours are constantly going forward ; but it gives a clothed, warm, and comfortable air to bed-rooms, and an enriched finish to the better description of living-rooms. The variety of papers for rooms is almost endless ; beginning with a flat shade of colour, and rising tlirough patterns of one, two, or three, or more, to twenty or thirty different colours, or shades of colours, as in the printed landscapes, some years since introduced into this manufacture by the French. All this variety may either be printed on the paper in water colours, or in colours in which oil is introduced, so as to admit of their being washed with soap and water. The figures on papers may be classed as arcliitectural, either in the Gothic, Grecian, or other styles ; as imitations of nature, either plants or animals, or combina- tions of these in landscape scenery ; or as historical or biographical, and, consequently, either groups of figures or portraits. As the fashions of most of these papers change as frequently as those of printed cottons, it would serve little purpose to offer designs of them, either for the choice of the builder or the direction of the manufacturer. 582. The designs which are printed on papers, like those which are printed on different cloths, may be divided into two kinds : those which are intended to be correct imitations of natural' or artificial objects, such as of particular species of plants or animals; and those which are fanciful compositions of artificial forms and lines, or of plants and animals imagined in imitation cf nature's general manner, but not copied from any of her specific objects. All ornaments truly architectural or sculptural are of this latter class, and they are in no style more beautifully exemplified than in the Grecian ; and, perhaps, in no ornament of that style more elegantly than in the sculptured honeysuckle which decorates many of the friezes of the ancient temples. As this style of design brings into exercise the imagination and invention of the artist, while the other (that of copying specific objects) only calls forth his powers of imitation, the former must necessarily be considered higher in the scale ; and hence we find that the ornaments of the most cultivated nations of antiquity are of this class, while those of nations who have never excelled in the arts of design, as the Chinese for example, are of the other. Thus, while Grecian or Roman ornaments have only in their forms a certain allusion to particular plants or animals, almost all the plants and animals on Chinese papers and cottons may be referred to particular species or varieties. The imaginative style of design, carried to a high degree of perfection, is addressed to the cultivated mind, and excites admiration on the same principle, though in an inferior degree, as a painting or a piece of sculpture ; and the imitative style, carried to an e(|ual degree of per- fection, is addressed to the memory and the judgment, and gives pleasure to the mind, by its imitation of well known objects, and by the associations which their images recall- As a proof that the imaginative designs, if we may so term them, are more permanently satisfactory than the merely imitative or natural history ones, it may be stated that all those patterns of papers and cloths which have withstood the changes of feshion are of the former description; while all those patterns which have soonest palled on the public taste have been attempts at close imitations of nature. At a large ma- nufactory of tea trays, and other articles in papier mache, at Wolverhampton, a trial was made, a few years ago, to substitute portraits of plants botanical! y correct, for the ima- ginai7 compositions of flowers and leaves generally used ; but the change was found unsatisfactory, as the articles would not sell. The drawing-room walls of the celebrated stock-broker Goldschmidt, at Morden, were covered with silk, painted with flowers and other objects, which were all drawn and coloured with scientific accuracy. We recollect the principal flower was the i"arcissus Tazctta, with its bulb and roots accurately portrayed ; but, though we admired the figure in a botanical point of view, it gave us no pleasure as an ornament among other ornaments ; because it had no connection with any of them, and did not combine with tliem in forming a whole. A showy geranium paper, and a red rose and green trellis paper, are seldom chosen but by those who cannot derive pleasure from a higher style of composition. 583. Ill the choice of papers for a common cottage, the same general principles may be observed respecting patterns and borders, as were mentioned under the head of stenciling. One of the best plain papers for tlie entrance lobby and the staircases of cottages, is one simply marked with lines in imitation of hewn stone ; because, when any part of this paper is damaged, a piece, of the size of one of the stones, can be renewed, without having the appearance of a patch. There are very appropriate Gothic papers, with borders at the top, to imitate cornices, which are very suitable for Gothic cottages.