International studio (56.1915)

European Influences in Modern Interior Decoration

TEXTILES DESIGNED BY A. A. BESEL AYJD EXECUTED BY THE CRAFTS AND
ART STUDIO


the European interiors a
room otherwise very fine
is almost ruined by the
atrocious fittings for light-
ing that are hung from
the ceilings and stuck out
as excrescences from the
walls. Our carpets, too,
are finer than any others
that are used. Chinese
rugs and an occasional
Oriental rug in which the
colour and design are thor-
oughly subdued, these to-
gether with plain and
nearly plain carpets are
the only things that the
decorator of taste will
use. Walls, ceilings, and
floors are backgrounds;
this is almost a law, so
few exceptions are there
to this rule. They are
backgrounds and should
be kept so. A black vel-
vet carpet, spotted with a
design of gaily coloured
pink roses with vivid green
foliage, is too noisy to
give much opportunity
for attention to the fur-
niture which is placed

orange and green, at the same time the vogue for
plain surfaces for wall and floor came to be an
obsession. The pendulum is swinging from that
extreme point. There is place for patterned sur-
faces and for intense colour; we cannot always
tolerate the monotony of the forest colours or of
uninterrupted areas of plain spaces.
The bedroom is perhaps the most successful
of the rooms illustrated here. The use of the
prints of eighteenth-century English portraits is
unfortunate; they are out of place in subject and
do not compose well on the wall. In this bed-
room is found a better lighting arrangement than
is usual in the rooms of the German interior
decorator. No more artistic carpets or lighting-
fixtures than those in America can be found
anywhere in the world. In nearly all of the work
of American decorators of taste, the lighting is
done entirely from the side-walls and tables. In

FURNITURE UPHOLSTERED IN MATERIALS DESIGNED BY
A. A. BESEL


LXXXVI