International studio (82.1925)

mceRnAcioriAL

REPLICA OF A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN MANTEL Courtesy oj Wm. H. Jackson Company

have not been altogether successful. Of course, width and depth must be worked out with the

during that remarkable period of invention which practical problem of draught playing as important

introduced the gas log to a shivering world there a part in his scheme as the esthetic quality he

were experiments in plenty. Horrors of tortured hopes to achieve. The structure of the frame of

walnut, stabbed with mirrors and sprouting count- the opening, which may also determine that of the

less shelves, writhed from floor to ceiling and chimneypiece above, is again strictly limited, so

echoed the agony of the whatnot. These, how- that whatever ornament he uses must follow quite

ever, can hardly be called fireplaces; they were definite lines. And within these limitations, except

designed as a fitting frame for a contrivance whose for variety in detail, there is almost nothing which

very smell proclaimed the distance of its removal has not been done in some one of the great archi-

from fire and hearth. For the present, at least, tectural periods.

they lack even an antiquarian interest. Apart There is one possible exception to this. In

from these, and certain imitations of logs in con- recent years there has been growing up a school

crete—bad, but no worse—it is almost impossible of "quaint charm" in architecture, examples of

to find a modern fireplace and chimneypiece in which have filled the suburbs of our large cities

which tradition has not been closely followed. with magazine covers in wood, plaster, brick and

The fireplace, more closely allied to architec- stone. Behind those handicraft facades who knows

ture than furniture, changes only with building what strange creations may lurk? The possibilities

styles, and since we have developed no new style are appalling. This much has saved the day for

in domestic architecture since the Georgian (the many of them, however. Contractors have found

1850's excepted), it is quite natural that the a variation on the colonial theme the least expen-

frames for our fires should be reminiscent of other sive and so many houses are blessed with simple

days. Even were an architect to attempt some- mantels. But colonial mantels, when they are

thing entirely new he would find his problem one good, form a subject quite apart. They belong,

of great difficulty. First there are the shape of too, to a different social order than that which is

the opening and its surrounding structural mem- represented by our great estates of the present day.

bers to be considered. Immediately the designer France, England and Italy have been drawn

is aware of narrow limitations. For the opening on heavily for inspiration for the mantels in large

he must choose a rectangle, a rectangle and arch American country houses. French Gothic, Eng-

■—round, pointed or flat—or a full arch, with the land of the Tudors and Stuarts, and Italy of the

Romanesque semicircle and the Saxon corbeled Renaissance. In general, it is to the sturdier styles

triangle as extremes. The relation of height, that our landed gentry have turned for their

one thirty

NOVEMBER I925