Studio: international art (14.1898)

Furniture for the New Palace, Darmstadt

Of these the music cabinet explains itself
better than the rest, because it gives some
indication of the colour which forms such an
important item in these designs, and in this
connection the interior decoration may be par-
ticularly noted—the attention which has been
given to what may be called linings.

There is, perhaps, no method of applying
ornament which makes so much for mystery or
suggests so much of the charm of hidden
beauties. A cabinet with doors discreetly
closed, externally of simple and perhaps severe
design, gives no hint of the brightness of its
interior till one opens a door and experiences
that shock of pleased surprise which decoration
has the power of evoking.

And afterwards one never quite loses the

OCTAGONAL TABLE

DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT

SEMI-CIRCULAR ARMCHAIR

DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT

consciousness of that hidden brightness of colour,
and one never need get tired of it as one does
of the insistent pattern of pronounced decoration
which is always before the eye. One of the great
difficulties to be met by the decorator of a room
which is to be lived in is that he must needs tone
down his effects so that there shall be nothing to
unduly worry or distract. “ Spottiness,” to use the
technical slang, must be avoided.

The principle which is right in the poster, where
the object is to arrest the attention, will hardly
bear application to the sitting-room, where the object
is to rest the eye—to soothe rather than to distract.

And so to come back to our cabinets: this
decoration of interiors which are only occasionally
revealed seems to present a fair field for the use of
brightness and richness of colour.

The exterior decoration of the music cabinet is
carried out in inlaid wood stained, and the lilies

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