THE WALL AS A BACKGROUND

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12434, 30 April 1926, Page 11

THE WALL AS A BACKGROUND

FOR FURNITURE AND PICTURES In the "Just so Stories," the Ethiopian changed his skin and the leopard got his spots so that they might ‘'match their backgrounds." Soroo time ago "Punch" had an arousing picture of a woman who "matched her background." She was wearing a striped dress. She sat down in a chair uovered with striped cretonne, and, like Ethiopian and leopard when they went into the "shadowy forest," she disappeared in it. That sort of matching is what one chiefly wants to avoid in decorating and furnishing. In a room you see everything. not isolated, but in relation to something else You see pictures and curtains against the walls. You see the furniture partly against the walls and partly against the carpet. These things should harmonise, hut they must not "match" one another. You must decide which of them you wish to be prominent. and then make the rest of the decoration subordinate to them and in harmony with them. • • * * There are four materials to choose from in the decoration of the walls: wood-panelling, painty paper, distemper. Of these, panelling is easily the most beautiful—most beautiful in itself for its surface, its grain, and its mouldings, most beautiful also as a background for pictures. But a good wood-panelling is expensive, so the choice for most people must be between the other three. All three, paint, distemper, paper, can be used simply as a background for pictures. All three can be used more freely and easily, because they can have design as well as colour. If there are no pictures, then paint and distemper should ho used only in small rooms, where the furniture, the curtains, the mirrors, and the brackets for electnclight are sutßcient, even without pictures, to break the monotony of the plain surface of the walls. Of r-ourse In a wooden house painting and distempering are usually only applicable to plastered walls. Wood panelling is adaptable to any wall, hut unless it is good it is not worth having. • • • • As a background pnint is expensive, but it is also most adaptable. If it is varnished, it can be washed, and it lasts

a loner time. By having it 6tippled yon can give it. a surface which is beautiful in itself, with light and shade, in it, while still remaining a plain background . for the pictures. Distemper has the advantage of cheapness, ana one can now get it in just as great a variety of colour as paint. But it cannot be stippled, and ha» a more monotonous surface. For this reason it is advisable not to use it in a light shade, unless there ,are pictures. Paper is not a good background for pictures, but it also has its advantages. If it is paper of good duality it eftft he cleaned, but not so easily as paint. It gives a greater choice. One scan' 1 get in papers as in paint a beautiful stippled surface; one can get. papers which, while they are a plain background without pattern, yet nave the suggestion of more then one colour in them* and one can get papers with "all-over” patterns in shades of one colour which also make beautiful backgrounds.