FURNITURE GIMCRACK?

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1935, Page 4

FURNITURE GIMCRACK?

CRITICISM OF DOMINION VISITORS SUPPORT THIS VIEW. COMFORT AND ART NOT STUDIED. DOMESTIC FACILITIES CONTRAST. ' Are the furnishings in New Zealand homes merely adequate and gimcrack. In his latest book, “Older People, Mr. Hector Bolitho, the distinguished New Zealand biographer and novelist, says that they are. And though most New Zealanders would hotly deny the suggestion, from opinions of overseas visitors to New Plymouth, culled by a News reporter, there is some truth in the accusations. . Those interviewed were chiefly surprised that adequate use in the furnishing of New Zealand homes had not been made of the matchless native timber available. All were emphatic that in the range of fine timber New Zealand was a long way ahead of most countries. Yet, they agreed with Mr. Bolitho, the finished article was gimcrack and even hideous, and the furnishings of the majority of homes a trial to the eye and the body. Astonishment was also expressed that New Zealanders, in choosing cloths for chairs and chesterfields, should pick designs so obviously gaudy as to be completely divorced from the artistic, or, alternatively, to choose sombre colours generally at variance with the room furnished. . One South African was particularly caustic. To call the furnishings, in the average New Zealand home gimcrack was, in his opinion, putting things mildly. New Zealanders had yet to learn that the art of furnishing was to make a room comfortable from all points. From the point of a visitor, it should have the appearance of being lived in, and from the point of the owner, it should have the appearance of complete restfulness. Mostly, the homes he had visited lacked pretensions either way, and in their stiff formality they presented the remarkable appearance of museum exhibits of a forgotten civilisation. THOUGHT NEEDED IN EACH ROOM. “What most people in this country do not seem to realise,” he said,. “is that furnishing a home comfortably is an art requiring some, if not considerable, study. One must be prepared, when setting up house, to devote thought to each room, its colourings and its furnishings. Each room must be, treated differently, and if complete harmony between the wallpapers and the furnishings is achieved, then a home can truly become a castle.” An Englishman who has been resident in the Dominion for a couple of years said he had known homes at New Plymouth where to walk into the “front room in shoes was to commit sacrilege, so carefully was it kept. Even when the room was opened on state occasions a slight smell of decay was noticeable. His suggestion was that more use should be made of drawing and sitting rooms. “Even if high-spirited children do play around the chairs and scrape the carpet,” he said, “the room, by that activity, will sooner approach tne appearance of having been comfortably lived in than if it were kept locked, like Bluebeard’s den, and used on Sunday nights when there were ‘visitors.’ Too much attention is paid in New Zealand .to the impressing of visitors. If they are friends they will accept you for yourself. If they, are not, tell them, by your furnishings and your room decoration, that you have some pretensions to the artistic—l do not use,the word in the ‘arty’ sense—and they wilF inevitably accept you.” There is one spot of hope in the general condemnation. An Australian, while of the opinion that New Zealanders have a good deal to learn in correct furnishing, paid a warm tribute to the unequalled conveniences available in even working class homes. Facilities like hot water, electric light and others, now accepted casually in New Zealand as fundamental requirements in any home, were, H? said, remarkable in contrast to the more primitive conveniences of homes in other countries, including, to a large extent, Australia. The use of hot water in country towns of Australia was confined to rich people, and electric stoves were practically unknown.