Page 45

               Wails
                                       45
as a permanent mode of decoration they are both unhealthy and
inappropriate.  There is something unpleasant in the idea of a
dust-collecting fabric fixed to the wall, so that it cannot be
shaken out at will like a curtain.  Textile fabrics are meant to be
moved, folded, shaken: they have none of the qualities of per-
manence and solidity which we associate with the walls of a
room.  The much-derided marble curtains of the Jesuit church in
Venice are no more illogical than stuff wall-hangings.
  In decorating the walls of a room, the first point to be consid-
ered is whether they are to form a background for its contents, or
to be in themselves its chief decoration.  In many cases the dis-
appointing effects of wall-decoration are due to the fact that this
important distinction has been overlooked.    In rooms that are
to be hung with prints or pictures, the panelling or other treat-
ment of the walls should be carefully designed with a view to the
size and number of the pictures.     Pictures should never be hung
against a background of pattern.      Nothing is more distressing
than the sight of a large oil-painting in a ponderous frame seem-
ingly suspended from a spray of wild roses or any of the other
naturalistic vegetation of the modern wall-paper.  The overlaying
of pattern is always a mistake.    It produces a confusion of line in
which the finest forms lose their individuality and significance.
  It is also important to avoid hanging pictures or prints too close
to each other.   Not only do the colors clash, but the different
designs of the frames, some of which may be heavy, with deeply
recessed mouldings, while others are flat and carved in low relief,
produce an equally discordant impression.   Every one recognizes
the necessity of selecting the mouldings and other ornamental
details of a room with a view to their position in the scheme of
decoration; but few stop to consider that in a room hung with