The Art of Interior Decoration — Reading Notes

(0 User reviews) 296

In Category - Design Photography

Authors: Wood, Grace, Burbank, Emily Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Interior decoration; Furniture Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 44,698

Reading time 195 min

Text sections 12

Before opening The Art of Interior Decoration — Reading Notes, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 44,698 words, 3 hr 15 min estimated reading time, and 12 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 24.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Interior decoration,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #14298

An editorial note examining how Grace Wood and Emily Burbank structure their 1917 interior decoration manual through recurring images of line, balance, and movement between rooms, using specific excerpts to trace their method.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg14298

Read the Text

CHAPTER I. HOW TO REARRANGE A ROOM

Method of procedure.--Inherited eyesores.--Line.--Colour.--Treatment of small rooms and suites.--Old ceilings.--Old floors.--To paint brass bedsteads.--Hangings.--Owning two or three antique pieces of furniture, how proceed.--Appropriateness to setting.--How to give your home a personal quality.

CHAPTER II. HOW TO CREATE A ROOM

Mere comfort.--Period rooms.--Starting a collection of antique furniture.--Reproductions.--Painted furniture.--Order of procedure in creating a room.--How to decide upon colour scheme.--Study values.--Period ballroom.--A distinguished room.--Each room a stage "set."--Background.--Flowers as decoration.--Placing ornaments.--Tapestry.--Tendency to antique tempered by vivid Bakst colours.

CHAPTER III. HOW TO DETERMINE CHARACTER OF HANGINGS AND FURNITURE-COVERING FOR A GIVEN ROOM

Silk, velvet, corduroy, rep, leather, use of antique silks, chintz.--When and how used.

CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF TEXTILES

Materials woven by hand and machine, embroidered, or the combination of the two known as Tapestry.--Painted tapestry.--Art fostered by the Church.--Decorated walls and ceilings, 13th century, England.

CHAPTER V. CANDLESTICKS, LAMPS, FIXTURES FOR GAS AND ELECTRICITY, AND SHADES

Fixtures, as well as mantelpiece, must follow architect's scheme.--Plan wall space for furniture.--Shades for lights.--Important as to line and colour.

CHAPTER VI. WINDOW SHADES AND AWNINGS

Coloured gauze sash-curtains.--Window shades of glazed linen, with design in colours.--Striped canvas awnings.

CHAPTER VII. TREATMENT OF PICTURES AND PICTURE FRAMES

Selecting pictures.--Pictures as pure decoration.--"Staring" a picture.--Restraint necessary in hanging pictures.--Hanging miniatures.

CHAPTER VIII. TREATMENT OF PIANO CASES

Where interest centres abound piano.--Where piano is part of ensemble.

CHAPTER IX. TREATMENT OF DINING-ROOM BUFFETS AND DRESSING-TABLES

Articles placed upon them.

CHAPTER X. TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS, AND FISH GLOBES

Value as colour notes.

CHAPTER XI. TREATMENT OF FIREPLACES

Proportions, tiles, andirons, grates.

CHAPTER XII. TREATMENT OF BATHROOMS

A man's bathroom.--A woman's bathroom.--Bathroom fixtures.--Bathroom glassware.

CHAPTER XIII. PERIOD ROOMS

Chiselling of metals.--Ormoulu.--Chippendale.--Colonial.--Victorian.--The art of furniture making.--How to hang a mirror.--Appropriate furniture.--A home must have human quality, a personal note.--Mrs. John L. Gardner's Italian Palace in Boston.--The study of colour schemes.--Tapestries.--A narrow hall.

CHAPTER XIV. PERIODS IN FURNITURE

The story of the evolution of periods.-- Assyria.--Egypt.--Greece.--Rome.--France. --England.--America.--Epoch-making styles.

CHAPTER XV. CONTINUATION OF PERIODS IN FURNITURE

Greece.--Rome.--Byzantium.--Dark Ages.--Middle Ages.--Gothic.--Moorish.--Spanish.--Anglo-Saxon.--Cæsar's Table.--Charlemagne's Chair.--Venice.

CHAPTER XVI. THE GOTHIC PERIOD

Interior decoration of Feudal Castle.--Tapestry.--Hallmarks of Gothic oak carving.

CHAPTER XVII. THE RENAISSANCE

Italy.--The Medici.--Great architects, painters, designers, and workers in metals.--Marvellous pottery.--Furniture inlaying.--Hallmarks of Renaissance.--Oak carving.--Metal work.--Renaissance in Germany and Spain.

CHAPTER XVIII. FRENCH FURNITURE

Renaissance of classic period.--Francis I, Henry II, and the Louis.--Architecture, mural decoration, tapestry, furniture, wrought metals, ormoulu, silks, velvets, porcelains.

CHAPTER XIX. THE PERIODS OF THE THREE LOUIS

How to distinguish them.--Louis XIV.--Louis XV.--Louis XVI.--Outline.--Decoration.--Colouring.--Mural Decoration.--Tapestry.

CHAPTER XX. CHARTS SHOWING HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF FURNITURE

CHAPTER XXI. THE MAHOGANY PERIOD

Chippendale.--Heppelwhite.--Sheraton.--The Adam Brothers.--Characteristics of these and the preceding English periods; Gothic, Elizabethan, Jacobean, William and Mary, Queen Anne.--William Morris.--Pre-Raphaelites.

CHAPTER XXII. THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Furniture.--Landscape paper.--The story of the evolution of wall decoration.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVIVAL OF DIRECTOIRE AND EMPIRE FURNITURE

Shown in modern painted furniture.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

Architecture and interior decoration become unrelated.--Machine-made furniture.--Victorian cross-stitch, beadwork, wax and linen flowers.--Bristol glass.--Value to-day as notes of variety.

CHAPTER XXV. PAINTED FURNITURE

Including "mission" furniture.--Treatment of an unplastered cottage.--Furniture, colour-scheme.

CHAPTER XXVI. TREATMENT OF AN INEXPENSIVE BEDROOM

Factory furniture.--Chintz.--The cheapest mirrors.--Floors.--Walls.--Pictures.--Treatment of old floors.

CHAPTER XXVII. TREATMENT OF A GUEST ROOM

Where economy is not a matter of importance.--Panelled walls.--Louis XV painted furniture.--Taffeta curtains and bed-cover.--Chintz chair-covers.--Cream net sash-curtains.--Figured linen window-shades.

CHAPTER XXVIII. A MODERN HOUSE IN WHICH GENUINE JACOBEAN FURNITURE Is APPROPRIATELY SET

Traditional colour-scheme of crimson and gold.

CHAPTER XXIX. UNCONVENTIONAL BREAKFAST-ROOMS AND SPORTS BALCONIES

Porch-rooms.--Appropriate furnishings.--Colour schemes.

CHAPTER XXX. SUN-ROOMS

Colour schemes according to climate and season.--A small, cheap, summer house converted into one of some pretentions by altering vital details.

CHAPTER XXXI. TREATMENT OF A WOMAN'S DRESSING-ROOM

Solving problems of the toilet.--Shoe cabinets.--Jewel cabinets.--Dressing tables.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE TREATMENT OF CLOSETS

Variety of closets.--Colour scheme.--Chintz covered boxes.

CHAPTER XXXIII. TREATMENT OF A NARROW HALL

Furniture.--Device for breaking length of hall.

CHAPTER XXXIV. TREATMENT OF A VERY SHADED LIVING-ROOM

Continue Reading →

The Art of Interior Decoration opens not with a definition of style but with a command to visualize: “try to imagine how you want each room to look when completed; get the picture well in your mind, as a painter would.” This painterly approach governs the book’s structure, which moves from general principles to specific period analyses and then to room-by-room applications. The authors repeatedly invoke the metaphor of a “spinal column” for a room, insisting that ornament must remain “subservient to line.” Throughout the excerpts, this structural thinking is reinforced by a recurring image of balance and repose, as in the description of a drawing room where “perfect balance, repose—line, everywhere” is said to create a scene ready for use.

Line as Organizing Principle

The foreword establishes line as the book’s central structural device. The authors advise keeping “all ornamentation subservient to line,” a directive that recurs in later descriptions of Louis XVI interiors, where even Cupid is “decorously framed or pedestaled.” This insistence on line as a controlling element shapes the book’s movement from abstract advice to concrete examples. In the drawing room plate, the authors point out “line, everywhere, yet with it infinite grace,” suggesting that line is not merely a boundary but a source of elegance. The text treats line as both a visual and conceptual spine, linking the amateur’s mental picture to the professional’s executed scheme.

Movement Between Periods and Rooms

The book’s structure moves fluidly between historical periods and physical spaces. The excerpts show a progression from the “three Louis” (XIV, XV, XVI) to the First Empire, with each period characterized by its own “colour scheme” and decorative logic. The authors describe Louis XVI as “rigid in its aristocratic sobriety,” contrasting it with the “tender and vague” paintings of Louis XV. This comparative movement is mirrored in the room descriptions: a drawing room is analyzed for composition, then a studio is presented as a “combination of living-room and painter’s studio.” The text thus shifts between eras and functions, using each to illustrate a principle of balance or appropriateness.

Recurring Images of Containment and Frame

Throughout the excerpts, the authors return to images of framing and containment. Mouldings are described as “encrusting” walls and ceilings, forming panels and medallions that “framed” tapestries and paintings. Even pastoral subjects are “linked to the period” by “straight lines.” The Louis XVI period is said to have “profited by antiquity” but “continued French traditions,” suggesting a framing of historical influence. In the studio plate, the “laws of appropriateness, practicableness, proportion and balance” are said to “communicate at once a sense of restfulness,” as if the room itself is a contained composition. This recurring motif of enclosure—whether through mouldings, frames, or principles—gives the book a consistent visual vocabulary.

The Amateur’s Path to Professional Vision

The authors explicitly address the amateur reader, offering a method to “learn to mentally furnish rooms.” They describe a progression: “A decorator creates or rearranges one room; the owner does the next, alone, or with assistance.” This incremental movement from observation to independent creation mirrors the book’s own structure, which begins with general principles and ends with specific plates. The foreword promises that “the amateur can also learn to mentally furnish rooms,” and the excerpts show this learning process through repeated emphasis on visualization and planning. The text thus functions as both a manual and a demonstration of its own method, moving the reader from passive appreciation to active design.

Readers will find that the book’s value lies less in its period details than in its consistent application of a few core ideas: line as structure, frame as focus, and movement as method. The authors do not simply catalog styles; they teach a way of seeing rooms as compositions that can be mentally rearranged. For those interested in the craft of decoration, this editorial note suggests attending to how the text itself moves—from principle to example, from period to room—as a model for the creative process it advocates.

There’s something tender about old manuals that trust their readers to move slowly, like Wood and Burbank guiding us from room to room without hurry. That same patience lives in needlework histories, where each stitch is a quiet decision. I found myself thinking of The Development of Embroidery in America — Key Ideas to Explore afterward, missing the hands that made those patterns.