ABSTRACT
The principle can hardly be too often insisted upon that decoration is the obedient, though not the servile, handmaid to the master art of architecture, and therefore like that art must conform to symmetry, proportion, order. The decoration must likewise in its scale be apportioned to the size of the rooms and to the wall-spaces to be filled: the ornament should be evenly balanced and disposed over the entire surface, conveying the impression of intention and method. The decoration of a dwelling is indeed little else than the application to flat surfaces of the laws of ornament. The decoration of an ordinary dwelling is a comparatively simple affair, provided only a few elementary principles be borne in mind. Domestic decoration, unlike the monumental painting formerly in the service of the State or of princely families. Many are the methods and materials used in past and present days for the decoration of dwellings.
