| Show If givr IN HOfStrriotn DECORATION Artistic Lamp hinZsTiio Jlenl and hc Sham With the craze for decoration that has been growing apace for several 3 ears the word artistic has been made to answer for no end of crimes against true taste It has been applied to all sorts of shams made responsible for the most incongruous massing together of unrelated unrelat-ed objects lent its name to pretty and triflling duration and been held out as a bait to unsuspecting housekeepers in a thousand different ways But in my opinion in no one single direction nab this word artistic been made answerable for greater outrages against taste than in the making of lampshades lamp-shades such as ai3 the fashion of the davThe The popularity of the lamp seems to be ever increasing Ko aesthetic woman is without I her limp The improved burners burn-ers and the purified oil have done much toward popularising I it but love of comfort com-fort and r beauty have donii more Ever since the steady unllickering ilanie was discovered to suit the students eyes and the soft mellow light to soften the marks of time as > veil as to enhance the beauty of youth the lamp has been fixed in I I ciii I WROIGHT IRON AMBER SHADE favor In either its convenient reading and sewing bright or in its appropriate I banquet fize or in its lustre standard form it is seen in every home and in I almost every instance surmcunted by n shade Yet how seldom by a shade that i fulfills its purpose well An artistic lamp shade by virtue of tIle name itself should be something in harmony with the lamp mid suited to time purpose for which it is designed Yet under that name WP see hundreds of tawdry theatrical looking inflammable draperies to one dignified safe and appropriate ap-propriate shads Lce artificial flowers and paper both crinkled ard plain are the materials most frequenty used Light flimsy silks too are much in demand and when the highest point of development develop-ment is readied two three or even more are included in the makeup jf one shade Passing along one of our leading thoroughfares thor-oughfares not long ago my attention was arrested by the display of two rival deal crs Both laid claims to beIng artists m their special line but as I contrasted their wares 1 was led to ponder upon that word artistic which should apply to what is best and highest in mechanical skill In one of the displays a slender dcli catelytinted column of Dresden china makes the base of a lamp snd upon its slight support is made to lest a shade that is a marvel The artist has made a foundation of wire large enough to be proportionate to the heaviest piano lamp I upon it he has heaped silk lace and flowers in a profusion that over weights the standard and causes the lamp to sink I into insignificance beside its shade Ho has made use of the most inflammable materials that he could find He has I festooned the lace after the manner of modistes upon a gown and over all he has hung garlands of artificial flowers that serve only to impair the Iig tAn t-An accident might send Ibis inllammH ble shade into the flame of the lighted lamp and create a disastrous blazeyet art demands spanility before all else Jl spoils the effect of the lamp by giving giv-ing it a mushroom shape it was never designed to have yet art requires symmetry in the whole it is I unequal in thickness and sheds an irregular light yet art demands genuine genu-ine service of every object designed for Iseo and also demands all decoration to be a part of the object itself and not a toy hung on to attract the eye A lamp surmounted by such a shade is according to the laws of taste utterly f rein to all that a lamp should be and as it stands compared with its neighbors of a higher cast it would seem to require from the housekeeper but a single glance eeWt to chose between time two The rival claimant to the glances of the passerbye are simple in the extreme The lamps are i spectively oC hand wrought iron and or onyx combined with burnished gilt They are good in form and design ih as they are in i nowise t different from others to ebe seen elsewhere it is the Simple dignity of the shades that separates them from numberless others of a similar cost One variety of these lamps has a generous gen-erous globe of opalescent glass that by I I I I 5 S I IlE IMSIIIONAULC CRAZE I virtue of its lovely tints and the harmony of its form with that of the lamp itself seems truly a part of the whole The I other shade Is of iron like the lamp It is 1 hammered into a graceful lace like pmQ tern and is thus made light Jn weight as well as sufficiently open to allow the rays passand it covers an inner porcelain por-celain shade jf glorious yellow J3oth shades are subordinate to the gen t j 1 S 0 S J 4S S r 3hh di W 11 eral effect They ere parts of a symetri cal whole and they shed the best possible iighLthrough a medium fitted to its use They will never attract efoo to themselves them-selves and will be content to add to the lamps that they surmount And as according ac-cording to all the laws laid down by those who have made a study of decorative art they fulfill their functions well They become artistic shades in the fullest sens of the word Yet hundreds of the fashionable ex apgerations can be sold to one of the truly admirable make The housekeeper ought to learn a esson from the Greeks and demand that the simplest object of household use be cf fi 1 8 modelled upon some really admirable design de-sign We ought to denounce foolish ornamentation orna-mentation and keep before us that first principle of 111tthe filnes of the object ob-ject to the use for which it is designed S CLARA DUNCE |
