One or, at most, two fine pictures are all any ordinary room will stand, and to produce an effect wherein nothing overwhelmingly predominates, but everything finds its place and remains there, requires genius different from but of the same high order as that of the painter, and that sort of genius has been lacking in the Western world for some centuries. So low has the once great art of painting fallen that it has helplessly relinquished its original field of great achievement, the adornment of buildings inside and out, and that has become a separate trade so incompetently followed that the phrase “interior decorator” is one of reproach. And yet little as the commercial “interior decorator” knows about decoration, it is safer to trust to his fustian stock of burlaps, wall-papers, imitation leathers, metals, lustres, and illuminations than follow the guidance of the painters themselves,--for, with rare exceptions, they know nothing beyond the narrow confines of their frames, and their own houses and studios resemble curiosity-shops. The art of decoration, which implies the co-operation of architect, sculptor, and painter as a unit, has not been practised since the sixteenth century, and not in any high degree of perfection since three hundred years before. With the disintegration of the union among the arts, each has accomplished endless detached and isolated perfections, but nothing that is really worth while in the sense that a Greek temple or a Gothic cathedral was worth while,--for nothing so chaste and perfect as the former or so sublime and beautiful as the latter has been done since each of the three constructive arts began to work in jealous independence of the others. * * * * * Rossetti and Whistler were both friends of the wealthy and eccentric ship-owner F. R. Leyland, of No. 50 Prince’s Gate. He was a collector of things rare and beautiful, a “patron” of art and artists, a musician, and altogether a character one associates with Romance rather than with London. It was for him that Whistler painted the famous “Peacock Room,” under the following circumstances: Leyland had bought the “Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” and one day Whistler went to see it in place. He found it in a dining-room which was richly decorated with costly Spanish leather and a heavy ceiling of wood, a place altogether too sombre for his bright and brilliant “Princess,” and he protested against the discord. * * * * * “What would you do?” asked Leyland. “Paint the room.” “What! paint that beautiful Spanish leather?” “Most assuredly,--if this is to be the boudoir of the ‘Princess.’” Whistler was told to go ahead and make the room harmonize with the painting. He started in and covered every inch of wall surface, even the insides of the shutters, with a wonderful scheme of decoration in blue and gold, the brilliant coloring of the peacock, making a color-effect rich beyond description.