Within most of us there’s a collector trying to get out; but although everyone may be a magpie at heart, not everyone is blessed with an unerring instinct for placing things, beautifully, in relation to others.Agreeable arrangements don’t necessarily come up if you let the accumulation of objects take its natural course. Unlike lovely drifts of spring flowers that materialize when, instead of poking in the bulbs one by one, you close your eyes and scatter them anyhow before planting, things have a nasty habit of conglomerating in an untidy mess. Conversely, too rigid a discipline might land you with the equivalent of a regiment of municipal tulips standing to attention.
The process of arranging what are essentially still life’s on walls, shelves, and table-tops has much in common with flower arranging; color, shape, texture and proportion all contribute to the result. There are fewer guidelines, however, for while a lily is a lily is a lily, flowering at the same time as late roses and the early chrysanths, objects and pictures come in all shapes and sizes and may crop up t any time.
Generally speaking, things on display look happier and will make more of a point if they’re grouped rather than dotted about. Less, in this instance, is not more (it seldom is), though a single fine piece, dramatically lit, can make a splendid effect – on the principle of a single hothouse bloom in a special vase.
There can be no cast-iron rules. What looks right to one pair of eyes may look wrong to another. There’s the case of the former director of one of our great museums who stayed with an equally renowned art-expert; every afternoon he would surreptitiously move a little Renaissance maquette a fraction to the right in accordance with his own sense of spacing, only to find it in its original position by the time dinner was served.
What applies to museum-pieces also applies to less exalted objects – pictures, toys ancient and modern, left-over’s from the Industrial Revolution, china, enamel signs and birdcages. All of these, nicely displayed, will moreover belie their humble origins and look like works of art. Unlike flower arrangements, they won’t ask for your attention by drooping or wilting – but watch out – familiarity breeds not so much contempt as blind spots. When you no longer feel some positive pleasure while looking at your things, it’s time to rearrange them.
