COLOUR IN THE HOUSE. 7 



pictures and other works of art, very sparingly used. A useful maxim to employ is, in colouring follow the 

 light ; put light colours where there is plenty of light, and rich colours where the light is not so dominant. * 

 By rights, the window space on the north side of the house should not be so ample, and if -as like it may 

 the north window should count as one full of colour, one must play up to it with some full colour, like 

 purple, brown or dee]) gold, to preserve the steady dignity of the room. It is not always remembered 

 that the outlook from a north room is generally a mure brilliant and highly-coloured affair than the view 

 on the sunny side. With one s back to the sun, on-.- views the landscape undisturbed by its rays, and 

 as the sun wears down to the horizon, the features of the prospect are accentuated by strong colour and 

 shadow, vibrating and concentrating in the splendour of the sunset and the tranquillity &amp;lt;&amp;gt;1 the after-glow. 

 Strong light blanches colour ; you see it at its richest and its strength in twilight. It is enough to recall 

 the pictures of the Old Masters in the National (lallery especially of the Venetian and Florentine 

 (Umbrian) schoolsto exemplify this; their richest tints thev exhibit in a twilight calm. For sheer 

 comfort and satisfaction in colour, it would be impossible, I think, to surpa&amp;gt;s the decoration of thr Sala 

 del Cambio at Perugia or the Chapel of St. (iiorgio dei, li Scliiavoni at Venice. They are both what might 

 be called dark rooms, and if the eye chose, there is much for it to ivst on and discover ; but treated merely 

 as a piece of colour decoration, and without attempting to dwell on the storied structure of the painting, 

 one carries away in one s recollection the lasting impression that they are the two pleas;mtest rooms it &amp;lt; 

 has been one s fortune to linger in. Simplicity of colour, especially in a light room, is a hiyh quality. So 

 often far too many colours are used, half-a-dozen different tints in the curtain and a score in the carpet, 

 and fresh distractions in the upholstery of the furniture. Moreover, a decision must be made as to whether 

 the pictures or the wall-paper arc to furnish the wall. If the former, then there nerd be no pattern on the 

 latter, if the latter is used at all. On the other hand, if the paper is to take charge of the walls, it need 

 be of some strong, vigorous pattern, capable of clothing the spaces like so much arras. Unless the room is 

 a low one, the ceiling should not be the blank white so generally and complaisantly accepted. A dark 

 ceiling is restful ; it links together the four walls and carries across overhead their colour and their quality * 

 without attracting any notice or comment. Few people are conscious how this sense of rest fulness has been 

 obtained, although they are quite sensible of its effect. Even where the walls are white, a tinted ceiling, 

 unless the room is a low one, tempers any tendency to glare and distributes an opalescent bloom on tin- 

 walls themselves. There is, however, a kind of sterile caution in this tame use of whit - walls and white 

 woodwork, which argues a self-conscious shrinking from playing one s part in the world, and. in consequence, 

 making mistakes. Many are the cases where it is exactly the right thing, if all the accessories are 

 carefully kept subservient ; but there comes an instance where something should be attempted and risked, 

 and it is not a healthy state of affairs to be too neurotically sensitive to tine shades and harmonies. The 

 real artist can allow for mistakes, as the real musician for false notes ; it is the amateur who cannot listen 

 to any music unless it is perfectly played. 



We have travelled a long way from that robust acceptance of definite colour that suffused the 

 people of the Middle Ages. In their downright demand for blue, for red. for gold without stickling 

 for fine shades and subtle varieties they got good blue, good red, good gold ; blue of the lapis, vermilion 

 from the Orient. Better celoivs have never been. We cannot judge of their wall painting, for time 

 and man s hand have obliterated most and disfigured the rest ; but their books and their manuscripts 

 remain to speak for their delight in and their use of fine colour. There we can recover the rich hangings, 

 the bright heraldry, the gay apparel of the people who live on the pages of the missals and who were, to 

 all appearance, scarce conscious of the extravagance of their hues. They thought nothing of those 

 discords, those conflicts of colour, that rack our frightened senses ; in their quantity there was variety and 

 gradation enough to blend the juxtaposition into harmony. 



Besides being sterile, the issues at stake do not warrant such scrupulous refinement. A man 

 will spend an hour in a tailor s shop and possibly an unquiet night afterwards, choosing the exact 

 sprinkling of the pepper and salt mixtures of his clothes from a multitude of patterns almost identical. 

 What does it matter how his choice is made ? It quite conceivably did in the days when half a 

 man s cloth hose was red and half was blue, and a slashed doublet topped his parti-coloured legs ; 

 and yet it would seem that they were pretty indifferent then to any special niceties. The blazoning 

 on a shield was a more compromising thing than the precise shade of an umbrella ; but the mind of 

 to-day is more exercised over the latter than the knight s care for his shield in the time of Edward III. 

 Such hesitation is not respectable. It indicates the exhaustion of the colour sense The hope for a 

 virile school of colour decoration must be grounded on a robuster attitude, concerned with broader 

 considerations, and eager to use failure as stepping stones to higher efforts and as the necessary means 

 of education. I hardly dare propose to let these young enthusiasts (the scholars) loose in the country 

 house of a quiet man, whose one wish about his home is for it to escape criticism ; they must find 

 other and larger fields for their operations, say, in the village halls and schools ; but what they achieve 

 and the tradition that they create will inevitably affect, and affect greatly, our conceptions as to the 

 colour treatment of the interiors of houses. HAL%EY RICARDO. 



