14 ON COLOUR. Part 1. 



since some people in this country have actually recommended 

 them for imitation, and have expressed a reluctance to see 

 bright colours ; maintaining that they are ill suited to our 

 climate and our impressions, and that greys or neutral tints 

 accord with all around us better than pure blue, red, and 

 yellow, which should be confined to southern countries and 

 clearer atmospheres. But though the blue of the sky is 

 brighter in the south than in our own climate, green and 

 others are more brilliant here; and if, instead of confining 

 ourselves to the general aspect of nature, we contemplate her 

 more minute works we shall find that brilliantly coloured 

 flowers are not denied to the gloomiest climates ; where the 

 scarlet poppy, the blue cornflower, and the yellow buttercup, 

 with the broom, and the furze, are as bright as any in the south. 

 If we are to imitate nature it will be better to copy her in some 

 of these details than in the general aspect she bears in any 

 one climate ; and she has not taught us to abstain from using 

 brilliant colours in those objects which are the nearest to our 

 sight. 



But in reality, the question if or where nature uses bright 

 colours is not pertinent to our inquiry respecting their 

 employment for ornamentation. Works of art are not amen- 

 able to the same conditions as those of nature, unless they are 

 copies of them. And when some one tells us that in the 

 interior of buildings the stone should retain its " natural " 

 hue, he seems to forget that a building is not a work of 

 nature, but of art. For though it would be inconsistent to 

 colour trees beneath which we might seek shelter or make an 

 abode, the squared stone and stuccoed walls are under totally 

 different conditions, and are artificial, like the colour required 

 for ornamenting them. 



10. The rage for making every thing assume a supposed 

 appearance of nature was almost universal in England till 

 lately. Artificial gardens were exchanged for others with ser- 



