VI PREFACE. 



our deficiency ; and the French are far more successful 

 than ourselves in decorative design ; but we may refuse to 

 others the same privilege, and though the Germans have 

 made considerable advances in various branches of art, we 

 cannot concede to them the superiority they assume ; and in 

 point of colour their example* would be rather injurious than 

 beneficial to decorative taste. I do not however intend by 

 this to detract from the great merit they deserve of having 

 laboured assiduously to study and advance art in its highest, 

 as well as in its inferior, branches ; this I acknowledge with 

 great respect ; and I gladly admit the credit due to them for 

 having called attention to the works of the early masters of 

 Italy, which had ceased to be regarded with proper interest 

 until brought by them into general notice. I have been par- 

 ticular in censuring the common error of introducing great 

 quantities of green into coloured ornamentation; and have 

 shown that though green may sometimes be allowable in large 

 masses, and when of a glaucous hue may be used as a ground 

 for other colours, its employment in large proportions in 

 combination with them is incompatible with their harmonious 

 arrangement. It abounds when people become artificial. 

 But in those periods when taste in colour was pure, the 

 primaries were always preferred ; and in confirmation of these 

 remarks I may observe that the old custom is also observable 

 in heraldry, where the early coats have the primary colours 

 (with gold and silver), and where green is a sign of no great 

 age. The same change from the natural and pure taste of 

 man at an early period (when it was unbiassed by conven- 



* They appear also to differ very much from their early masters in the 

 appreciation and use of rich colours. 



