24 ON COLOUR. Part I. 



well as the remains of colour on various monuments, show how 

 universal was the employment of brilliant ornamentation in 

 this, as in other countries. 



1 9. There is an inconsistency in our estimation of colour : 

 we admire and use it in some places, while we affect to be 

 above its employment in others. Our taste is artificial, and it 

 is, therefore, undecided and ill-defined. When our cathedrals 

 were built they were ornamented with colour throughout ; 

 they were not considered finished without it ; every tomb 

 afterwards put into them had its painted devices and mould- 

 ings ; and the glass window was part of the whole coloured 

 decoration. Colour was with all people in old times a neces- 

 sary accessory to architecture ; and it was equally held to be 

 so in England. " The builders of those cathedrals," says Mr. 

 Euskin *, " laid upon them the brightest colours they could 

 obtain, and there is not, as far as I can learn, in Europe any 

 monument of a truly noble school which has not been either 

 painted all over, or originally touched with paint, mosaic, and 

 gilding in its prominent parts. Thus far Egyptians, Greeks, 

 Goths, Arabs, and mediaeval Christians all agree; none of 

 them when in their right senses ever think of doing without 

 paint." Our indifference to colour then is sanctioned neither 

 by ancient usage nor by good taste. There even lingers 

 among us an admiration for the obsolete scarlet cloaks of our 

 peasantry, — one of the few remains of old times ; and it was 

 long the habit of our painters to introduce the contrast of blue 

 and red costumes into their landscapes. 



The colours too which we used in our early cathedrals were 

 (as in other countries when good taste prevailed regarding 

 them) chiefly the primaries; those buildings which had a 

 superabundance of green and other compound and mixed 

 colours having been subsequently repainted ; and the changes 



* " Stones of Venice," ii. p. 90. 



