September, 1920 
59 
HOW TO USE BLUE 
A Royal Color, Full of Sublime Possibilities, It Should Be Judiciously 
Combined With Other Colors In Decoration 
ETHEL DAVIS SEAL 
B lue is at once the most decorative color 
in the world and the most baneful. It is 
decorative because of a certain supreme 
strength of character, if such a term may be 
applied to color, that makes it hold its own and 
seem to sing with the mere joy of living from 
the age-old Chinese rug at your feet, from a 
drapery at a window, from a peacock blue bowl 
filled with golden forsythia. or richly-toned 
lilacs. It is decorative because, through its 
very combination with other colors, or isolated 
against a neutral background, it stands more 
bravely fine and beautiful than any other color 
we have. 
But blue is baneful because it has an in¬ 
sidious quality of making people who love it 
wish to saturate the very air they breathe with 
blue, to wear it to the last thread of their 
raiment, and furnish with it to the last inch 
of their rooms. Whereas blue can only be 
wholly appreciated when an atom of entirely 
different color is at hand to intensify its serene 
beauty, as it shines forth against pale walls of 
misty cream or gray. 
An entirely blue house would be deadly; an 
entirely blue room, from walls to hangings and 
from hangings to floor, is about as discordant 
a note in an otherwise normal house as it would 
be possible to find. And yet, strange to say, 
a blue room handled from another standpoint, 
could be nothing but harmonious, with a few 
accents of blue placed here and there in the 
adjoining rooms to bind the entire color scheme 
together. 
Working From Cretonne 
A really blue room that is beautiful and that 
is all the more successful for the restraint in 
which the color is 
used, is suggested 
to me by a bit of 
cretonne I hold in 
my hand. This 
cretonne has a 
cream back¬ 
ground, and, 
gracefully d i s - 
tributed over its 
surface, in me¬ 
andering fashion, 
there are odd and 
almost Japan¬ 
esque flowers 
resembling chrys¬ 
anthemums and 
asters, with whol¬ 
ly attractive and 
mostly blue foli¬ 
age trailing be¬ 
hind them. As I 
glance at the cre¬ 
tonne my first 
thought is blue. 
And then as I 
look closer I no¬ 
tice the cream 
background, the 
gray shadows in¬ 
troduced into the 
flowers and 
leaves, and the 
In a blue bedroom the furniture itself can 
be blue, the curtains blue lined with rose, 
the carpet gray and the walls cream 
black lining on the flower petals. And yet the 
cretonne is blue. And I think of a blue din¬ 
ing room, developed from this cretonne, which 
may be as beautifully blue as it dare be—and 
survive. 
I see cream walls and ivory woodwork, and 
a dark polished floor. I see furniture of the 
adorable brown of American walnut wood, the 
brown that looks like a mixture of shadow and 
sunshine, the brown that, above all, goes best 
with blue because of its underlying cool depth 
of color which is not unlike blue itself. I see 
this furniture in the William and Mary style, 
with the most perfect plainness and dignity to 
its everlasting credit. What, indeed, should 
go with blue but plain and dignified things? 
For blue, at best, is the epitome of these two 
principles. Then the rug in this dining room, 
a dull blue and black one, quite plain also, 
gives distinction to the floor. And it is difficult 
to decide whether the seats of the chairs should 
be upholstered in a horsehair striped in blue 
and gold or in the blue and cream cretonne. 
The china used in this blue dining room may 
be blue Canton ware, but the ornaments should 
be for the most part of other colors, either 
pewter or brass, and some soft orange luster, 
old yellow pottery and a note of peacock found 
in a bowl and filled with creamy yellow roses. 
This room is indubitably blue and yet we think 
with thanksgiving of the cream walls, the ivory 
woodwork, the cretonne hangings not entirely 
blue, the warm sunny notes on the table and 
buffet that make this scheme more satisfactorily 
blue by their relieving presence. 
A Blue Adam Room 
Somewhat less blue is this pictured Adam 
dining room with its mahogany furniture and 
cafe au lait walls banded by ivory molding. A 
formal room yet pleasantly homelike withal, it 
finds its color scheme keynote in the deep blue 
marble breasting the fireplace and veined with 
cream, black and gold. These four colors are 
blended in the blue-grounded Chinese rug on 
the floor, which has been woven at once to fit 
the room and the color scheme. At the 
windows are hung dull blue velours curtains 
lined with lavender; the chairs are upholstered 
with the same blue velours, but these are em¬ 
broidered with 
lines of gold and 
medallions of 
black, yellow and 
salmon. The 
commode, a very 
handsome paint¬ 
ed piece, is done 
in slate blues and 
buffs, with hints 
of gold, black 
and copper color 
in the posies. In 
the vases ruddy 
flowers, such as 
yellowish pink 
gladioli, are 
particularly hap¬ 
py; and there 
should also be 
these ruddy notes, 
as well as the 
blue - purple of 
plums and 
grapes, in the 
fruit. 
Though it is 
perhaps in the 
dining room that 
blue is most emi¬ 
nently fitting, 1 
should hesitate 
( Cont. on p. 66) 
Against the gray walls of this living room are placed a sofa in blue striped stuff, a blue fire screen 
and foot rest, some blue rugs and. for contrast, a wing chair upholstered in mustard and bands of 
blue embroidery in henna, peacock and mustard, a henna and cream lampshade, and cushions of 
the same color 
