Principles of Decorative Design Part 9

If the ceiling is flat all ornament placed upon it must not only be flat also, but must not fict.i.tiously represent relief, for no shaded ornament can be pleasant when placed as the decoration of a flat architectural surface.

I have already noticed that the decoration of a room should be in character with its architecture, but that while this should be so, the ornament applied by way of enrichment should not be a servile copy of the decorative forms employed in ages gone by, but should be such as is new in character, while yet of the spirit of the past.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 53.]

Many circ.u.mstances tend to determine the nature of the decoration which should be applied to a ceiling: thus, if a ceiling is structurally divided into square panels, the character of the ornament is thereby restricted, and should these panels be large it will probably be desirable that each be fitted with the same ornament; while if they are small three or four different patterns may be employed, if arranged in some orderly or methodical manner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 54.]

A ceiling may also have the joists or beams visible upon it: in this case the decoration would have to be of a very special character. The bottoms of the joists might have a string pattern upon them (a running pattern), as the "Greek key," or guilloche; whilst the sides might have either a running pattern, or a pattern with an upward tendency, as the "Greek honeysuckle;" and the ceiling intervening between the joists might have a running pattern, or better, a star, or diaper pattern, or it might have bands running in the opposite direction to the joists, so as, with them, to form squares, which squares might be filled with ornament.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 55.]

If, however, the ceiling is flat, and is not divided into sections structurally, almost any "setting out" of the surface may be employed, as Fig. 53; or a large centre ornament, as Figs. 54 and 55; or a rosette distributed over the entire surface, as Fig. 56. In any case it is not necessary or even desirable that the ornament be in relief upon the ceiling. Flatly treated ornaments may be employed with advantage, and all fict.i.tious appearance of relief, as we have already said, must be avoided.

There are so many different ways of setting out ceilings, that I cannot attempt even to make any suggestions. I would simply say, however, Avoid an architectural setting out, if there are no structural members; for ornament which is flat may spread in any manner over a surface without even appearing to need structural supports. As to the colour of a ceiling if there is to be no ornament upon it, let it be a cream-colour (formed of white with a little middle-chrome) rather than white. Cream-colour always looks well upon a ceiling, and gives the idea of purity. A grey-blue is also a very desirable colour for a ceiling, such as is formed of pale ultramarine, white, and a little raw umber, just sufficient to make the blue slightly grey (or atmospheric). In depth this blue should be about half-way between the ultramarine and white. Another effect which I like is produced by the full colour of pure (or almost pure) ultramarine. In this case the cornice should be carefully coloured, and pale blue and white should prevail in it, but a little pure red must be present.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 56.]

A further and very desirable effect is produced by placing pale cream-coloured stars irregularly over the pale blue, or even the deep blue ceiling, or by placing pale blue stars upon the cream-coloured ceiling. The stars should vary for an ordinary room ceiling (say a room sixteen feet square by ten feet high) from about three inches from point to point down to one inch; the larger stars having six points; others being smaller and with five points; and the small ones having, some four points, and some three. If such stars are irregularly (without order) intermixed over the ceiling, and yet are somewhat equally dispersed, a very pleasing and interesting effect will thereby be produced. This effect is in much favour with the j.a.panese. The stars, however, should be smaller if placed on a deep, than on a pale, blue ground.

Another good effect is produced by giving the ceiling the colour of Bath, or Portland, stone, and starring it with a deeper tint of the same colour. This effect is improved by each star having a very fine outline of a yet darker tint of the same colour.

I should recommend those interested in the decoration of ceilings to study carefully the Egyptian, Alhambra, and Greek Courts at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, especially the two last named; also to notice the ceiling in St. James's Great Hall, Piccadilly, London, and the ceiling of Ushaw College chapel near Durham. The ceilings in the Oriental Courts, by Mr. Owen Jones, at the South Kensington Museum are worthy of careful notice; but the Renaissance ceilings in other parts of the Museum are both wrong in principle and are bad examples of their style. The structurally formed gla.s.s ceiling of the Crystal Palace Bazaar in Oxford Street, London, and still better, the ceiling of Mr. Osler's gla.s.s warehouse in Oxford Street, are well worthy of note.

On the Continent we very frequently meet with ceilings on which large pictures have been painted, as in the Louvre and the Luxembourg in Paris; and the authorities of the South Kensington Museum are making efforts to introduce this style into England, but such pictorial ceilings are in every way wrong.

1st. A ceiling is a flat surface, hence all decoration placed upon it should be flat also.

2nd. A picture can only be correctly seen from one point, whereas the decoration of a ceiling should be of such a character that it can be properly seen from any part of the room.

3rd. Pictures have almost invariably a right and wrong way upwards. A picture placed on a ceiling is thus wrong way upwards to almost all the guests in the room.

4th. In order to the proper understanding of a picture, you must see the whole of its surface at one time; this is very difficult to do without almost breaking your neck, or being on your back on the floor, if the picture is on the ceiling; whereas an ornament which consists of repeated parts may render a ceiling beautiful without requiring that the whole ceiling be seen at the one glance.

Most of the French pictorial ceilings are so painted that they are properly seen when the spectator stands with his back close to the fire. This is very awkward, as the rules of society do not allow us to stand in this position before company. Pictorial works are altogether out of place on a ceiling; they ought to be framed and hung right way upwards upon walls where they can be seen. We have a well-known painted ceiling at the Greenwich Hospital.

Arabesque ceilings, such as that of the Roman Court at the Crystal Palace, are also very objectionable.

What can be worse than festoons of leaf.a.ge, like so many sausages, painted upon a ceiling, with griffins, small framed pictures, impossible flowers, and feeble ornament, all with fict.i.tious light and shade? But not content with such absurdities and incongruities, the festoons often hang upwards on vaulted or domed ceilings, rather than downwards. Such ornaments arose when Rome, intoxicated with its conquests, yielded itself up to luxury and vice rather than to a consideration of beauty and truth.

Decorations like these were to an extent again revived by the great painter Raphael; but it must ever be remembered that Raphael, while one of the greatest of painters, was no ornamentist. It requires all the energy of a life to become a great painter; and it requires all the energy of a life to become a great ornamentist; hence it is not expected that the one man should be great at the two arts.

In all ages when decorative art has flourished, ceilings have been decorated. The Egyptians decorated their ceilings, so did the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Moors, and the people of our Middle Ages, and a light ceiling appears not to have been esteemed as essential, or as in many cases desirable. It is strange that so few of our houses and public buildings contain rooms with decorated ceilings; but the want is already felt, the fas.h.i.+on has set in, and many are at this present moment being prepared. We must get simple modes of enrichment for general rooms--modes of treatment which shall be effective, and yet not expensive--and then we may hope that they will become general.

DIVISION II.--DECORATIONS OF WALLS.

We must now devote ourselves to the consideration of wall decoration, or to the manner in which ornament should be applied to walls with the view of rendering them decorative.

It will appear absurd to say that all ornament that is applied to a wall should be such as will render the wall more beautiful than it would be without it; but this statement is needed, for I have seen many walls ornamented in such a manner, that they would have looked much better if they had been perfectly plain, and simply washed over with a tint of colour.

To ornament is to beautify. To decorate is to ornament. But a surface cannot be beautified unless the forms which are drawn upon it are graceful, or bold, or vigorous, or true, and unless the colours applied to it are harmonious. Yet how many walls do we meet with even in good houses--walls of corridors, walls of staircases, walls of dining-rooms, walls of libraries, and, indeed, walls of every kind of room--which are rendered offensive, rather than pleasing, by the decorations they bear.

A wall may look well without decoration strictly so called, and this statement leads me to notice the various ways in which walls may be treated with the view of rendering them beautiful.

A wall may be simply tinted either with "distemper" colour, or oil colour "flatted." Distemper colour gives the best effect, and is much the cheapest, but it is not durable, and cannot be washed. Oil colour when flatted makes a nice wall, whether "stippled" or plain, and is both durable and washable. An entire wall should never be varnished.

I say that a wall can look well even if not decorated. Let me give one or two instances; but, perhaps, I had better give treatments for the entire room, including the ceiling, and not for the wall simply.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 57.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 58.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 59.]

A good effect of a very plain and inexpensive character would be produced by having a black skirting, a cream-colour wall (this colour to be made of the colour called middle-chrome and white, and to resemble in depth the best pure cream), a cornice coloured with pale blue of greyish tint, with deep blue, white, and a slight line of red, and a ceiling of blue of almost any depth. The ceiling colour to be pure French ultramarine, or this ultramarine mixed with white and a touch of raw umber (the cornice blues to be made in the same way). The red in the cornice to be deep vermilion if very narrow (one-sixteenth of an inch), or carmine if broad.[24]

[24] In some parts of the country it is customary to wash the cornice over with quick-lime. If this has been done the lime must be carefully removed, for lime will turn carmine black.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DECORATIVE DESIGN.

_Ill.u.s.trating Cornice, Ceiling & Wall Colouring._]

A room of a slightly more decorative character would be produced by making the lower three feet of the wall of a different colour (by forming a dado) from the upper part of the wall: thus, if the other parts of the room were coloured as in the example just given, the lower three feet might be red (vermilion toned to a rich Indian red with ultramarine blue) or chocolate (purple-brown and white, with a little orange-chrome); this lower portion of the wall being separated from the upper cream-coloured portion by a line of black an inch broad, or better by a double line, the upper line being an inch broad, and the lower line three-eighths of an inch, the lines being separated from each other by five-eighths of the red or chocolate.

I like the formation of a dado, for it affords an opportunity of giving apparent stability to the wall by making its lower portion dark; and furniture is invariably much improved by being seen against a dark background. The occupants of a room always look better when viewed in conjunction with a dark background, and ladies' dresses certainly do. The dark dado gives the desired background without rendering it necessary that the entire wall be dark. If the furniture be mahogany, it will be wonderfully improved by being placed against a chocolate wall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 60.]

The dado of a room need not be plain; indeed, it may be enriched to any extent. It may be plain with a bordering separating it from the wall, such as Figs. 57, 58, and 59, or the coloured border on Plate I.

(frontispiece); or it may have a simple flower regularly dispersed over it; or it may be covered with a geometrical repeating pattern, in either of which cases it would have a border; or it may be enriched with a specially designed piece of ornament, as Fig. 60. This particular pattern should not, however, be enlarged to a height of more than twenty to twenty-four inches; but if of this width, and above a skirting of twelve or fifteen inches, it would look well.

I have designed two or three narrow dado papers for Messrs. Wylie and Lockhead, of Glasgow, which are about eighteen inches broad, and are printed in the direction of the length of the paper, so as to save unnecessary joins; and Messrs. Jeffrey and Co., of Ess.e.x Road, Islington, are issuing a complete series of my decorations for walls, dados, and ceilings.

If the dado is enriched with ornament, and the cornice is coloured, and a pattern spreads all over the ceiling, the walls can well be plain, but they may be covered with a simple "powdering" as the patterns in Fig. 6l, if these are in soft colours, or with patterns such as those set forth in colours on Plate I.; but these, especially that on the blue ground, would only be used where a very rich effect is desired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 61.]

A good room would be produced by pattern Fig. 52 being on the ceiling in dark blue and cream-colour, by the cornice being coloured with a prevalence of dark blue, the walls being cream-colour down to the dado; the border separating the dado from the wall being black ornament on a dull orange-colour; and by the dado being chocolate with a black rosette upon it; the skirting boards being bright black. The dado may or may not be varnished; the upper part of the wall can only be "dead" (not varnished--dull). If the room is high a bordering may run round the upper portion of the wall, about three to four inches below the cornice; such a border as Fig. 62 may he employed in dull orange and chocolate.

A citrine wall comes well with a deep blue, or blue and white ceiling, if blue prevails in the cornice, and this wall may have a dark blue (ultramarine and black with a little white) dado, or a rich maroon dado (brown-lake). If the blue dado is employed the skirting should be indigo, which, when varnished and seen in conjunction with the blue, will appear as black as jet. (See the coloured examples on Plate II., and remarks on colour on pages 45 and 46.)

Walls are usually papered in middle-cla.s.s houses. I must not object to this universal custom; but I do say, try to avoid showing the joinings of the various strips. In all cases where possible cut the paper to the pattern, and not in straight lines, for straight joinings are very objectionable. If you use paper for walls, use it artistically, and not as so much paper. Let a dado be formed of one paper, the dado bordering (dado rail) of a suitable paper bordering; the upper part of the wall being covered by another paper of simple and just design, and of such colour as shall harmonise with the dado. Proceed as an artist, and not as a mere workman. Think out an ornamental scheme, and then try to realise the desired effect. Avoid all papers in which huge bunches of flowers and animals or the human figure are depicted. The best for all purposes are those of a simple geometrical character, or in which designs similar to those in Fig. 6l are "powdered" or placed at regular intervals over a plain ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 62.]

Just as the ceiling ornament must accord in character with the architecture of the room in which it is placed, so must the wall decoration be of the same style as the architecture of the room.

Indeed, whatever we have said respecting the harmony of the ceiling decoration with the architecture of the building, applies equally to the ornamentation of the wall.