Color Value Part 4

85. It is a safe rule to do a small or narrow room in harmonies of a.n.a.logy or related colors, colors of a light tone and of receding character. Apart from any effect which color may possess decoratively or pictorially, its value cannot be overestimated in its application to the laws of proportion.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

86. Borders may be safely used on the wall or on the carpet of any large room with high ceiling, but wall friezes should be avoided where the ceilings are low, for they foreshorten the height effect.

87. We would avoid borders on the floor of a small room to make it look larger, and we would use wide borders in a large room with a low ceiling so that the floor may be foreshortened.

88. One may utilize in a large, poorly lighted room ma.s.ses of luminous colors to give artificial sunlight to the room deficient therein, but in the small, poorly lighted room this treatment should be avoided.

-COLOR SCHEMES FOR ROOMS UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS-

(TN: left page of two page table) KEYNOTE -B- -B- COLORS -B- -A- -Drapery- -A- -A- -Furniture- -Floor- -Border- -Wood Trim- -Wainscoting- -Side-Wall- -Coverings-

(Brown and gray tones) (Full tones)(Wood tones)(Deep tones)(Soft tones)(Soft tones)

Brown Yellow Mission Green Red Green Deep oak brown Orange Mission Blue Orange Blue Light oak Green Light oak Violet Yellow Violet Deep olive Blue Oak Red Green Red Mission tones of Violet Mahogany Orange Blue Orange slate Deep plum Red Violet toned Yellow Violet Yellow or tulip

(TN: right page of two page table)

-A- -B- -A- -B- -A- -Furniture- -Frieze- -Draperies- -Ceiling- -Cornice-

(Wood tones)(Soft tones)(Full tones)(Pale wash tones)(Pale wash tones)

Mahogany Pale green Red Palest green Pale yellow Deep oak Blue Orange Palest blue Pale green Gold, gray or Violet Yellow Palest violet Pale blue yellow Walnut gray Grayish red Green Palest red Pale violet Mission brown Gray orange Blue Palest orange Pale orange Gold or violet Yellow Violet Palest yellow Pale pink tone

Exception 1. The ceiling, where there is no p.r.o.nounced cornice or cove, should follow the wall tint.

Exception 2. Independent of rule, a low ceiling should be in receding color.

It is impossible to tabulate directions for using color without an understanding of the conditions, the size, light and height of a room.

(See pages 34 and 35.) The above tables relate only to normal conditions.

White woodwork can be used effectively in the trims of a room and give greater light and size. The darker the wood trims the smaller the room appears. We have left out of consideration the window treatments which, as a rule, should be of white lace, perhaps overdraped in colored stuffs. If the room is poorly lighted, it is obviously undesirable to cut off any light from the window by even laces; the curtains, therefore, in a poorly lighted room should be draped back. Colored laces, grenadines or madras stuffs are frequently used to give period style or color tone, and wherever they are used, such curtains should harmonize with the wall. So also with the overdraperies to the lace curtains.

89. Luminous or advancing colors make a small room look all the smaller; therefore in small rooms we suggest the use of white woodwork, and in the color treatment we would avoid contrasts, but would suggest harmonies of a.n.a.logy in receding colors, soft grays, greens and blues.

These are not luminous colors and will make a small room look the larger, while the white will give light effects, and if the room appears a trifle somber it can be easily relieved by the bright colors of the bric-a-brac and by a touch of gold here and there on the wall. (See -- 66 and -- 85.)

90. There are cases where a small room has a northern exposure, and while apparently expedient to treat such a room in warm colors to supply the deficiency of sunlight, such a course would make a room look smaller.

91. Under the circ.u.mstances treat the room in light hues, gray preferred, and get the deficiency of sunlight through some warm isolated details and in the lace curtains.

-THE WALL THE KEYNOTE COLOR-

92. Our theory of color as applied to room furnis.h.i.+ngs provides always that the side-wall is the keynote and this keynote is usually fixed for practical reasons in sympathy with the furniture; above to the ceiling's center the note ascends and below to the floor center it descends; it goes into tints as it ascends and into deeper shades of gray and brown as it descends.

If, for instance, blue is the keynote, by adding black you have drabs, slates or grays for the floor, while if the keynote be red you have ecrus and browns for the floor light or gray, according to the color scale of the keynote.

93. It must be understood that in designating a color we do not mean that it shall be solid or pure, but merely that it prevails. (See -- 29.)

A side-wall may be treated in several colors, but as long as orange prevails, it follows the conditions of the combination, pages 42 and 43. The factors included in the line designated A are all of one color family. The factors indicated by B are also family colors. It will be seen that the A or B colors taken by themselves form HARMONIES OF a.n.a.lOGY; it is only by combining the A's with the B's that we have HARMONIES OF CONTRAST.

If a room is to be done in harmonies of a.n.a.logy, use the A colors alone or the B colors alone, but never A and B together.

-THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOR-

94. Whatever may be the charm conveyed by design there is a reason for it. We can a.n.a.lyze it.

It has an inherent quality of beauty or historic interest, and there is a definite and distinct reason for our liking it.

But the effect of color is exciting or disturbing, tranquilizing or pleasing, inexplicable and inexpressible, affecting the senses like an appeal to the pa.s.sions or the appet.i.te. One might as well explain the love of sport, literature, art or vice. The sense of color is a nerve sense, and this sense varies in the individual. We know that colors which are strongest in direct sun rays, like red and orange, arouse the normal senses, while the blues and violets quiet.

Nature provides vast fields of green because favorable in its effects upon humanity. Experiments prove that men of extreme sensibility exposed to the influences of red light finally show excitement which gives muscular development fifty per cent. in excess of the power possessed by the same subject when exposed for the same period under the influences of blue light.

-TO DETERMINE THE COLOR SENSE-

Color, like music, while subjected to positive rules of harmony, appeals to natures according to the responsiveness of their nerve sense, and the practical decorator in dealing with a customer should discover at the outstart the character of that nerve sense. Some natures respond to the normal colors, barbaric colors. Some respond to the softer tints and are disturbed by the sharper tones. A dulled sense requires sharp contrasts; a quickened sense is satisfied with the soft gray tones. Apart from any question of propriety or environment the individual taste for color must be determined before the individual taste can be pleased.

A demonstration of four examples in color may serve the purpose of determining one's color sense.

First. Combinations of normal primary and secondary colors, (_a_) arranged in contrasts, (_b_) in a.n.a.logies.

Second. Combinations of tones of the above colors, (_a_) arranged in contrasts, (_b_) in a.n.a.logies.

Third. Combinations of tints of the above colors, (_a_) arranged in contrasts, (_b_) in a.n.a.logies.

Fourth. Combinations of the gray (tertiary) tones of the above colors, (_a_) arranged in contrasts, (_b_) in a.n.a.logies.

95. Do not allow your personal color-sympathies to dominate your work.

All colors have their usefulness, for there are occasions when it is proper they should be used, apart from any question of harmony; one must consider always the uses of colors, the lights, and the purpose of the room under treatment.

96. Nature gives to the dark forest depths great brilliancy of floriculture, and dark-skinned people indulge unconsciously the same bright scale of color. But as we come out of the forest and advance in civilization we use barbaric colorings more discriminately.

97. We employ gold, orange or yellow for the north room not for inherent beauty, but for the sense of warmth which they convey to an atmosphere chilled by the absence of sunlight. We employ receding colors in a small room that the room may look larger. We employ cold colors in a sunny room, especially in the summer home, for reasons psychological rather than aesthetic.

-PERIOD USES OF COLOR-

98. If our furniture is white and gold, it is clearly evident that the colorings of a room should be soft and harmonious. If we adopt the dark teakwood of India or the deep brown of Flanders, our color scheme again changes. The preponderance of white in Colonial rooms was due to architectural conditions. White illuminates; and in the days when our ceilings were no higher than seven and a half feet, and our windows were small, the room needed an artificial light, and white supplied this.

99. In furnis.h.i.+ng an Empire room, the decorators have, little by little, led themselves to believe that what is known as Empire green is a distinct shade of green. On the contrary, green was used in the period of the Empire simply because it was in pleasing contrast with the mahogany and bra.s.s so much used. If the mahogany is dark, a dark green is desirable; if light, a light green.

100. Egyptian decoration was full of gold and brilliant coloring, and a popular form of combination was the triad form: