Color Value Part 5

Black, yellow and red.

Red, blue and white.

Dark blue, light blue and white.

Cream color, blue and black.

Dark red, medium yellow and blue.

101. The Greek decorators, who painted in fresco, used white, red, blue, yellow and black. Natural marbles were much used in green and red and alabaster, and bronze, gold and silver.

We see the flat colors of the Greek, Etruscan and Pompeiian age and we imagine they are typical of the period, but we must consider that the examples of that period which we now possess are faded and emasculated, and that the more authentic the example, the more aged it is, and hence the more weakened in color character.

The Greeks loved color, and their embroideries were in gold and blue and Tyrian purple.

Roman coloring was but a continuance of the Greek, characterized by dark and rich backgrounds, which were frequently black, red or deep yellow and dark blue, on which figures and landscapes, or animals, or groups from still life, were executed in bright colorings of powerful contrasts. Black and white were used, and later, when the Byzantine artists and craftsmen found their way to Western Italy, they spread this love of bold coloring, so that at the dawn of the Renaissance we find a return to the Greek and Roman coloring, which, however, was modified in England, Germany and Flanders, according to temperamental conditions.

102. We find, for instance, some forms of Florentine decoration, full of yellow, red-yellow, blue-greens and light slate blues. Botticelli used whites, creams, reds and citrine, with umber tones heightened by gold, and if we examine carefully the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Italian brocades which are preserved in the museums, we discover a great preponderance of yellow-green as an ornament on dark violet, or light olive green on dark blue, or dull orange on crimson brown.

In some of the richest early Italian fabrics we find:

Purple and sage-green ornaments on indigo ground; outlines in gold.

Dull crimson, pale blue and chrome yellow ornaments on dark gray ground.

Pale yellow-green ornaments on deep amber ground.

Dark blue-green and light greenish-yellow ornaments on deep crimson ground.

Pale greenish-blue ornaments on dark gray-blue ground, with white and gold picked out in small quant.i.ties.

Emerald green and dull orange ornaments on dark gray-green ground outlined in gold.

103. The French Renaissance takes inspiration from the Roman and Greek.

The Louis XIV is a development of the Renaissance, with a conspicuous use of gold.

The Louis XV is an elaboration along the same lines.

The Louis XVI is a simplification and a return to the cla.s.sic.

The Georgian is largely Roman and Pompeiian.

104. The Adam style was taken directly from the Pompeiian, but in most cases, instead of having the Pompeiian solid color background with design lightly executed, the background is in the light color, and the design dark. To follow strictly the Pompeiian palace style would be too garish in our modern circ.u.mscribed environment.

105. It is a nice psychological problem to decorate the house in a way to give true balance to the aesthetic sense. No matter how great one's admiration for a thing, there is always a final point of satiety at which the desire needs rest or balance. A woman may love flowers, for example, but in the season of flowers, when all nature supplies an over-abundance, the visual sense becomes satiated, and the house interior that is furnished in cool tints and two-tones gives positive relief.

106. On the other hand, floral decorations in the home are the balance needed to the mind that craves them during the Winter period when there is a lack of color without.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Compare perpendicular and horizontal lines: The angles and curves which enclose them change their relative equality.]

-ILLUSION EFFECT AND EXPRESSION IN THE USE OF LINES-

107. We very often notice a room which has been carefully carried out but is utterly lacking in charm. The color seems right, and, considered in detail, the furniture and the furnis.h.i.+ngs are appropriate, but the room lacks effectiveness.

It is uninteresting.

It is like a doll face that is, perhaps, perfect in detail, but utterly devoid of EXPRESSION.

The artist who paints a portrait is a failure without the ability to give expression: hence in architecture the acute-angled spires or arched roofs have the same expression that the "long face" carries.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

If we smile, the mouth curves upward; if we grieve, the lines turn downward.

108. In festival decorations, joy is expressed by loops, curves and festoons.

109. In serious decorations (libraries, studies, church or office work) straight lines are used; curtains are gathered in plaits so that the sags and drapes are all out of them; they are drawn. It is the same when we say of a person: "He looks serious, his face is drawn; it is full of lines."

110. The observation, "a broad smile on his face," means literally just that; the lines extend outward and upward, giving an expression of breadth and joy to the countenance.

-ILLUSION-

111. A doorway looks wider that has at the top a drapery which crosses in one complete curved sweep. A side-wall is larger apparently if along the frieze line long, wide loops or festoons are arranged. The same wall is more contracted and higher if treated in arrow-point forms of design.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The decorator should study these matters of illusion, for they are vital to the success of his labor. (See -- 116.)

112. Perpendicular lines contract the wall s.p.a.ce and extend the apparent height of a room; horizontal lines shorten the apparent height of the ceiling and lengthen the width of the room. (See exceptions, -- 119.)

These straight lines may be used where extremes are needed. (See pages 61 and 63.)

A short doorway, for instance, looks higher where the portiere is hung in straight folds; so also with a cottage window.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

113. Every decorator who handles fabrics, every cabinetmaker who lays out the woodwork of a room, every stained gla.s.s window maker, should appreciate one fact: A line which is finished at the top or bottom, or both, with acute angles appears longer than the line that is finished top and bottom with an obtuse or right angle. It is the same with the finish of a wall frieze.

If the wall frieze ends abruptly (Ill.u.s.tration A on page 57), it is foreshortened; if it is finished by angles (Ill.u.s.tration B), the height of the room is apparently greater. (See the ill.u.s.tration on page 51.)

114. It is the same way with curves; given two lines of equal length and enclose one with convex and the other with concave curves, and the line enclosed convex will appear longer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Treated for Broken Heights.]

115. In dress a collar brought down to an acute angle in the front of the waist gives height effect, whereas a perfectly straight collar around the neck reduces the apparent height and gives width effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration]