Paint as our partner in all the affairs of life may be a new thought,
but it is an old established fact nevertheless. In reality paint is
so interwoven with every turn of the wheel, that it is forever at our
side, like our Siamese Twin.
Suppose we were to wake up some morning to find that paint in every
form had been eliminated from the world, from our lives! What
consternation, surprise, indignation, and havoc would reign everywhere!
Whether for better or worse, for good or evil, it is part of the very
warp and woof of our every-day existence, and what a pal and benefactor
it really is. Think of our morning train, our motors, our boats, our
houses, as _paintless_! What a queer jumble life would be. But here
stands our partner--paint--ready to jump into any breach, and make
life full of comfort and happiness and cheer, from the building of a
new house, where the painting of every wall, every bit of trim, has to
be carefully planned and decided upon, to the many small things about
the house that can be transformed by the “Magic Touch” of paint.
The dear old home that has stood in rain, and wind, and snow, for
years, and begins to show its many battles, seems to implore us to
brighten up its faithful face. And so we do. We paint it a soft old
ivory white with fresh green shutters, and it seems to expand with joy
and happiness, and smiles back at us a radiant smile of thanks; and as
we regard it with warm affection, we suddenly realize anew how much
we love it and owe to it, and a feeling of most tender warmth fills
us, and fills our day, and Life takes on a fresh beginning. We return
at night with a new glow of well-being in our hearts. It passes on to
our friends, to whom our radiant newly dressed house also gives joy.
It permeates the very air, and indirectly works its way into unknown
channels for good; for nothing we ever do can remain unto us alone.
Every act, however small, has its immediate reaction, like the circles
made by a pebble, spreading ever wider, far beyond our vision. The
whole community is cheered because of our freshly painted house.
Take the practical side. Suppose you have a house you want to sell. It
is shabby, down at the heel, forlorn and sad. If you will put it in
condition and paint it inside and out (give it the “Magic Touch”), your
chances for selling it are ten to one in your favor. You present your
house at its best, at its highest possibilities. Everything depends
upon the way a thing is presented. A purchaser immediately sees what it
really looks like. One out of a hundred prospective purchasers has the
imagination to see it in his mind’s eye and realize its possibilities,
if he first beholds it in its downtrodden state. Besides, he isn’t
buying possibilities, he wants to see what he is buying. He sees it,
he likes it, he buys it. The “Magic Touch” has brought it fresh,
beautiful, and living to his recognition. In his mind’s eye he sees his
family installed, happy and cozy, within its cheerful walls. The deed
is done. The house is sold. Then the joy that paint brings into our
lives, the radiance, the color. We all love color, color that Nature
first taught us to love. How can we bring it into our midst, with its
gay vibrant song? By paint, and only by paint. And so again our debt to
paint grows greater with our realization of all that it can mean.
Paint is so clean. Almost any condition of grubbiness can be made
sanitary and wholesome by paint, and it keeps out and prevents illness
and disorders.
The use of paint is as old as history. We find it on the mummy cases of
Egypt, on the shores of the leaden, swinging Nile, though the medium
used then was wax mixed with the pigment. The medium has changed, but
it has gone down the ages, steadily at our sides, varying, growing,
developing, never standing still, active, ready for any call of life.
It went into the Service, holding off the iron rain of shell on the
painted dust-colored helmets of our boys, thus eliminating the target
they would otherwise have made; camouflaging our ships, our trains,
our tanks, and our trucks. It helped in all the campaigns. What would
we have done without the posters, the banners, the inspiration offered
by paint on every hand? We couldn’t have done anything without it,
without its magic. It is part of life and a very serious part of it. It
transforms; it brings joy and gladness in its train. It is sanitary, it
is practical, it is most constructive; only good follows in its wake.
Paint is historical, and teaches us much. Take the characteristic
painting of the Norse countries. The furniture used in the peasants’
houses is painted in flat, hard, brilliant colors, expressive of the
climate. It is a record of what people see and feel, and so translate
into their lives and surroundings. The subtle, inscrutable, complicated
civilization of the East is expressed in the Oriental painting of
every description, meticulous as it is, detailed, and filled with most
exquisite color of every possible nuance, the most delicate shades and
tones.
Paint is pigment, or color, and a medium, whether it be oil or wax, or
something else by which it is applied, but it has its own far reaching
psychology. It is inspirational, and really spiritual in its reaction
on mankind. We may paint a house for the most practical of reasons,
to preserve it from the weather, but we are carried, in spite of
ourselves, beyond the point of hard fact, to a certain positive feeling
of pleasure and satisfaction and joy it gives us.
Back of all seeming hard, cold facts lies the truth of Life: it is
Inspiration. For that reason our debt to Paint mounts higher and
higher, as we think about it and realize that it is in very close
association with everything about us, a very vital part of our
human existence, and that we could not, at the present stage of our
development, possibly be comfortable, or clean, or happy without the
“Magic Touch,” the Miracle of the wonderful “Partnership of Paint.”