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COLOUR DECORATION OF
ARCHITECTURE
[Illustration: _Frontispiece._]
PLATE I.--SKETCH DESIGN FOR A WALL DECORATION IN FRESCO.
FAME REWARDING THE ARTS AND SCIENCES.]
COLOUR DECORATION OF
ARCHITECTURE
TREATING ON COLOUR AND DECORATION OF THE INTERIORS
AND EXTERIORS OF BUILDINGS. WITH
HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE ART AND
PRACTICE OF COLOUR DECORATION
IN ITALY, FRANCE, GERMANY
AND ENGLAND. FOR THE
USE OF DECORATORS
AND STUDENTS
BY
JAMES WARD
AUTHOR OF “PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENT,” “HISTORIC ORNAMENT,” “COLOUR HARMONY
AND CONTRAST,” “PROGRESSIVE DESIGN,” “FRESCO PAINTING,” ETC.
_WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND
TWENTY-TWO IN HALF-TONE_
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
1914
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
This book is written with the view that it may be of practical service
to the decorator, student and craftsman, who may be engaged in the
practice and art of colour decoration, as applied to the interiors and
exteriors of public buildings, churches, and private dwellings. I trust
also it will be of some value to all who take an interest in the
decoration of their own houses. The people of our own countries have
been so unaccustomed to coloured buildings for the last three or four
hundred years that a strong prejudice against the use of colour in
architecture has been developed and is maintained even at the present
day. Though we may all love colour, there are very few amongst us who
have the courage to advocate its use in the decoration of buildings. We
visit Italy, France, Germany, and the East, and admire the many and
beautifully decorated churches, palaces, city halls and other public and
private buildings, but the lessons we may have learned are lost to us,
for we come back to our country to still hug our ancient prejudice
against the use of colour, and are contented with the greyness of life,
and with the dreariness and drab of our great manufacturing cities.
It is fashionable just now for many of our educated classes to talk
largely on art and decoration on public platforms, and to air their
artistic views in newspapers and magazines, but when it comes to a
question of the practical application of their preaching and writing,
they are found wanting, their courage seems to evaporate, as they think
they have done their duty in the advancement of art by simply talking
about it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in England there was
a school of living art, and five or six centuries previous there was one
in Ireland. Is it too much to expect these golden ages of art to return
to us? We hope not, but before they do, art must become a common thought
with the people, which can hardly be said to be the case at present.
I have included in this work some brief historical reviews of colour
decoration in Italy, France, Germany and England, not so much on
historical lines, but in order to offer to the decorator and student
some account of the styles, methods and practice of the art under
consideration in the countries named, and in hopes that what I have
written in respect to these matters may prove of practical value to the
readers of this book.
I desire to thank the Authorities of the Victoria and Albert Museum, The
Dublin National Museum, the Dean of St. Alban’s Cathedral, and Mr.
William Davidson, L.R.I.B.A., Architect, Edinburgh, for their kind
permission to use the illustrations acknowledged to them in this work.
J. WARD.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
COLOUR DECORATION OF ARCHITECTURE--INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER II
THE VALUE OF COLOUR AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURE 11
CHAPTER III
THE DECORATIVE COLOURING OF INTERIORS 18
CHAPTER IV
THE COLOURING OF EXTERIORS 34
CHAPTER V
ON THE USE AND MODIFICATION OF COLOUR IN DECORATION 44
CHAPTER VI
ITALIAN DECORATION AND ORNAMENT 58
CHAPTER VII
COLOURED ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE 74
CHAPTER VIII
COLOUR DECORATION IN GERMANY 91
CHAPTER IX
COLOUR DECORATION IN ENGLAND 113
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE _Facing page_
1. SKETCH DESIGN FOR A WALL DECORATION IN FRESCO.
By Author _Frontispiece_
2. FRESCOES IN THE CHAPEL OF ST. PETER MARTYR, CHURCH
OF ST. EUSTORGIO, MILAN 9
3. DESIGN IN COLOUR FOR THE DECORATION OF PARK GREEN
CHURCH, MACCLESFIELD. By Author 10
4. ST. MICHAEL: FROM A PAINTING ON THE ROOD SCREEN,
RANWORTH CHURCH, NORFOLK. English, Early Sixteenth
Century. From Water-colour by W. Davidson 14
5. DESIGN IN COLOUR FOR THE DECORATION OF THE TOWN
HALL, MACCLESFIELD. By Author 18
6. COLOUR ARRANGEMENT FOR THE DECORATION OF A ROOM 20
7. THREE SUGGESTIONS OF COLOUR TINTS FOR PAINTED WALLS
OR PAPERHANGINGS, AS BACKGROUNDS FOR FRAMED
PICTURES 23
8. DESIGN IN COLOUR FOR THE DECORATION OF A MORNING
ROOM CEILING AT QUEEN’S GATE, LONDON. By Author 27
9. DECORATED MOULDINGS: FROM THE ROOD SCREEN, RANWORTH
CHURCH, NORFOLK. English, Early Sixteenth
Century. Drawn by W. Davidson 28
10. DESIGN IN COLOUR FOR A FRIEZE DECORATION. By
Author 30
11. COLOUR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DOORS AND WOODWORK 33
12. MOSAIC PANEL: FROM THE CARTOON OF THE MOSAIC
IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: MELCHIZEDEK
BLESSING ABRAHAM. By Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B.,
R.A. 52
13. APPROXIMATE CHANGE IN CERTAIN COLOURS WHEN SEEN
IN ARTIFICIAL LIGHT 57
14. MODEL OF CHAPEL OF ST. CATHERINE IN THE CHURCH OF
ST. MAURIZO, MILAN. Victoria and Albert Museum 58
15. MOSAIC DECORATION: CHURCH OF ST. JOHN LATERAN,
ROME. By Jacopo Torriti. 1287-1292 60
16. PORTION OF THE ORNAMENT IN MOSAIC OF THE WINDOW
REVEALS: CHURCH OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, ROME 61
17. ITALIAN GOTHIC DECORATION IN THE CHURCH OF ST.
ANASTASIA AT VERONA 62
18. DECORATION OF A PORTION OF ONE OF THE ROOMS IN THE
MACCHIAVELLI PALACE, FLORENCE. From a Model in
the Victoria and Albert Museum 63
19. PORTION OF A COLOURED CEILING DECORATION BY GIULIO
ROMANO, IN THE PALAZZO VECCHIO AT MANTUA. Sixteenth
Century 65
20. ARABESQUE DECORATIONS IN THE DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA.
By Giulio Romano. Sixteenth Century 68
21. COLOURED DECORATION OF PORTION OF A CEILING IN THE
VATICAN. By Raffaelle. Sixteenth Century 71
22. DECORATION OF THE BOUDOIR OF MADAME DE SERILLY,
NOW IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. French,
Eighteenth Century 76
23. ANOTHER PORTION OF THE ABOVE BOUDOIR DECORATION 77
24. DECORATION IN COLOUR OF A GROINED CEILING IN THE
CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, LIÉGE, 1522-1588 100
25. EXAMPLE OF DIAPER ORNAMENT, LARGELY USED IN ITALIAN,
GERMAN AND ENGLISH DECORATION OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY 104
26. EXAMPLE OF DIAPER ORNAMENT, USED IN DECORATION 112
27. EXAMPLE OF DIAPER ORNAMENT, USED IN DECORATION 113
28. SAINT GEORGE. FROM THE ROOD SCREEN, RANWORTH
CHURCH, NORFOLK. From a Water-colour by W.
Davidson, Architect 121
29. DECORATED MOULDINGS, FROM THE ROOD SCREEN, MARSHAM
CHURCH, NORFOLK. Drawn by W. Davidson 122
30. DECORATED MOULDINGS, FROM THE ROOD SCREEN, CAWSTON
CHURCH, NORFOLK. Drawn by W. Davidson 123
31. PORTION OF CEILING DECORATION, CHOIR OF ST. ALBANS
ABBEY 125
32. DECORATION ON THE ROOD SCREEN, RANWORTH CHURCH,
NORFOLK. Drawn by W. Davidson 126
33. PORTION OF ROOM DECORATION FORMERLY EXISTING AT
SHEEN HOUSE, SURREY. Eighteenth Century 130
34. PORTION OF STAIRCASE DECORATION IN THE VICTORIA AND
ALBERT MUSEUM. By F. W. Moody 131
COLOUR DECORATION OF ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
“I cannot consider Architecture as in anywise perfect without Colour.”
Ruskin: _Seven Lamps of Architecture_.
The History of Art testifies, in all its great periods, to the keen
delight that artists, decorators, and architects have taken in the study
of colour, and its expression in certain harmonious proportions and
arrangements for the decoration of buildings. Colour was obtained for
the adornment of a building by the use of marbles, metals, enamelled
bricks and floor mosaics, which may be classed as permanent colouring,
and structural in character, or it was applied, as in painting, wall
mosaics, and stained glass. Architects were not content with leaving
their buildings in grey and drab, for in such periods of the past, no
building was considered complete without its final application of colour
decoration.
Nature, for the solace of mankind, has made most of her works beautiful,
by dressing them in coloured garments. Birds, insects, stones, gems,
trees, flowers and “weeds of glorious feature”; the countless phases of
the earth, the sea, and the sky with its clouds, when rosy-fingered at
the dawn, when sunlit in noon-day beauty, or when fringed with the gold
and crimsoned fires of the dying day, afford the clearest evidence that
nature delights in rich and bright, as well as in quiet schemes of
colour harmony. Therefore, if true art is built on the solid ground of
nature, colour cannot well be divorced from it, for although certain
uncoloured artistic creations are legitimate enough, they come under the
head of illustrations, or are portions of coloured schemes of
decoration, for colourless art, like colourless nature, is almost a
contradiction in terms.
Even a whitewashed wall, when left some time to the weather, will be
eventually changed into a variegated surface having delicate tints or
suggestions of almost every colour. We might also illustrate nature’s
dislike to monotonous uniformity of tone if we select any other colour,
however brilliant or intense, instead of white. The doors and windows of
a house may be painted, for example, in a uniform colour of the rankest
and crudest green imaginable, but if left long enough to the effects of
the weather, this harsh colour will be transformed to a beautiful and
variegated harmony of numerous and closely related tones, varying
perhaps from greys to emerald greens and peacock blues, or in other
words the rank and uniform harshness of the original colour will be
eventually oxidised and bleached into a colour harmony of variegated
beauty.
From our knowledge of the changes in colour made by sunshine and storm
on outside painting and on whitewash, it might be suggested that a
country cottage with white walls should have the doors and other
woodwork, such as window shutters and frames, painted in a strong and
rich green, and the window sashes in vermilion. Such a cottage should
have a roof of thatch, or failing that, a red-tiled roof. In a few
months after the cottage was painted it would lose any supposed
harshness of colour that it might have had when first done, and would
afterwards present a pleasant note of subdued richness of colour, that
would be in complete harmony with the country or landscape around it.
But if the cottage must have a slate roof, and if its walls are of red
brick, then the doors, window shutters and frames should still be
painted green, slightly inclining to yellow, but the window sashes
should be painted white.
As regards the outside painting of the modern “concrete” cottages and
villas, which are now contributing so much to the deepening of the grey
and gloom of town and country, nothing short of the addition of inlaid
panels of mosaic, or tile decoration, and the most brilliant colours
imaginable on the woodwork will serve to relieve the dreary and
leaden-hued monotony of the Portland cement walls.
If we love to see colours in nature and in pictures, why should we not
also love to see a beautiful, a commonplace, or even any badly designed
building decorated in pleasant schemes of harmonious colouring? We are
quite prepared to hear the modern critic, as well as the modern
“cubist,” reply to this, that “art is art because it is not nature,”
that “it is absurd for an artist to worship, or to represent Beauty,” or
they may use any other convenient shibboleth, to protest against the
representation of nature in art either in form or colour.
The question may be asked, “Why are the outsides of our modern buildings
practically colourless?” when we know that during the ancient, medieval,
and the early Renaissance periods the exteriors, as well as the
interiors of all buildings were strongly coloured, either by the means
of using natural marbles, metal-work, tiles, mosaics, or by painted
decorations. Many notable examples of colour decoration, both exterior
and interior, it is true, have been executed in modern times, but modern
nations are still very timid in the use of colour, especially in regard
to its application to the exterior of buildings. We are not yet quite
emancipated from the white, grey, or drab effects, but we must at least
be thankful for the note of colour in the red brick, and occasional
red-tiled roof of the modern dwelling-house.
Our lack of colour appreciation has generally been laid to the charge of
Puritanism, but this has been hitherto chiefly associated with the
white-washing of church interiors. Cromwell, or rather his fanatical
followers, have had a deal to answer for as iconoclasts, but at the same
time it must be remembered that Cromwell was a friend of artists, and a
patron of the arts in his day, and we certainly are indebted to him for
the preservation of Raffaelle’s Cartoons, the masterpieces of that great
painter, which he hid in safety in the cellars of Hampton Court Palace
during the troubles of the Civil War. Since Cromwell’s time, however,
colour decoration has crept into many of our public buildings, and some
buildings in England were treated in colour thirty or forty years ago;
but to-day, and we can hardly blame Cromwell for this, figuratively
speaking, it may be said that a fresh colour-destroying wave of
whitewash is sweeping over the country, which is now blotting out the
former efforts of our old decorators.
The interiors of most of our public buildings are generally of an
indescribable drab colour, if they are not painted white. It requires
some courage to decorate properly in colour, as well as experience and
ability, but it is very humiliating to find that notwithstanding our
plentiful supply of decorative artists, the majority of our public
buildings are painted in the style which we find frequent in bathrooms.
The white of the bathroom has certainly something to recommend it. It
looks decidedly clean, when it is freshly done, and has an air of great
humility. Many people advocate white because, they say, it is safe, that
is, because it relieves them of the solving of a colour problem; some
museum authorities recommend it because they say that it is the best
contrasting background for the objects and examples. The palace and the
ballroom people advocate it because they think that ladies’ dresses and
Court uniforms look best against it, but all these reasons are just the
ones that an artist would put forward to prove that white is not the
best background for museum objects, and should not be used for the walls
of a state assembly-room.
Dark, or strongly coloured objects in a museum look doubly darker
against white walls, so that often you cannot see the beauty of their
forms or the modelling and colour value of their surface details unless
you get your eye quite close to them, which is sometimes impossible. On
the other hand, suitably coloured and decorated walls often bestow a
certain charm on the objects and examples by enhancing their beauty and
preciousness, and by linking them together with the decoration, avoiding
that mechanical and cold effect of isolation which many objects present
on the colourless and undecorated walls of some museums.
As regards ballrooms, or state assembly-rooms, white walls make the
worst kind of backgrounds for dresses and uniforms, as they afford too
great a contrast with brightly coloured ones, and in the case of white
dresses no contrast at all.
There is evidently a strong objection to the use of colour for the
decoration of our public buildings; it is avoided as if it were an
unholy thing, something desperately wicked, like the “scarlet and
purple” trappings of the unhallowed lady of Babylon. Yet we see that the
Almighty has clothed His glorious creation in thousands of tints of
lovely colours, and on the other hand we find that Nature uses white
very sparingly indeed. We moderns, however, live an artificial life, we
are always in such a hurry that we have neither time nor inclination to
learn the lessons we should learn from Nature; and besides, we are more
or less obsessed with a puritanical pride, like the pride which apes
humility, so in our indifference to the beauty of colour we seek for
salvation in whitewash and plenty of it.
Perhaps, however, the Italian architect, Palladio, who flourished in the
sixteenth century, was really more responsible than Puritanism for the
fashion of colourless buildings, for he was one of the first who
regarded colour as an evil thing, as he has said that “white was more
acceptable to the Gods,” an absurd statement, if he believed that the
Gods were responsible for the colouring of Nature. It may be safely
stated that the fashion of colourless buildings had its inception in
Europe in Palladio’s time, for previous to this date, which ushered in
the decadence of the Renaissance, all the interiors and exteriors of
buildings were decorated in colour from the earliest historic times. Any
ancient building that had any architectural pretensions was not only
coloured, but treated in the richest and brightest colours known to the
decorator, and such colours were applied in their full strength. In the
present day we have got so much accustomed to the absence of colour in
architecture that when we do see the rare example of a richly coloured
interior--exterior colouring is out of the question--which is not often,
we must admit, we may be shocked by the novelty of it, and though we may
secretly admire the daring of the decorator, we should be accused of our
bad taste if we ventured to give it our unqualified approval.
Much as we all love colour, we seem to be afraid to get too far away
from white, or very pale and neutral tints, in decoration. We appear to
be too timid, or anxious not to offend the Palladian taste of the
public. On the other hand, in the matter, for example, of church
decoration, we are extraordinarily inconsistent, for we tolerate and
encourage the employment of the most daring combinations of colour in
stained-glass windows, and yet, as a rule, leave the rest of the
architecture colourless and cold, so that in the majority of our
churches the walls and ceilings look more chilly and cheerless in
contrast with the brilliant glories of their stained-glass windows. The
majority of our churches are a kind
[Illustration:
_To face p. 9._] [_National Museum, Dublin._
PLATE 2.--FRESCOES IN THE CHAPEL OF ST. PETER MARTYR, CHURCH OF ST.
EUSTORGIO, MILAN.
(From portion of the model in the National Museum, Dublin.)]
of reflex of the present general aspect of many medieval ones that have
had their former decoration sacrilegiously scraped off their piers,
walls, ribs, and ceiling vaults, and so deprived of their former beauty
and comeliness.
Architecture is the mother of the arts and crafts, and she certainly
looks all the happier when accompanied by her children, Sculpture and
Painting, but when they are absent from her, her dignity is not
augmented or enhanced by her saddened expression of loneliness that
accentuates the coldness of her isolation.
We suppose that no one objects to the fashion of filling church windows
with coloured glass; on the contrary, we should be thankful that in
these modern times this reminiscence of ancient colour expression still
remains to us, but why do we draw the line at coloured windows? Why are
we not more consistent, and colour also the rest of our churches,
interiors and exteriors as well, with coloured marbles, mosaic, or
painted decoration? Seeing that we tolerate and admire colour decoration
in stained-glass windows, there seems to be no legitimate reason why we
should not have panels of coloured mosaic, enamelled terra-cotta or
tiles, fresco, or coloured marbles as vehicles of colour decoration in
churches as well as stained glass. Any of these materials or methods of
decorative colour expression might well be used in the carrying out of
designs for memorials of our departed friends, and would be quite as
effective for such purposes as stained glass. But who has ever seen or
heard of a fine mosaic, or a fresco executed or painted on the walls of
a church to the memory of somebody in particular? If we adopted and
employed mosaics or frescoes as memorials of the dead, as well as
stained-glass windows, we would still be exercising a pious duty to our
departed friends, and at the same time would be assisting to make the
Temple of the Living God more comely and beautiful by adding some of the
necessary colour finish to the walls of the church.
In a church at Birmingham there are a series of most beautiful windows
in the chancel-end of the building, designed by Burne-Jones, that are
magnificent in their glory of flaming crimson hues, and are superb
examples of the artist’s composition and design. One regrets, however,
to find that the decoration of this church is typical of the usual
embellishment of the modern House of Prayer, which generally begins and
ends in the chancel windows.
[Illustration:
_PLATE III_
DESIGN FOR THE DECORATION OF PARK GREEN CHURCH, MACCLESFIELD]