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 classic.
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 circumscribed 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.
[Illustration: 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 furnishings 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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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 space 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.
[Illustration]
113. Every decorator who handles fabrics, every cabinetmaker who lays
out the woodwork of a room, every stained glass 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 (Illustration A on page 57), it is
foreshortened; if it is finished by angles (Illustration B), the height
of the room is apparently greater. (See the illustration 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration]
116. The use of arches should be studied. A space that is arched looks
wider than it actually is, for the eye unconsciously follows the lines
of the arch, and a distance or width effect is the result. The same
space treated with a straight line is quickly bridged. The same space
treated with lines that come to an angle looks narrower, for the reason
that the eye becomes focused by the apex of the angle, and a height
effect, not a breadth effect, is the result. (See page 57.)
117. This illusion is best shown in the illustrations of the parallel
lines that are crossed diagonally, with the result that the lines no
longer look parallel because of the angles. Nevertheless, they are
parallel, and the lines running diagonally at the bottom of this page
are also parallel.
[Illustration]
We present two practical illustrations of illusion in the use of lines.
(See ¶ 112.) They represent the side-walls of two rooms of the same
dimensions, but showing apparently different proportions, the
perpendicular lines making the side-wall look higher and the horizontal
lines making the side-wall look lower. (See page 59.)
[Illustration: Illustration A.]
[Illustration: Illustration B. (See ¶ 113.)]
[Illustration]
The length of the wall space is shortened, moreover, by the
perpendicular lines and lengthened by the horizontal lines.
118. No period expresses more clearly the joy of curves as opposed to
the severity of straight lines than that voluptuous period of Louis XV
known as Rococo. It was a profligate era, an era of pleasure, and the
appended illustration of part of a frieze is in no way exaggerated, but
a true example of a common expression. (See page 60.)
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
119. Distinct perpendicular lines give height effect, but they also
narrow the apparent width of a wall space. It is best to have such line
effects indistinct unless they appear as in the illustration on page 63,
where they are intended to reduce the breadth effect of the pattern and
neutralize a squat tendency.
Indistinct perpendiculars give height effect, and do not reduce the wall
width.
[Illustration: (See ¶ 111.)]
[Illustration: Perpendicular lines, giving height effect.]
[Illustration: Perpendicular lines, giving height effect.]
#COLOR TERMS#
120. In the study of color and its application authorities differ so
materially that it is not only impossible to reconcile their theories,
but the different terms used to express color thought create
inextricable confusion.
121. One authority fixes the neutrals as being black, gray and white;
another regards them as those hues or tones which lack definite color,
like quaternaries. Authorities differ, moreover, upon even the
fundamental principles. Chevreuil selects red, yellow and blue as the
primaries; Dr. Thomas Young selects red, green and violet. Helmholtz
selects carmine, pale green and blue-violet; Maxwell scarlet red,
emerald green and blue-violet; Professor Rood agrees with Maxwell;
Professor Church, of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, regards the
primaries as red, green and blue; George Hurst, the English authority,
fixes upon red, yellow and blue, the Brewsterian theory.
122. One must remember always in studying color that we are treating
with the material, not with the illusion. We are dealing with pigments,
not with prismatic phenomena, and it must be obvious that the only three
primary colors that can be used in a way to produce all other colors are
red, yellow and blue.
123. Whatever may be the spectrum theories of Sir Isaac Newton, Young or
Helmholtz, for practical reasons we prefer to follow an authority as
eminent as Chevreuil, for years the head of the National Gobelin Works
of France, and a man experienced in the practice as well as the theory
of color. Any effort to fix the character of color and describe it by
periods and epochs will always prove unsatisfactory, for the reason that
terms and expressions have changed with every period since the Egyptian,
4000 B.C.
124. We think we know purple until we discover that the purple of
royalty, the ermine and purple, the purple of the cardinals' robes,
frequently approximated what we now call carmine. Royal purple and
Venetian blue are mere trade terms. Practical men in the purchase of
things decorative soon discover that color terms convey only individual
impressions and no distinctive qualities that may be relied upon; so
that any effort to fix the color value by periods would be futile. We
may assume that in the age of oak, mahogany, white and gold or walnut
furniture, the fabric and wall colors harmonized with the wood colors,
and to that degree we may fix the period character of color. The moment
that the tone of the woodwork or the light conditions varied, color
character varied also.
125. We must also bear well in mind that colors which have come down to
us as examples of ancient times have been subjected to the changing
influences of centuries, and have faded and altered. The colors on the
walls of the historic rooms of European palaces have greatly altered.
The flat reds and the deadish blues of the Pompeiian frescoes have been
altered by chemical action during the 1,850 years' burial under the lava
of Vesuvius. We are not justified in judging of the colors of A.D. 79
by the restoration-examples in 1900. Hence the mere expressions
Pompeiian red, Pompeiian blue, can convey no definite, positive meaning.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
#COLOR VOCABULARY#
126. In music, a tone which is formed by a certain number of vibrations
per second is the same the world over, and each and every tone has a
name; but in color no such standards exist. People have attempted to
formulate a system by denominating the primary colors, red, yellow and
blue, respectively as R, Y and B, and the combinations of these colors
as combinations of letters. For example, red, with varying degrees of
yellow added, is denominated by the letters R R O, or R O R, or O O R.
This system tends to confusion, and is inadequate to express tints and
shades. Various other systems have been devised. Color charts have been
made, and in each system arbitrary names have been assigned, so that
each color may be known by one of several names. The difficulty of
insuring accuracy under these circumstances becomes very evident.
127. In discussing color combinations, one is usually confused because
the subject is not a tangible expression that can be grasped like the
sound of a note in music. With color charts, every maker has a standard
of his own and the term "red" may mean anything within a wide range; a
yellow-red or a blue-red, the yellow-red perhaps being cherry, the
blue-red perhaps being carmine. An appreciation of the Harmonies of
Contrast or Harmonies of Analogy or Relationship is accompanied by great
confusion because of this lack of standardization.
128. There is only one true standard of color, and that is the standard
as shown in the prism, and expressed by the spectrum. It is within the
province of any man to determine the proper relationship of color if he
starts with the chart we here present. We fix definitely the three
primary and the three secondary colors, the primaries, red, yellow and
blue, being those indicated by the heavy black lines; the secondaries,
orange, green and violet, being indicated by the broad stipple lines.
All other lines are the tertiary or quaternary colors.
If we have clearly in our minds the appearance of the normal red and
yellow, and clearly in our minds the orange that is made up by combining
the two, we ought to be able to fix in our imagination the colors that
come midway between the red and the orange, or the colors that come
nearer the red or nearer the orange. Let us assume we are to select
colors in the harmony of _contrast_. Take a ruler and lay across the
chart and the contrasting colors are always opposite; the direct
contrast of red is green because green is composed of the other two
primary colors, yellow and blue; the contrast of blue is orange because
orange is a combination of the other two primaries, yellow and red; the
contrast of yellow is violet, a combination of blue and red.
Now, to determine the niceties of distinction, let us take a red that is
a little off shade, a little yellowish; one must determine in the mind's
eye about how much yellow there is in it and, to determine the true
contrast, carry your line across from the point which you think is
represented by the yellowish and you find that it is green with a little
blue added, or bluish-green.
129. One must also determine the scale of color. The parallel circular
lines on the chart designate four scales, or four grades, of each color,
growing lighter by adding white, to the center; as you add more and more
white the tint becomes more and more light. In determining contrast, be
careful to stick to your scale. Contrasts, to be in harmony, must be
colors of the same scale.
130. Harmony of analogy or relationship is clearly expressed in the
chart. The family relations of red are the things which go with red. We
may have a harmony of analogy in violet which includes the relations of
red and blue. We must not attempt to carry the family relationship too
far. There is a wide range of variety in these combinations of analogy
because they may include not only all scales of each color from the
darkest tones to the lightest tints but they include tertiaries and
quaternaries.
Each man must establish his own standard, and by establishing it he
forms unconsciously a very comprehensive understanding of color. It has
never been possible to print a true colored chart because no two copies
of the sheet off the press would be alike. A little more ink or a little
less ink, or a little lighter or a little heavier impression, changes
the values.
The chart illustrates contrasts of all of the primaries and secondary
colors and the broken colors or hues. In the same way the tertiary or
quaternary colors may be arranged, but for convenience we show the
contrasts as follows: