Colour Decoration of Architecture

COLOUR DECORATION OF ARCHITECTURE



Frontispiece. ]
Plate I.—Sketch Design for a Wall Decoration in Fresco.
Fame Rewarding the Arts and Sciences.

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.
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.