[8] The ellipse and egg-shape here spoken of are not those which are struck by compasses in any way, for the curves of such figures are merely combined arcs, but such as are struck with string, or a "tramel."
[9] Casts of one or two of these can be seen in the central transept of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
CHAPTER II.
COLOUR.
Having considered some of the chief principles involved in the production of decorative design so far as "expression" goes, we come to notice that constant adjunct of form which has ever played an important part in all decorative schemes—namely, colour.
Form can exist independently of colour, but it never has had any important development without the chromatic adjunct. From a consideration of history, we should be led to conclude that form alone is incapable of yielding such enrichments as satisfy; for no national system of decoration has ever existed in the absence of colour. Mere outline-form may be good, but it is not satisfying; mere light and shade may be pleasing, but it is not all that we require. With form our very nature seems to demand colour; and it is only when we get well-proportioned forms which are graceful, or noble, or vigorous, in combination with colours harmoniously arranged, that we are satisfied.
Possibly this feeling results from our contact with nature. The flowers appear in a thousand hues, and the hills are of ever-varying tints. What a barren world ours would appear, were the ground, the hills, the trees and the flowers, the sky and the waters all of one colour! Form we should have, and that in its richest variety; light and shade we should have, with ever-varying intensity and change; but colour would be gone. There would be no green to cheer, no blue to soothe, no red to excite; and, indeed, there would be a deadness, although the world be full of life, so appalling that we can scarcely conceive of it, and cannot feel it.
Colour alone seems to have greater charms than form alone. A sunset is entrancing when the sky glows with radiant hues; the blue is almost lost in red, the yellow is as a sea of transparent gold, and the whole presents a variety and blending of tints which charm, and soothe, and lull to reverie; and yet all form is indistinct and obscure. If so charming when separate from form, what is colour when properly combined with beautiful shapes? It is difficult, indeed, for many of those for whom I write to answer this question, even by a mental conception, save by reference to nature; for I could scarcely point to a single building in England which would be in any way a satisfactory illustration of what may be done by the combination of forms and colours. There is a beauty in Art which we in England do not even know of: it does not exist around us, it is little talked of, rarely thought about, and never seen. A decorator is called in to beautify a house, and yet not one in fifty of the so-called decorators know even the first principles of their art, and would not believe were they told of the power of the art which they employ. They place on the walls a few sickly tints—so pale that their want of harmony is not very apparent. The colours of the wall become the colours of the cornice and of the doors, because they know not how to produce a harmony of hues; and the result is a house which may be clean, but which is in every other respect an offence against good taste. I do not wonder that persons here in England do not care to have their houses "decorated," nor do I wonder at their not appreciating the "decorations" when they are done. Colour, lovely colour, of itself would make our rooms charming.