Imagine a luxuriant garden, the beds in which are filled with a thousand flowers, having all the colours of the rainbow, and imagine these arranged as closely together as will permit of their growth. When viewed from a distance the effect is soft and rich, and full and varied, and is all that is pleasant. This is Nature's colouring. It is our work humbly to strive at producing like beauty with her.
This leads me to notice that primary colours (and secondary colours, also, when of great intensity) should be used chiefly in small masses, together with gold, white, or black.
Visit the Indian Museum at Whitehall,[16] and consider the beautiful Indian shawls and scarves and table-covers; or, if unable to do so, look in the windows of our large drapers in the chief towns, and see the true Indian fabrics,[17] and observe the manner in which small portions of intense reds, blues, yellows, greens, and a score of tertiary tints, are combined with white and black and gold to produce a very miracle of bloom. I know of nothing in the way of colour combination so rich, so beautiful, so gorgeous, and yet so soft, as some of these Indian shawls.
It is curious that we never find a purely Indian work otherwise than in good taste as regards colour harmony. Indian works, in this respect—whether carpets, or shawls, or dress materials, or lacquered boxes, or enamelled weapons—are almost perfect—perfect in harmony, perfect in richness, perfect in the softness of their general effect. How strangely these works contrast with ours, where an harmonious work in colours is scarcely ever seen.
By the co-mingling (not co-mixing) of colours in the manner just described, a rich and bloomy effect can be got, having the general tone of a tertiary colour of any desired hue. Thus, if a wall be covered with little ornamental flowerets, by colouring all alike, and letting each contain two parts of yellow and one part of blue and one of red, as separate and pure colours, the distant hue will be that of citrine: the same effect will result if the flowers are coloured variously, while the same proportions of the primaries are preserved throughout. I can conceive of no decorative effects more subtle, rich, and lovely than those of which I now speak.
Imagine three rooms, all connected by open archways, and all decorated with a thousand flower-like ornaments, and these so coloured, in this mingled manner, that in one room blue predominates, in another red, and in another yellow; we should then have a beautiful tertiary bloom in each—a subtle mingling of colour, an exquisite delicacy and refinement of treatment, a fulness such as always results from a rich mingling of hues, and an amount of detail which would interest when closely inspected; besides which, we should have the harmony of the general effect of the three rooms, the one appearing as olive, another as citrine, and the other as russet.
This mode of decoration has this advantage, that it not only gives richness and beauty, but it also gives purity. If pigments are mixed together they are thereby reduced in intensity, as we have already seen; but if placed side by side, when viewed from a distance the eye will mix them, but they will suffer no diminution of brilliancy.
With the view of cultivating the eye, Eastern works cannot be too carefully studied. The Indian Museum should be the home of all who can avail themselves of the opportunity of study which it affords; and the small Indian department of the South Kensington Museum should not be neglected, small though it is.[18] Chinese works must also be considered, for they likewise supply most valuable examples of colour harmony; and although they do not present such a perfect colour bloom as do the works of India, yet they are never inharmonious, and give clearness and sharpness, together with great brilliancy, in a manner not attempted by the Indians.
The best works of Chinese embroidery are rarely seen in this country; but these are unsurpassed by the productions of any other people. For richness, splendour, and purity of colour, together with a delicious coolness, I know of nothing to equal them.