Colour Decoration of Architecture

by James Ward

Some of the simplest and inexpensive examples of exterior structural colouring may be obtained by the use of red brick, and common stone dressings on the façade of a building, if to this could be added some notes of grey-blue in terra-cotta, or tiles, in bands, borders, or in panels. Mosaic in panels would be better still, but we leave that out on the score of expense. Such an example as this colour arrangement may be seen in many buildings in Florence, Milan, and in the northern towns of Italy. We might mention one, that of the front of the Hospital of the Innocents, in Florence, which is a yellow-red brick elevation with severe columns and arches of a warm-coloured stone, and in the spandrels between the arches are the grey-blue and white roundels of Delia Robbia glazed earthenware, the whole effect being a pleasant and warm colour arrangement, and besides being extremely simple, it is certainly very effective, and an admirable example of structural colouring.

At Verona, Venice, and many other places in Italy there are fine examples of this style of exterior colouring where the red bricks give the dominant tone, whether terra-cotta or stone be used for the dressings, or glazed earthenware heraldic panels, mosaic, or fresco are added to give the balance of blue, or other sharper notes of pure colour, that may be required to complete the harmony.

It is a matter well known that in Northern Germany, Belgium, Holland, and in England red brick buildings with stone and terra-cotta dressings and sculptured work were erected as manor houses, palaces, and every kind of public building, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, most of which were fine examples, not only of architecture, but of exterior colouring.

The front of the Doge’s Palace at Venice is an example of suitable application of colour to public buildings. The sculpture and mouldings are in white marble, and the wall surface has a chequered pattern of marble slabs of a pale rose colour and white Istrian stone.

Fresco paintings and mosaic have often been employed in Italy on the exteriors of churches and palaces. There is a beautiful bit of heraldic painting, alternating with cardinals’ hats placed in squares, on a wall behind the Duomo of Verona. This, however, and nearly all exterior wall paintings have suffered very much by the weather in course of time, and such decoration has no chance of lasting compared with the colour of the more permanent materials of stone, marble, tiles, or mosaic.

In Germany, much more than other countries, exterior colour-painting and decoration has always found great favour. Even to-day the exteriors of many buildings, especially hostelries and restaurants, are painted as they were in the sixteenth century. A great revival of colour decoration took place in Germany, as it did also in France, about the middle of the last century. We shall consider this at more length when making an historical survey of the subject in later chapters, and endeavour to describe some of the methods and principles of colour decoration adopted and carried out by the old decorators of England and the continental nations. Before leaving, however, this portion of our subject it may be useful and interesting to notice an important example of Venetian exterior polychromy of the late medieval period.

The building in question is known as the Ca’ D’Oro, or “Golden House,” so called on account of the great quantity of gilding that it formerly had on its façade. This building must have been erected on the site of a former medieval palace, for the rebuilding of it was begun in 1424, contemporary with that of the Piazzeta façade of the Ducal Palace at Venice. The architect or “stone-mason” was Giovanni Buon, who was assisted by his son, Bartolomeo, the palace being erected for a nobleman named Marino Contarini, at St. Sophia on the Grand Canal. The existing documents, which consist of the original memoranda of Contarini, dated 1431-2, and preserved among the papers of the Procurators of St. Mark’s, give in detail the orders for the gold and colours, and how they were to be used in the decoration of the façade. From these and also from the traces of the colour and gold which Signor G. Boni found on parts of the building in 1885, we are enabled to form an estimate of the polychromatic decorations of this medieval palace, which may serve as an illustration of the external colour-decoration of the period.

From these evidences we find that the balls of Istrian stone which decorated the embattlements were gilt, also the carved mouldings, the abacus of each capital, lions, shields, dentels, rose-flowers, and other salient points of the carvings. The backgrounds of capitals, soffits, some shields and bands were painted ultramarine blue, “fine azure ultramarine, in such a manner that it may last longer” (that is, twice coated). The blue ground of the soffits was studded with small golden stars. It is interesting to note how all the stonework was painted in the early times, when it is mentioned that all the red stones of the façade and the red dentels were to be painted with oil and varnish in still deeper tones of red, “so that they will look red.” It appears that this was done in order to give a look of uniformity to the red Verona Broccatello marble, which, being composed of the detritus of ammonites, had a variegated, or patchy-like appearance when newly cut, and therefore its effect, when new, did not find favour in the eyes of the decorator, as perhaps he thought that in its virgin state its appearance disturbed the broad colour effect he was aiming for. The crowning cornice was painted with white lead and oil, and also in a like manner the roses and vines on the façade. The backgrounds of the latter carved decoration, and that of the fields of the cusps of the window tracery and of the cornice foliage were painted black, in order to give the effect of penetration.

The parts of the façade which were painted white were those of bluish or yellowish Istrian stone, the natural colour of which the Venetians did not like, so they generally obliterated it with a coating of white paint. In the memoranda it is also stated that the stone battlements were to be “painted and veined, to make them look like marble.”

The imitation of marbles and woods by painting the commoner stone, or inferior wood in simulation of the more costly materials, though rightly condemned as a common practice by purists has, however, been largely practised by the decorators of primitive Greece, Pompeii, Rome, and of the East, as well as of the Renaissance and later periods. The old decorators had no scruples in regard to the painting of plaster or common stone to make it look like marble; but generally in such examples the imitation was more strictly confined to objects and surfaces where the more costly materials would have been used if sufficient means had been available to procure them.