It does not seem to follow that with the greatest amount of sunlight we get the most colour; on the contrary, the zenith of light is the absorption of colour, just as darkness represents its extinction. Light and darkness are the black and white on the palette of nature, necessary to give value to her colours.
The sense of colour, too, is no doubt greatly affected by other climatic influences, such as humidity, haziness, clearness, heat and cold, as well as their accompaniments in varieties of scenery and locality, such as plains or mountains, woodland, sea-board, lake, river, agricultural land, or wild nature.
We associate brilliant colours and bold designs with eastern and southern countries, but, apart from the greater stimulus of light which might encourage the use of vivid colour, there is, I think, another reason which accounts for the bolder and franker use of colour and ornament in the south and east. Broad and full sunlight has a curiously flattening effect upon colour and pattern, and therefore colours and patterns which under a gray sky would look staring, or very strong and striking, under the full sunlight fall into plane, and become subordinated to the dominant pitch of light.
We may take as an instance the porch of the Cathedral at Pistoia. The bold black and white bands of marble which face the front of this building—as of so many mediæval Lombardic Italian cathedrals, as at Florence, Genoa, and Siena (an idea borrowed from the Saracens)—look striking enough under a gray sky, but when the sunlight falls upon the building and raises the whole pitch of light the whole mass with its projections falls into planes of broad light and shade. The black bands become gray and flat in the light, and all fall into their places in the architectural scheme, and therefore, though borrowed from the east, are quite appropriate in a climate like Italy, which can count on persistent sunshine for the most part, summer and winter. Inside the porch, in the spandril and vault, is faced with Della Robbia ware, in blue, white, and yellow, and a very beautiful piece of decoration it is. This, again, however, in a dull atmosphere might look cold and strange, but illuminated by the rich reflected light cast up from the sunlit pavement it takes all sorts of accidental lights and falls into its place admirably. Otherwise the porch is interesting from the curious blend of Byzantine, Saracenic, and classical motives and influences in decoration.
PORCH of CATHEDRAL OF S. JACOPO PISTOIA
Seen in the cold and dull light of an English museum, away from their proper architectural surroundings, panels of Della Robbia ware are apt to look somewhat strong, bold, or rank in colour, which only shows they were designed in a sunny bright climate, and to be seen in a full external or warm reflected light as a rule. The very qualities that make the ware trying in one place make it right in another.
The various historic types of design in architecture and decoration are, in fact, mostly the result of the blending or uniting of elements derived from different sources. While we may in the leading types prevalent in different countries detect the fundamental prevailing influence of life, custom and habit, the result of climatic and racial conditions; we may also see, owing to social and political changes and the results of conquest or of commercial relations, other elements coming in various details of construction, form, and colour.
Our present purpose, however, is rather to seek the fundamental characteristic types and predilections traceable to the fundamental or natural conditions of locality and climate, as far as they can be followed in historic decoration.
It seems to have been in the power of certain ancient peoples to impress and to preserve the character of their life and the conditions of their habitat very strongly upon their art, so that, though their political power has long ago been swept away, their records remain practically imperishable in their monuments of art.