Studio: international art (3.1894)

On Colouring Sculpture

Mr. R. Anning Bell (an illustration of which
appeared in the second number of The Studio),
as a good example of largeness in design and fine
shapes, each mass making a delightful pattern.
The treatment of the modelling should be as low
as possible ; if any great strength is required, it
can best be brought out by the colour. A ten-
dency has been noticed among architects to prefer
bold ornament on their buildings—so bold, in fact,
as to make the figures or foliage employed in the
decoration nearly on the round. Then, again,
where figures are employed in panels, it is not
uncommon to see the sculpture bolder than the
surrounding architecture. I have seen this fault
indulged in to an alarming extent, especially in

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modern coloured reredoses, with Biblical scenes
appearing to all the world like the performances of
marionettes. I always think that the charm of low
relief is its delicate lights and shades, and the losing
and finding of the design. Sometimes I have been
asked what projection a relief ought to have at
certain heights. Well, that is a matter of taste ; but
a relief having its highest point, say, about half an
inch, will, providing the design is bold and well
drawn, show up well at fifty feet, and if coloured,
at one hundred feet. A similar design painted in
the same colour on the fiat would, I fancy, be
entirely lost at a height of one hundred feet.

One warning may be given in the use of colour
on plaster. Never employ white pigment, for it
will make your colour appear dirty ; for whites the
plaster ground may be used exactly as a water-
colour painter uses his paper.

In the distribution of coloured sculpture in
houses and churches it should not be extravagantly
employed. For instance, if a ceiling is modelled and
coloured there should be no relief work immediately
beneath ; it should rather be framed in by a band
of flat colour or gold. A frieze looks best between
good wide plain surfaces. If in a room, the wall
from floor to frieze should be in a delicate tint, or,
better still, covered with a rich gold paper; or the
wall may be painted in some high key, with German
gold-leaf put on evenly, like tiles, to show a joint of
about one-sixteenth, and the whole toned down to
suit the light. There are, of course, hundreds of
ways of treating wall surfaces, and I do not suggest
either of these more elaborate methods of treat-

BY H. S. TUKE

ment in preference to a simple wood or stone
panelling, nor do I suggest that coloured plaster
should take the place of wood, or any other good
and solid material; I have advocated it merely as
a good and cheap form of internal decoration.

Coloured sculpture, such as inlaid marble and
painted stucco and gesso, was in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries brought to a very high state of
perfection on the Continent. In England, from
the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, many
beautiful monuments in different marbles support-
ing painted recumbent effigies were created, as
our cathedrals and some village churches can
testify. But whether these masterpieces of coloured
architecture and sculpture were done by Englishmen
or foreigners I am not in a position to state, but I am
inclined to think that a good deal of work of this
kind was produced by Englishmen towards the end

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