Studio: international art (62.1914)

The Lay Figure

THE LAY FIGURE: ON THE
MANAGEMENT OF COLOUR
IN DOMESTIC DECORATION.

" It always seems to me curious that there should
be so many people who are almost insensitive to
colour," said the Art Critic. " I should have
thought that the colour-sense would have been a
sort of instinctive faculty possessed by the whole of
humanity."

"So I believe it is," returned the Man with the
Red Tie. "The people who are deficient in it are
the rare exceptions. Real insensitiveness to colour
is, like a physical deformity, an accidental departure
from the standard type."

" N es, I think you are right," agreed the Critic.
" But at that rate the apparent insensitiveness,
which is so common, comes from want of proper
training : the education of the colour-sense is
evidently neglected."

"That is it," cried the Decorator; "you have
got hold of the right idea straight away. The
education of the colour-sense is shamefullyneglected
and in that matter most people are hopelessly
illiterate."

" And the most illiterate of all are the decorators,"
laughed the Man with the Red Tie ; " if you want
to see colour insensitiveness in its most pronounced
form, look at the performances of the average
painter and decorator."

"The man who keeps a shop ! " protested the
Decorator. " Please do not dignify him with a
title to which he has no right. He is the worst
obstacle to the progress of true decoration. He
exercises the most pernicious influence of all upon
the popular taste."

•' Yet he meets the popular demand," suggested
the Critic ; "and his taste satisfies that of his
clients."

"Only because his clients have never been
taught to appreciate the difference between what
he gives them and what they would have if they
knew what to ask for," replied the Decorator.
"If they were educated, the man in the shop
would have to educate himself too or lose his
trade. If they acquired the faculty of discrimina-
tion he would have to bring himself up to their
standard or make way for men more capable of
doing what he is asked to do."

"What is he asked to do?" inquired the Man
with the Red Tie.

"Why, I take it, he is asked to provide people
of reasonable refinement with surroundings which
will satisfy whatever aesthetic sense they may
256

happen to possess," answered the Decorator.
"Therefore if he fails to reach a proper standard
he imposes his bad taste upon the people who
have the inclination for better things but who do
not know enough to correct him ; and as a result
he drags his clients down to his level, against their
will, and keeps them there with all their latent
possibilities of improvement hopelessly checked."

"And, worst of all, he prevents them from ever
realising what colour means in domestic decoration,"
said the Critic.

" Certainly, because he has no notion how colour
should lie used," declared the Decorator. "His
only idea of using colour is to make it what he calls
lively ; he likes to have plenty of it and to get as
many misfitting tints into one small room as he can
find spaces for. If you talk to him about harmony
he assures you that his clients prefer contrasts and
variety—because he does himself—and, poor
things, he sees that they get them ! "

"Ah! There you baveit," broke in the Critic.
"That is what I mean by insensitiveness. The
average person has so dull a colour-sense that it
will only respond to the most violent stimulus. It
must be excited by shrieking contrasts and by
discordant juxtapositions. Balanced harmonies
and subtle arrangements seem to him monotonous
because he lacks the refinement of feeling that
comes only with education."

" W ell, if he likes a lot of colour why should
he not have it?" laughed the Man with the Red
Tie.

" Because in domestic decoration colour is after
all only one item in a general effect," returned the
Critic. "By the colour scheme of your room
you provide the background for yourself and
the setting in which you live your life ; and it is
only as a background and a setting that you should
In- conscious of it. If it shrieks for attention, if it
forces you to notice it whether you want to or not,
it is out of its right place ; it has ceased to be a back-
ground and has become an assertive interference
with your daily existence. Rightly used it is a joy
to you, a restful and a helpful influence ; wrongly
applied it is a perpetual source of irritation and
dangerous in its effect upon your taste."

" Yet your colour-scheme can be gay and brilliant
without becoming obtrusive," said the Decorator.

" ()f course it can," agreed the Critic. " W hen the
proportions of your harmony are right, the actual
colours used can be as bright as you please ; there
will be no wrong effect if they are properly
related."

The Lay Figure