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We shall say something later on in reference to the changes which some colours undergo when seen in artificial light.

We offer a few suggestions for the general colouring of walls in rooms of an ordinary residence or in public buildings, namely:--If a red is decided upon it should be of a deep pink slightly broken or toned with a very little blue and yellow; if the colour is to be of a yellowish tone, it ought to be pale and golden inclining to a light brown; if blue it should be of a pale greenish blue, or of any tint between that and a greyish ultramarine; a deep blue tone should never be used for large wall spaces.

If greens are to be used in large spaces they should be, if pale, more pure in colour than in the case of deep greens; the latter tones should be less pure and more grey, in order to avoid rankness of hue.

These suggestions apply to the colours of either painted walls, or to the tints of paperhangings, if the latter be used as wall-coverings. Large expanses of wall surfaces when painted in a single tint have usually a dry and uninteresting appearance; to avoid this, and at the same time to give the wall the effect of being treated in a single tone of colour, the surface, after being painted in the chosen colour, should have another thin application of a tint, slightly lighter, or darker than the previous coating, stippled over the latter, or the thin, and different, shade of colour may be applied with the brush, and immediately after the application it should be partially wiped off with clean rags. This operation will give the wall surface a slightly mottled and lively appearance, and will remove the dead and monotonous uniformity usually seen on painted walls when the work is finished in the more solid and flat methods of execution.

We give as suggestions of colours the three examples on Plate 7, which we think suitable as background tints for the walls of rooms on which pictures would be hung. Any of these colours might be used on the walls of a picture gallery or in rooms that contained pictures in gold or in black frames, either for the colour tints of paint, if used, or for the tints of paperhangings, but for choice we think the brownish tinted--middle illustration--would be on the whole the most satisfactory of the three. If the walls are to be painted they should be finished in a stippled manner, as described above, but if a paperhanging is used the stippled effect would be obtained by a very small self-coloured, lighter or darker pattern, or by some other method of superimposed lines or dots on the red, brown, or grey-green ground.

TREATMENT OF CEILINGS: VAULTED OR FLAT.

When decorating curved surfaces, such as vaulted ceilings, domes, or the semi-dome of an apse, when they are not sectionally divided by mouldings, or archivolts, it is extremely difficult to preserve the proper appearance of their sections or surfaces, especially when they are treated pictorially, or with a diaper, or all-over-pattern of ornament. In such cases it is necessary, as the custom was with the majority of the old mosaic artists and fresco painters, to subdivide these vaulted or domed ceilings into proportionate parts, running either in a vertical or in a horizontal direction, by bands, or lines, thus supplying the needed substitute for mouldings or relief divisional lines. Even if these bands and lines were left out, and the decoration designed in a series of horizontal, vertical, or arched divisions, forming rows of figures or ornament, an appearance of constructive stability would be given to the scheme of decoration and so prevent any confusion as to the true section of the vaulted surface.

When a ceiling of a large hall or of a church is to be decorated, whether the surface be flat or curved, it is generally necessary to interpose a band of colour, either plain, or with a pattern on it, between the cornice, ribs, or archivolts and the field or panel, so that the structural abruptness between these features may be modified and softened, and that an artistical alliance may be created between the colouring of the panel and that of the cornice under the flat ceiling, or between the ribs and the vaulted surface, respectively.

The ceilings of interiors, whether flat or vaulted, provide admirable fields for colour and decoration. The greatest attention was given to them by the artists of the Italian Renaissance. Even when the rest of the interiors were simple or almost plain, in regard to decorative treatment, the ceiling was hardly ever neglected. Some of the finest Italian art is found on the ceilings of the churches and palaces. For example, Michel Angelo's masterpiece in painting was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; there are also Raffaelle's ceiling decorations in the Stanze of the Vatican; Pinturrichio's richly-coloured ceilings in the Borgia Apartments, and those of his in the "Sala Piccolomini" at Siena, in the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, in Santa Maria Maggiore at Spello, and in the Chapel of the Sala di Cambio at Perugia, where he worked with Perugino. Many important ceiling decorations were painted by Raffaelle's pupils, Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga and Giovanni da Udine, in the palaces at Mantua, the Villa Madama, some in Venice and Genoa, others in the Vatican and in the Castel Angelo, at Rome, etc. There is also the ceiling of elaborate panelling, in which figure subjects alternate with arabesques in the Chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, painted by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Ceilings of a later date, heavy in their mouldings and ornamentation, exist in the churches and palaces of Venice, and other places, which were painted with pictorial subjects by Paul Veronese and Tintoretto. The list of Italian painted ceilings would be almost endless, and we have only mentioned a few to point out the importance attached to ceiling decoration in Italy. The Italian ceilings were usually moulded, and were divided into a series of panels, lozenged-shaped, square, oblong, and circular, and where the relief mouldings did not exist, the decorator supplied their place by bands and enclosing lines, or even in some cases by feigned mouldings in colour, and sometimes by low relief stucco. Most of the ceilings were coloured in the brightest possible tints, and gold was also freely used, not only for heightening the salient parts of mouldings and carved enrichments, but often as backgrounds to the pictorial work and ornamental patterns. The gold backgrounds were in most cases

slightly toned with a glaze of warm transparent brown, or were treated with a fine mesh-like pattern of crossed lines, to enrich and also to modify the raw brilliancy of the gold. Another effective way of using gold was the common employment of gold stars and spots over bright red or blue backgrounds. This was usually done in cases where gold was used in the bands, or in ornament on the bands, which surrounded the panels having the bright-coloured backgrounds.

If one may be permitted to criticise the splendid Italian painted ceilings, it might be pointed out that, generally speaking, the rich and deep colouring was in many cases too dark, which often produced a lowering effect in this architectural feature of the room, especially in cases where the ceiling was only of a moderate height. It is only very lofty ceilings that can safely be treated in strong and moderately dark colours, and in proportion to the lowness of a ceiling the colouring should tend to become lighter in scale. The greatest weight or strength of colour on a flat ceiling should be kept in the corners, and near the cornice. This will help to give a more raised appearance to the centre, or at least it will determine, in an effective manner, the more perfect flatness of the surface, as all flat ceilings have a tendency to appear lower in the centre than at the sides. The general colour scheme of a ceiling should be arranged with due regard to even distribution, not only of the colour values, but of the tints and hues, and if gold is used great care must be taken that it is also evenly distributed, so as to prevent any spottiness that would be due to the inequality of its application; in short a perfect balance of the colours and gold must be maintained respectively, although it may not be necessary to have a mechanical symmetry either in the colouring, ornamental patterns, or in the infilling of the panels, or other subdivisions.

MOULDINGS.

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the architectural styles are the mouldings, so much so, that a building having no mouldings is almost, if not entirely, devoid of architectural expression; it may be classed as a structure, but hardly as true architecture, for the style, and even the date of a building may be often determined by the design of its mouldings alone. Ruskin has said, "Never give mouldings separate colours," but he adds that "he knows this is heresy." He is right if he means that the individual members of a group of mouldings should not be "picked out" in too decided or separate colours. What should be avoided is the possible danger of detaching them too much from each other. Contrasting colours should be used sparingly, and only to distinguish the larger and more structural members from those of the smaller ones. Simple explanation of their contours only is

wanted, and not any appearance of detachment. As a rule, the more numerous and elaborate the group of mouldings the less contrast in their colour treatment is required. But, on the other hand, if a well-balanced colour harmony is obtained by treating a group of mouldings in separate colours, provided there is no appearance of detachment, and that the effect of harmonious unity of colour as a leading motive is secured, then we should say that this particular treatment would be justified. There are many instances where groups of mouldings have been treated in strong contrasting colours, in work of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which are examples of successful colouring.

THE CORNICE.

The cornice in an ordinary room should be treated in colour as part of the wall, and not as belonging to the ceiling, for the cornice is the crown of the wall, and is not part of the ceiling. The value of a cornice in a room, as an architectural feature, is to soften the harsh divisional line between the ceiling and the wall, but this effect is destroyed if the cornice is left white or coloured like the ceiling, and not treated in colour to show that it belongs to the wall. As a general rule, the deep and recessed hollows in the cornice should be coloured fairly strong, as weak tints are lost or become grey when they are in shadow, but large spaces, such as coved hollows, that happen to be well lighted, should not be treated so strongly in colour. Prominent edges and fillets of the cornice mouldings should be either light in colour or gilt.

THE FRIEZE.

The frieze of a public hall, assembly-room, or of a room in an ordinary house, is an architectural feature which always forms a fine field for colour and decoration, in sculpture or in painting. In the earliest, and in all great periods of art, the frieze was that part of the building which received the richest treatment. The best art of the ancient Mesopotamian nations was lavished on the coloured enamelled friezes, and the chief glory of the Parthenon was its sculptured frieze. The treatment, where pictorial or ornamental, admits of more elaboration in design and a richer application of colour than any other part of the room. If an interior has an important frieze decoration, it is not so necessary to have much colour or decoration on the ceiling. When tinting the cornice mouldings over the frieze it is extremely important that the dominant colours in the frieze should be "echoed" in some of the members of the cornice.

A frieze is of more architectural value in a room than a dado, for it is sufficient of itself to give an architectural aspect to a room; but if there is a dado it would obviously be coloured somewhat darker

than the walls, whether it was in wood, or only as a painted feature, and its moulding or "chair rail" would be coloured so as to harmonise with the dado, because it is also the crown or cornice of that feature.

As regards the debatable question of the imitation of relief mouldings and other architectural features on painted walls and ceilings, there are many precedents for doing so, some of which we will speak of further on, but this can only be successfully done when the decorator has a good knowledge of architecture and knows exactly what to do, like Michel Angelo when he divided the plain surface of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel into panels and niches by means of imitative structural forms and mouldings, in order to separate and enclose his magnificent painted series of scriptural subjects, prophets and sibyls. The imitation of architectural features in painted light and shade may not be logical, but when a great artist does such things, we are obliged to accept them without much criticism, as we accept the work of a great poet who makes his own grammar.

TREATMENT OF WOODWORK.

The question of whether to paint in colour the woodwork such as doors, window-frames and wainscoting of interiors, or to leave them in the natural colour of the wood, depends chiefly on the kind of wood employed in their construction. It would be wrong, for example, to advise the painting or colouring of the more valuable kinds of wood such as oak, mahogany, walnut, ebony, or any rare kind of wood, in any way other than that which would deepen or make richer the natural tone of the material by the application of a varnish, and of such a varnish as would only intensify the natural beauty of the wood, but not produce anything like a polished surface. It would be better to accept the natural colour of such woods, and to scheme the colouring of walls and ceiling to harmonise with the colour of the woodwork in such cases, especially if in addition to the door and window-framing there happened to be a considerable amount of wainscoting or wood panelling in the room.

In the medieval and earlier periods, however, whether in churches, palaces, or in smaller houses, even the more valuable woods, especially oak, were always painted and decorated in colours. The natural colour, or the rarity of valuable woods, did not as a rule prevent them from being treated in colour like the other parts of the buildings. Romanesque and Gothic wooden ceilings and rood-screens, though constructed of oak or other hard woods, were invariably treated in colour and partly gilt.

The simplest and perhaps the more satisfactory way of treating the woodwork of an ordinary room in colour would be in selected tones of the colour which appears on the larger wall spaces, but whatever

the hue that may be used on the woodwork it should be of two or three shades of the selected colour, forming a harmony of closely related tones. The woodwork may be in some cases of a different scheme of colouring from the walls, as in such instances where there is a dado of wood or a wainscot of wood panelling, but where the doors or windows appear as isolated features in large wall spaces, the most satisfactory way of treating them in colour is to paint them in analogous tones of the wall colour. If gold occurs in the frieze or on the cornice mouldings, the fillets, or smaller members of the door frames and panel mouldings should also be gilt.

THE COLOURING OF EXTERIORS

The colouring of the exteriors of important buildings should be, if possible, effected by the use of the constructive materials, such as stone, marble, granite and coloured terra-cotta in conjunction with panels and friezes, etc., of enamelled tiles or mosaic, and even in the case of less pretentious buildings a good deal might be done by ordinary painting. Stucco plastered exteriors, however, should not necessarily be painted in a uniform stone colour. Stone and soft bricks get black in cities, but hard bricks retain their colour much better. A highly polished material, such as granite or marble, does not go well with freestone, owing to the violent contrast between the polished and dull surfaces; also, any highly polished surface reflects light in such a way that to the sight the form is often altered. Granite polished with emery brings out the natural colour without giving a glaze to it, and is therefore better for an outdoor effect. Bronze sheathing on doors and bronze window and door framing, when it is not too dark in tone, goes well with a grey granite building, and when such a building has some panels of mosaic, or of coloured marble, such as "opus Sectile," the colour scheme is very effective. These materials are now being used very much in some important buildings in the continental cities.

In using coloured marbles, the best effects, as a rule, are obtained when two kinds only are used together, or merely one colour with white, such as black and white, red and white, green and white or purple and white. The finest early Italian marble altars, pulpits, and monuments generally conform to one of these simple colour arrangements. The principal parts of these works are executed in white marble and have only one coloured marble introduced for columns, pilasters, friezes, and panels at the bases and pediments. It may be mentioned that the white marble of these monuments is yellowish in tone, and the black somewhat greenish, thus producing a soft and mellow effect. At Palermo and Naples there is a great deal of marble work of the later Renaissance and modern times which has inlaid floral arabesques in various coloured marbles, such as black, brown, orange and red, all in combination, the greater part of which is unsatisfactory as it lacks repose, owing to the harshness of the contrasting colours.

A notable exception to the use of two, or at most three, kinds of marble in combination is seen in the magnificent "opus Alexandrinum" floor pavements, and in other marble work of the Byzantine buildings, where three kinds have been used, namely, porphyry, serpentine and white, with sometimes little portions of yellow, but the purple of the porphyry and the green of the serpentine, with their variegated tints, are colours which are in complete accordance with each other, and the effect of this arrangement is always pleasant and harmonious.

There is every reason why public buildings should be erected in natural or artificially coloured materials. Such coloured materials would not be more expensive than the grey, drab, and white stone and marble which is now used so much for exterior elevations. If we cannot have rich colouring on the outsides of our public buildings, we might at least be permitted to have schemes of colour that would present quiet and restrained harmonies, so that, even in a modest degree, they would contribute to our pleasure by counteracting some of the greyness and gloom that overshadows and often conceals the architectural beauty of many buildings in our large towns and cities.

Architects and sculptors, as a rule, are responsible for the appearance of the exteriors of buildings, and they only in exceptional cases appear to have a love for colour, but they should remember that colour appeals, if not to everybody, to a considerably large section of the public, which includes both cultured and uncultured people, who can appreciate a coloured building, but are not much interested in seeing a colourless exterior.

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 fa?ade 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 fa?ade. 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 fa?ade 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 fa?ade. 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.

The parts of the fa?ade 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.

The modern practice of imitating a costly wood by graining an inferior one hardly ever obtained in the earlier periods; the old decorators often enough painted all kinds of wood in any arbitrary way or colour, but they did not grain them to simulate other woods. Although the imitation of wood by graining is not practised so much to-day as it was in the Victorian time, there is still a good deal of it done. Even worse than this is the modern practice of erecting wooden columns and entablatures as shop fronts, especially those of public-houses and gin-palaces, in simulation of a stone construction, which may be an excusable sham, but there is no reason why this stone construction in wood should be painted to imitate costly marble, which only makes a double sham. We can call to mind the instance of some large and heavy doors in a Government building of this country, which are, of course, made in panelled wood, but have been painted to imitate grey granite! The reader can think that the limit of imitative painting is here reached, if he can imagine the deception that is presented of two slabs of heavy granite swinging on hinges.

In the case of the Ca' D'Oro battlements, and of similar imitations of marble in the painted decoration of late medieval buildings in Venice, we can see the expression of a striving after the rich effects of colour that were obtained in the earlier Byzantine architecture by the use of the real marbles, which were employed to give the structural and permanent colour to edifices built in that style. It ought to be remembered that the Venetian Gothic architecture, more especially in colouring--and we might safely say all Venetian art of later periods with its rich and beautiful colour--was strongly influenced by the splendour of Byzantine and Eastern colouring, as expressed in the mosaics, enamels, and richly-coloured marbles that were used so much to line the walls inside and outside of the Byzantine churches and palaces.

Although such coloured decoration as that of the fa?ade of the Ca' D'Oro might be classed as a decadent and artificial system, in so far as it was an imitation, or an attempt in applied colour at the survival of the more permanent Byzantine coloured architecture, still the general effect of the colour scheme, where full-toned blues, reds, black, white, and gold were frankly employed, must have been extremely rich and interesting, when seen in the radiant sunshine, and reflected in the waters of the Grand Canal. We might add that the colouring of this medieval palace, in common with that employed on all Venetian buildings of that time, was also in a great measure a reflex of the powerful and sensuous colouring of the East, which strongly influenced, if it was not indeed the chief source of the distinctive colour harmony that was the crown and glory of Venetian art.

ON THE USE AND MODIFICATION OF COLOUR IN DECORATION

Just as the aims of the painter of pictures are quite divergent from those of the decorator, so is the use of colour in the representation of natural objects and of natural phenomena divergent from that of the latter's in his employment of tints in coloured decoration. The painter of pictures is at liberty to use unlimited tints and shades of one colour, or of any number of colours, to represent the facts or effects of nature in realistic or in imaginative art, that is to say, he can make the greatest possible use of gradation both in colour and in light and shade, but the decorator is limited in the matter of colour gradation, and still more limited in the matter of light and shade, to the use of a few tints of closely related tones, and, as a rule, he must use them in a series of flat tints, with little or no light and shade, and which may or may not be separated from each other by contours or outlines of neutral or different colours.

The aim of the decorator is to beautify surfaces by the use of colour, so he selects or creates his tints and shades, which may be of extremely rich and deeply saturated hues, heightened perhaps with the addition of silver or gold, or he may use schemes of sober tints of broken colours; but the aim of the picture painter is to respect the colouring of nature and to produce another kind of beauty, which if not always strictly imitative of natural forms and facts in colour and drawing, must at least show that its foundations are laid on the solid ground of nature. Colour is therefore used by the artist-painter in a limited sense, in so far as it is imitative of any particular scene or natural effect which he may desire to record, but the choice of the decorator is unlimited, for he can always invent his own colour schemes. And as the latter is justified in disregarding shadows and gradation in the rendering of his decorative forms, even when they are derived from nature, he is equally free to use any colour in an arbitrary way on such forms instead of their natural or local colour, provided that it does not interfere with the harmony and balance of his colour scheme. The old Gothic glass painters, for example, who produced some of the finest coloured glass, did not hesitate to colour the feet or the hands of their figures a vivid green, a crimson, or a brilliant blue, though the other flesh portions of the same figure would be in the natural colour, if they found it necessary to have any of those colours in such parts of the design where the feet or hands happened to be. Although we should not agree with this arbitrary colour treatment of natural forms, it only emphasises the fact that the old designers looked upon their figure compositions as simply units or integral parts of the general colour scheme, and nothing more or less than legitimate decoration.

The decorator may design his ornamental forms on the bases of natural ones, and may, by colouring them in tints suggested by nature, produce a beautiful decorative work, which indeed has often been done. Still, he is free to frankly disregard the natural or local colour of such forms if the latter does not suit his purpose, and may use any other colours that will enable him to produce the best effect and most satisfactory decoration. In any case there should be no attempt to imitate either the colouring or forms of nature in a realistic sense, however much he may make use of suggestions from natural forms and objects. If purely natural forms, such as those of birds, animals, or the human figure are introduced into decoration, they should be firmly outlined in some neutral colour in order to show that they are only intended as portions of the decorative scheme and not in the sense of realistic representations. Accurate representations of natural forms and photographic realism should be avoided in decoration. If the Byzantine mosaicists had drawn, or could have drawn, their figures better, they might have produced worse decoration, and might have failed to express the essentials of decorative art.

The greater part of modern polychrome decoration, not only on buildings but on nearly every description of handmade objects or manufactured goods that have pretensions to artistic claims, is only misapplied painting which has usurped the place of true decoration. This kind of semi-pictorial work came into vogue about the beginning of the seventeenth century in Italy and France, and gradually spread and developed in other European countries, so to-day there is still a great demand for this kind of art which is neither genuine decoration nor painting. Interior surfaces of buildings, textile hangings, carpets, all kinds of pottery, and almost every kind of object that presents a surface for decoration is treated with naturalistic transcripts of flowers, birds, animals, the human figure, as well as copies of landscapes and architectural views, all represented in a pictorial manner with more or less merit, but all misapplied work. Such meretricious merchandise is welcomed and purchased by a very large section of the public, who are unable to distinguish between true and false decoration.

Coloured decoration on gold grounds ought to be outlined in black, or some very dark colour, in order to prevent the gold from overpowering the colour and making it look ineffective. When highly relieved enrichments are gilt, the ground behind them may be "picked out" in strong colour, such as vermilion, deep cobalt blue, or black in cases where an effect of penetration is desired, but in proportion to the lowness of the relief the background colouring may be lessened in strength or intensity. It must be pointed out, however, that ornament in very low relief, if gilded, will require a more strongly coloured background than in the case of ornament that may be simply coloured, but not gilt.

In polychromatic schemes of colouring there are certain laws which must be respected, regarding the relation of one colour to another, their modification of tint or shade, as affected by their position, and the strength or weakness of the light which illuminates them, however much may be left to the good taste and feeling for colour which the decorator may possess. All these essentials have to be considered, for it is not so much a question of rich and glowing colour schemes, or sober, quiet and subdued arrangements, but to obtain a harmonious colour finish in either. The decorator must aim for, and if possible obtain, a proper balance of colour, not so much for the achievement of uniformity, as for that of unity and repose. In order to obtain unity he must therefore see that even in the most complex polychromy a perfect balance of the colours is the first consideration, and of the utmost importance. In decoration we have both colour and form, but colour in decorative art is the more important of the two. A certain balance is looked for in ornamental or pictorial fillings of panels, for example, or even in the secondary ornamentation of painted bands, stiles, and other minor surfaces, but the repetition of exactly similar forms on such surfaces is by no means essential, but on the contrary produces monotony. In the matter of colour the case is reversed, for it is very important that there should be a decided repetition of

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