1014< COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. 1814 1815 1816 M. was firet introduced in Florence, and it has subsequently been employed in most of the great palaces of Europe. It has lately become fashionable in Britain, partly in conse- quence of the recent inventions that have been made of machinery for sawing up and planing wood, in which great improvements have been made since the first planing machine was invented by General Bentham, about the beginning of the present century. At the exhibition of the National Repository in 1829, a very handsome specimen of inlaid flooring, fig. 1816 (from the Mech. Mag.), was exhibited by Mr. James White. Each of the compartments, in this specimen, is formed of a different kind of wood, and the colours are arranged so as to harmonise. Inlaid floors, when composed of different colours, should never be entrusted to the sole management of a common joiner ; and Architects need not consider them beneath their attention. 2011. Colour, next to the size and general proportions of a room, exercises the most important influence on the eye of a spectator. Colour may be either communicated to the walls by printed papers, by hangings of plain cloth or tapestry, or by painting. To the ceiling it is, for the most part, only communicated in the latter manner ; and to floors, in Britain at least, the carpet affords the principal medium of colouring. " A handsome room may be quite spoiled by bad finishing, and by ill-chosen colours of tlie walls and furniture ; and the defects of a poor one concealed, or at least much diminished, )y good management in this respect." ( Wood, vol. i. p. 451.) 2012. With respect to Hangings of Plain Cloth and Printed Paper, very little can be laid down in the shape of rules that will not be included under the general principles, and the rules drawn from them, taught by the art of painting or colouring apartments generally. It must be confessed that this department of the art of interior decoration lias not been hitherto reduced to any regular theory, and that the subject appears to be only understood by artists of a superior description, whose employment is necessarily very limited. After consulting all the works that are considered the most valuable on the subject of house and ornamental painting, we think that by far the best, and indeed the only one that embraces principles, is a small work entitled the Laws of Harmonious Colouring, §-c., by Mr. D. Hay, House Painter, Edinburgh. For the mechanical part there is a very complete work, in a thick quarto volume, by iNIr. N. Whittock, called the Decorative Painter's and Glazier's Guide ; which also embraces the subjects of imitating a great variety of woods and marbles, and of staining glass. From the former work we have drawn the following paragraphs ; but to understand the theory of house-painting so as to be able to act on it, the reader must consult Burnet, Syme, Lairesse, Hassel. Rcade, Schimmelpennick, &c., including an able article on painting in Brewster's EncyclopcEdia. For varnisliing, the most useful work is by Tingry. 201."?. Harmony of Colours is produced by the juxtaposition of two colours, such as red or yeUow, with an intermediate colour, such as orange, to unite them. " Harmony consists more in the media which unite the several colours, than in the colours them- selves ; and therefore, in completing the arrangement of colours for an apartment, a neutralising colour, possessing the pro))erties of both contrast and harmony, should be introduced, in order to give keeping and repose to the whole. The colouring of rooms should be an echo to their uses. The colour of a library ought to be comparatively severe ; that of a dining-room grave ; and that of a drawingroom gay. Light colours are most suitable for bed-rooms. The colouring of all rooms depends so much for its effect on the colour of the furniture, that this ought always to be known to the decorator, before he determines his system of composition." 2014. Defects in the Colouring of Rooms. " The first and most obvious defect in the colouring of rooms is, when there is no particular tone fixed on for an apartment ; that is, when one part of the furniture is chosen without any reference to the rest, and the painting done without any reference to the furniture. This generally produces an in- congruous mixture ; and is, in comparison to a tastefully decorated apartment, as far as
