Manufacturer and builder 7, 1870
The choice of color for country houses requires the exercise of taste, judgment, and an eye for harmonious combinations. Keeping always in view the general effect, when the fancy begins to range beyond the safe line of the neutral tints, the field for error is so large that the house may be - as we have known certaine houses to be - of all the colors of the rainbow vedore the decorative portions of it are finished. Before the building is finished, the whole subject of color should be carefully considered.Afterward, as the eye becomes accustomed to the incongruity, the necessary changes become more difficult to make. It is almost impossible to give a correct idea of colors in painting without presenting their different tints and degrees of shading to the eye. When we leave the well-known white, black, red, etc., there are so many variations of particular colors that description is apt to fail in conveying to the reader the exact color which is in the thought of the writer. There are very few persons who have had the means of acquiring a knowledge of the different shades of color, or of the method of comobining colors so as to produce the neutral which may be desired. Such knowledge is nevertheless well worth taking some trouble to obtain, and any one who wishes to have his dwelling painted in a manner to give him future satisfaction, would do well to specify, as nearly as possible, the colors he wants, have minute quantities combined of various shades approximating most closely to his idea, and from these sample colors make his final selection. It will not do, of course, to fix upon a particular body color, however much it may please the taste, without having due regard to the situation, the surroundings, and the style of building. The lighter colors, which are suitable to cottages and the smaller class of farm-houses, will not look so well applied to more imposing structures.
It is laid down as a rule by Calvert Vaux, that every building requires four tints to make it a pleasant object in the way of color. "The main walls," he remarks, "should be of some agreeable shade of color, the roof-trimmings, verandas, and other wood-work being either of a different color or of a different shade of the sasme color, so that a contrast, but not a sharp one, may be established - a third and fourth color, not widely different from the other woodwork, should be applied to the windows, blinds, etc."
It is laid down as a rule by Calvert Vaux, that every building requires four tints to make it a pleasant object in the way of color. "The main walls," he remarks, "should be of some agreeable shade of color, the roof-trimmings, verandas, and other wood-work being either of a different color or of a different shade of the same color, so that a contrast, but not a sharp one, may be established - a third and fourth color, not widely different from the other wood-work, should be applied to the windows, blinds, etc."
The greatest defect in the generality of country buildings is the too frequent use of white. It is true that white reflects the rays of the sun, instead of absorbing them, and is therefore a good preservative of weather-boarding. It is true, also, that the materials of white are cheap. This relates, however, only to washes of lime, and not to white-lead, or zinc-white, mixed with oils and their combinations. Under any circumstances, unless the building is heavily embowered in shrubbery and shade-trees, white as a color is extremele objectionable. Where deep shadows are flung over the house from the embowering foliage in the summer season, the objection to white is partially removed; but then the leaves fall, the objection returns with double force; a delicate cream color will, on the other hand, soften the glare of white, and may in many cases be used to advantage. Equally to be avoided, in the country, is an unmodified red, or those brown-stone tints, approaching to chocolate color, which are so frequently used in the contruction of town houses; neither of these colors harmonize with the landscape. In the midst of green trees and green fields they become sombre and forbidding, and their gloomy aspect can not even be relived by flowers or running vines.
Take, again, those bright red brick houses which are sometimes met with, or bear in mind the red barns of the German settlers in Pennsylvania, and their ugliness as blotches on the landscape are at onece apparent. With an old brick building, time-worn and mossy, the case is different; for it has become gradually assimilated, to some extent at least, wth its surroundings; but, as Allen says, "There can be nothing less comporting with the simplicity of rural scenery than a flaming red on a building. It connects with nothing natural about it. It neither fades into any surrounding shade of soil or vegetation, and must of necessity stand out in its own bold and unshrouded impudence - a perfect Ishmaeliete in color, and a perversion of every thing harmonious in the design."
We turn now to the neutral tins, such as the drabs, fawns, grays, and their combinations. There is here a great variety of choices, some of the colors being warm and other cool, and the use of either will depend upon the situation and the amount of shade about the house. And here we lay it down as a rule that, whatever the color of the body of the house may be, the window-facings, blinds, bracketings, and often the roof, admit of tasteful variation. Downing remarks that different shades of color applied to the trimmings of the house "confer the same kind of expression on it that the eyes, eye-brows, lips, etc., do upon the human counternance. To paint the whole house drab, for instance, gives very much the same dull and insipid effect that colorless features - white hair, pale eye-brows, lips, etc. - do the face. A certain sprightliness is , therefore, always bestowed on a dwelling in a neutral tint by painting the bolder projecting features of a different shade. The simplest practical rule that we can suggest for effecting this in the most satisfactory and agreeable manner is the following: Choose paint of some neutral tint that is quite satisfactory, and let the facings of the windows, cornices, etc., be painted several shades darker of the same color."
And here we pause, trusting that these suggestions may prove profitable to our readers.
- Maryland Farmer.
Ei kommentteja :
Lähetä kommentti