s--is of the
same colour and character as the dado, a certain agreeable unity is
preserved, and it forms a useful plain framing to set off the patterned
parts of the wall. This wainscot or dado framing with the wood-work
should be as to colour arranged to suit the general scheme adopted.
Where paint is used, white for the wood-work usually has the best
effect.

[Field of the Wall]

The largest space of wall occurs above the chair-rail, or dado, and,
according to modern habits and usage, portable property in the shape of
framed pictures, etc., is usually placed here along the eye-line, so
that any decoration on this--the main field of the wall--is regarded as
subsidiary to what is placed upon it; but, of course, pictures can be
used as the central points of a decorative scheme. On the upper part of
a wall, below the plaster cornice, the mural designer has the chance of
putting a frieze, and a frieze usually gives the effect of additional
height to a room, besides enriching the wall.

[Illustration (f123): Decorative Spacing of the Wall: Sketches (to
1/2-in. Scale) to Show Different Treatment and Proportions.]

An effective treatment of a large room, and one which is more reposeful
than cutting up the wall into these portions, as in dado, field, and
frieze, is to carry up wood panelling to the frieze, and let this (the
frieze) be the important decorative feature.

Supposing the room was twelve feet high, one could afford to have eight
feet of panelling, and then a frieze of four feet deep. In this case one
would look for an interesting painted frieze of figures--some legend or
story to run along the four sides of the room, and in such a case it
might be marked with considerable pictorial freedom.

More formal figure design or ornamental work in coloured plaster-work,
stucco, and gesso could also be appropriately used in such a position,
as also on the ceiling.

Now as regards choice of line and form in their relation to the
decoration of such mural spaces. Taking the lower wall, dado, or
panelling, one reason why panelling has so agreeable an effect is, I
think, that the series of vertical and horizontal lines seem to express
the proportions, while they emphasize the flatness and repose of the
wall, and when used beneath a painted frieze they lead the eye upwards,
forming a quiet framing of rectangular lines below to the ornate and
varied design of the frieze.