ed, cream-coloured or influenced by other
colours, and should vary in degree according to the strength of the
harmony. This brings us to the question of tone.

[Tones and Planes]

Now the ornamentist, the designer of patterns, relies for his effect
upon the use of certain planes and oppositions of tints to relieve and
express his design, to emphasize its main motive, to bring out or to
subdue its lines and forms. He knows that cool flat tints--blues,
greens, grays--will make forms and surfaces retire, and he makes use of
them for flat and reposeful effects, such as wall and ceiling surfaces,
adopting the natural principle of colour in landscape and sky.

He uses richer and more varied colour in textile hangings and carpets,
furniture, and accessories--reds, yellows, greens, crimson, russets,
orange, gold--which answer to the brighter flowers and parterres of our
gardens, as things to be near the eye and touch, and to occur as lesser
quantities in a scheme of interior colour design.

In the colour design of patterns, harmonious and rich effects can be
produced by the use of pure colour alone, no doubt, if carefully
proportioned, and separated by outline; though harmony is more difficult
to attain in pure colours used in their full strength; and for their due
effect, and to avoid harshness, such a treatment really requires
out-door light or special conditions of lighting, or the strong light of
eastern or southern countries, to soften the effect.

And since we have to adapt our designs to their probable surroundings,
we usually consciously select certain tones or shades of a colour,
rather than use it absolutely pure or in its full strength. The
beautiful tone which time gives to all colour-work is difficult to
rival, but no conscious imitation of it is tolerable.

But so long as our aim is strictly to make a colour scheme of any kind
in relation to itself, or in harmony with its conditions, we are on a
safe and sound path. It is this relativity which is the important thing
in all decorative art, and which, more distinctly than any other
quality, distinguishes it from pictorial art; although pictorial art is
under the necessity of the same law in regard to itself; and in its
highest forms, as in mural work, is certainly subject to relativity in
its widest sense.

[Pattern and Picture]

At first sight it mig