With the view of refining the judgment further in respect to colour, get a good colour-top,[20] and study its beautiful effects. See also the "gas tubes" illuminated by electricity, as sold by opticians, and let the prism yield you daily instruction. Soap-bubbles may also be blown, and the beautiful colours seen in them carefully noted. These and any other available means of cultivating the eye should constantly be resorted to, as by such means only can we become great colourists.
[20] Not the so-called colour or "chameleon" top sold in the toy-shops, but the more scientific toy procurable of opticians, together with the perforated discs of Mr. John Graham, M.R.C.S., of Tunbridge, Kent.
As to works on colour, we have the writings of Field, to whom we are indebted for valuable discoveries; of Hay, the decorator, and friend of the late David Roberts, but some of his ideas are wild and Utopian; of Chevreul, whose work will be most useful to the student; and the small catechism of colour by Mr. Redgrave, of the South Kensington Museum, which is excellent. The student will also do well to carefully study the excellent manual of "Colour" by Professor Church, of Cirencester College.
Having considered those principles which are of primary importance to the ornamentist, we may commence our notice of the various manufactures, and try to discover what particular form of art should be applied to each, and the special manner in which decorative principles should be considered as applicable to various materials and modes of working.
We shall first consider furniture, or cabinet-work, because articles of furniture occupy a place of greater importance in a room than carpets, wall-papers, or, perhaps, any other decorative works; and, also, because we shall learn from a consideration of furniture those structural principles which will be of value to us in considering the manner in which all art-objects should be formed if they have solid, and not simply superficial, dimensions.
In the present chapter, I shall strive to impress the fact that design and ornamentation may be essentially different things, and that in considering the formation of works of furniture these should be regarded as separate and distinct. "Design," says Redgrave, "has reference to the construction of any work both for use and beauty, and therefore includes its ornamentation also. Ornament is merely the decoration of a thing constructed."