Color in Modern Decoration

The principal difference in the use of color in "modern" decoration its use is in the greater realization of its importance; there is more of it used and it is used with a more consistent understanding of the laws of harmony. It is needless to say that many loud and glaring color concepts have been introduced under the guise of "modern" art, but these are not used by the leaders of the movement who understand the principles of sophisticated decoration.

If a woman is clothed in loud colors she reflects lack of refinement but if she is dressed in neutral tones with spots of strong color, she shows a cultivated understanding of the use of color. The same is true in using color in a room.

Many modern decorators keep the background colors of a room in the most neutral and unobtrusive tones. They do not even attempt to accentuate the window and door openings by using patterned textiles to contrast with their plain colored walls. They concentrate their strongest colors on the movables, the woodwork, picture and mirror frames and in the upholstery textiles. The best of the modern decorators never violate the important rules of color harmony and color proportion. Every room has a dominant background color that assists in creating the character of the room.

No room is satisfactory that has equal dominant areas of two colors. The dominant color is always a neutral tone. It may be keyed low or high, but the other important colors in the room are always keyed relatively higher, i.e., more brilliant, depending upon the relative areas.

The secondary areas such as draperies and upholstery are usually of a tonal value halfway between the background color and the accents, such as lampshades, porcelains, table runners, etc.

The architectural features such as mantels, door and window trim, built-in cupboards or bookcases should not be strongly accented from the wall color unless they are comparatively evenly spaced and form by themselves a balanced composition. If they are unbalanced it is better to keep them the same color as the wall.

The discovery of new chemicals creating new pigments permits the use of an additional number of permanent colors and we find the introduction of subtle names as chartreuse, apricot, apple green, ashes of roses, heliotrope, champagne, amber, henna, lemon yellow, etc., used for backgrounds. There is an extensive use of white and near-white colors in large areas and black or dark neutral tones are used for floors, and sometimes recalled in the upholstery or furniture.

The use of king-wood, snake-wood, palisander, ebony, amboyna and other rare woods in veneers has helped to give great colors to furniture and woodwork and brilliant lacquers in reds, yellows or blues used conservatively help to enliven the color scheme. There is a tendency perhaps to use fewer large patterned surfaces, although there seems to be no logical reason for this, providing a pattern suitable in color and character is selected.

Modern rooms may obtain informality by the use of wallpapers or patterned fabrics. There are now many types of wallpaper on the market in modern conventional patterns of great beauty. There has been a tendency to use patterns of too large a scale for the room in which they are to be used but this may be guarded against.

When wallpapers are used, the colors in the pattern will more or less dominate the selection of the balance of colors used in the room. The same colors should be recalled in other parts of the decorations such as the upholstery materials, the moldings in the furniture, the edging or trimmings of the draperies, or in portions of lampshades, fixtures, metal work or picture frames.

If one color predominates as a background, it is possible to use two colors in secondary areas and any number of colors in the smaller objects; although some of these latter should be in a tone that is complementary to the background.