Page:Alexis de Chateauneuf - The Country House.djvu/77

 aware that the personages in question are portraits of three fashionable ladies of the day, under the name of the Graces, &c. If some titles were translated, what a contrast the real import of the work would present to the actual name! What a change, for instance, from the modesty of some of 's titles, "Crossing the Brook,"—"Coal-barges in the Thames: Night," to the beauty and grandeur that would have to be clothed in language! But what language would be adequate?

With respect to the colour of the walls on which pictures are hung, my opinion is singular without being novel. I am quite aware that it is necessary to consider wall, pictures, gold frames, and all, in relation to general effect: the gold, especially, is to be treated as part of the coup d'œil. But, though I remember examples of light walls hung with pictures, producing an agreeable effect, I prefer a colour which displays the pictures more, and must also maintain, that living pictures are seldom seen to the best advantage against a bright ground; the quantity of actual light (it may always be assumed) making reflected light unnecessary: my idea, in one word, is, that the wall should not be so light as the lights of the pictures; and this supposes a sufficiently low tint. Of such colours, the most agreeable is the long established rich red, which might be sufficiently allied to purple, to give value to the gold frames and the warm colour of the pictures. I need not recommend you to avoid too much unbroken polish in the frames, since this is now very generally disapproved of.

I have, as you see, exercised, apparently without scruple, the dictatorial authority with which you have invested me ; but the frequent recurrence of "my opinion" becomes painful even to the arbiter who has a carte blanche to lay down the law. As a relief, I intended to have given you some extracts from an Italian ethical work (printed about the middle of the 16th century ) in which there is a chapter on the "ornamenti della casa;" but they would have been, perhaps, little suited to your purpose, and I have already far exceeded the space I ought to occupy. As I may not, however, again have an opportunity of alluding to this work, which is not unimportant in the history of Italian art, I wish briefly to advert to one or two points.

The list of pictures given seems to prove that the Italians long remained faithful to the older masters. The names of Titian and Coreggio do not appear! (I hope you will not follow the Catalogue in such defects.) This is not to be explained, by supposing that the writer speaks for himself only; for