Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/91

Rh of the eye and not too close together, that it has been found necessary in several cases to lower the inner skylight. The problem has been met most successfully in Dresden, where the old-fashioned very high rooms have been cut down and provided with a cove ceiling. (See cut page 68.) This gives a large surface for reflection, which if painted in some light color is a great addition to the light which comes in above. The curved surface not only adds to the intensity of the light but makes the division of the walls for decorative purposes much simpler. It is always hard to handle a high wall, as a too great expanse of color is trying and gives an effect of height which is exceedingly unpleasant. The experiments made in various places of covering the lower part of the wall with a material, say, to the height of eight feet, and above that painting a band or frieze in a lighter tint, and then having the ceiling in a third tint, is apt to give more or less the effect of a patch-work quilt. The expense of putting in a false ceiling at a lower level is not as great since we have been able to build with steel and wire netting, as it used to be in the days when wooden beams or expensive stonework had to be used.

The problem of raising the ceiling in a room which is too low is much more difficult. Much can be done by the interior decorator to improve