The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Theory Of Decoration

Wall Treatments During Historic Periods

The walls of a room, because they are the largest superficial area to treat in a decorative problem, and because their treatment is usually more or less permanent, are a most important element to consider in interior decoration. It is easy enough to change a piece of furniture or any other movable object in a room, but once the walls are covered with panelling or fabrics, it is an expensive proceeding to undo the work already completed.

The treatment that one desires to give this background for the furniture is partly a question of character, partly of style, and partly of expense.

The history of wall decoration in domestic architecture, so far as it may be applied to modern conditions, dates from the Roman era, when the simple plaster walls were painted in distemper or by the encaustic process, in which hot wax was mixed with pigment and applied to the wet plaster. Pompeii and Herculaneum furnish many examples of brilliant wall painting in which strong primary colors form the ground, and a semi-naturalistic, semi-fantastic representation of figures, architecture and landscape is mingled with festoons, vines and purely conventional ornament. Mosaic was also employed to decorate Moors and wall spaces, and sometimes for ceilings. The later Roman buildings were especially rich in mosaic, executed with numberless minute squares of stone or glass, as in the Baths of Caracalla and the villa of Hadrian in Tivoli.

To the walls of monumental interiors, such as temples and palaces, splendor of color was given by facing them with thin slabs of rare and richly colored marbles. No limit seems to have been placed upon the costliness or amount of these precious materials. Byzantine architecture borrowed from this practice its system of interior color decoration.

In Byzantium (now Constantinople), the interiors were richly decorated, colors playing a much more important part than carved Ornaments. Painting was resorted to only in the smaller buildings, the more durable and splendid medium of mosaic being usually preferred. This form of decoration was used principally on the ceilings and the upper portions of the walls. The colors were brilliant, the background being often of gold, blue or green.

Art and decoration during the Middle Ages were almost entirely connected with religion and the church, to which we are indebted for the Gothic style, and the remaining examples of wall treatments of interiors in this style are largely found in monastic edifices. In the early structures the walls were of stone, sometimes plastered and painted. Much of the richness was due to the stained glass windows which were developed at this period. The windows were often arranged in groups, and were usually terminated by pointed arches, though square-headed windows were also used in dwellings and other minor buildings.