Monthly Archives: May 2009

Proposition 4. True beauty results from that repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect, and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want.
Proposition 5. Construction should be decorated. Decoration should never be purposely constructed. That which is beautiful is true; that which is true must be beautiful.
Proposition 7. The general forms being first cared for, these should be subdivided and ornamented by general lines; the interstices may then be filled in with ornament, which may again be subdivided and enriched for closer inspection.
Proposition 13. Flowers or other natural objects should not be used as ornaments, but conventional representations founded upon them sufficiently suggestive to convey the intended image to the mind, without destroying the unity of the object they are employed to decorate. Universally obeyed in the best periods of Art, equally violated when Art declines.
Proposition 14. Colour is used to assist in the development of form, and to distinguish objects or parts of objects one from another.
Proposition 15. Colour is used to assist light and shade, helping the undulations of form by the proper distribution of the several colours.
Proposition 16. These objects are best attained by the use of the primary colours on small surfaces and in small quantities, balanced and supported by the secondary and tertiary colours on the larger masses.
Proposition 17. The primary colours should be used on the upper portions of objects, the secondary and tertiary on the lower.