Inspirations for Interior Polychromy

The harmonious, daring, and historical use of color.

Polychromy is the art of using many colors in decoration or architecture. It’s not new— the Parthenon, as you may know, was not always white, but was originally painted in many colors. Greek statues once were painted! And American Colonial interiors were not a sea of whitewash, after all. Washington used strong Prussian blue and verde green at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson chose chromium yellow for the dining room at Monticello. For sheer complexity, however, nothing comes close to the polychromy of 19th- century Victorian interiors.

In the 18th century, using colors signified luxury and social status, as it was still laborious and expensive to produce stable colors from natural elements and pigments. The heyday of polychrome objects and rooms began in the mid-19th century, owing to the creation of synthetic aniline dyes. Strong, vivid colors were now available at reasonable cost. The so-called Mauve Decades produced not only that new hue, but also Saffranine Pink, electric Nicholson’s Blue, and the bright and beautiful Scheele’s Green, a deadly color made with arsenic, which eventually was banned in manufacture.

By the second half of the 19th century, homeowners could decorate in any color they chose. Lit by gas and kerosene lamps, interiors remained dim, so intense colors that could be appreciated in the gloom (but not so much under high-wattage electric bulbs) were favored: tertiary and forest greens, Indian red, royal blue. Tastemakers encouraged colorful, “artistic” interiors, calling them morally uplifting and promising they would lead to more fulfillment in life.

Owen Jones’s spectacular Grammar of Ornament, published in 1856—an oversize, highly colored catalog of the polychromed ornament of cultures from Assyrian to tribal— exerted a major influence on color and design. Jones wrote: “Form without color is like a body without soul.”

PROPER VICTORIAN POLYCHROMY By the 1850s there were virtually no restrictions on where to use color. Nevertheless, some rules apply if

Burnished woodwork grounds polychromatic wall and ceiling papers illuminated by antique gaslight sconces. OPPOSITE A ceiling rosette by English designer Christopher Dresser, reproduced by Mason & Wolf Wallpapers, has Aesthetic colors with metallic accents.

TOP LEFT Color selection is as important as pattern in stencil design. ABOVE No surface left untouched: the ceiling is papered, walls hand-stenciled, door panel decorated in the Aesthetic manner. TOP RIGHT Victorian polychromy in Seattle: Tertiary tones and repetition bring together the custom paper, stenciling, cranberry glass, and geometric tile in the conservatory beyond.