Vivid blue walls highlight this red velvet curtain and the Italian landscape painting above it.
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Living Colors Paint and Paper: In Decoration
by David Oliver
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, NY; 2007
224 pp.; hardcover; 250 color photographs; $45
ISBN: 978-0-8478-3018-3
Reviewed by Lynne Lavelle
“It’s the wallpaper or me. One of us has to go.”
- Oscar Wilde
From Nancy Lancaster’s Yellow Room, Lutyen’s Black Room, Brooke Astor’s Red Library and the White House’s Red, Green and Blue rooms, to everyday spaces, color is the element by which people most often describe an interior. While reactions to color are highly personal – one man’s butter yellow is another’s jaundice – its ability to evoke memories, stimulate moods and even influence behavior is universal. Paint and wallpaper are usually the least expensive element in an interior color scheme, and the possibilities are endless. However, the decorating process is often hindered by indecision, or as interior decorator David Oliver writes in Paint and Paper: In Decoration, “paint analysis paralysis.”
With a background in fine art and a star-studded folio as an interior decorator, Australian-born Oliver is fluent in the lexicon of color. As design director of the Paint and Paper Library in London, he has devised a fail-safe, tonal color-by-numbers system for ceilings, cornices, walls and woodwork, and a commercial paint range. And with Paint and Paper, Oliver has combined this experience, and the color psychology behind it, to create a beautifully illustrated guide to following one’s instincts. “I want to reveal how enjoyable the process can be, remove your reservations about it and redirect your energies so you can create a scheme that reflects the character of your home as well as your own personality,” he writes.
The process of achieving rhythm, balance, proportion, scale, emphasis and harmony in a color scheme is divided into several chapters, each designed to encourage experimentation. “Inspiration” examines the roles of natural-light exposure, architectural aspects, room function, style and possessions in the creation of a mood board, and challenges common misconceptions about how to create the illusion of space. For instance, dark colors effectively unify small utility spaces, while white moldings “shrink” a room. Despite the guidelines, color preference remains wholly instinctive, and to demonstrate, Oliver details his own influences from the worlds of historical architecture and design, art and cinema, nature, and consumer products. Among them is the painter Yves Klein, who patented his own color, IKB (International Klein Blue).
While inspiration is arbitrary, translating it into a successful color scheme is less so. Many factors can wash out or bring vibrancy to every scheme, and Paint and Paper is very informative on the effects of daylight, types of artificial light, northern and southern facing exposures, environmental factors and more. Visualizing an entire room from a color swatch can be difficult, but an extensive guide to color association offers at least some idea of how certain colors might feel. It may sound “new age” to some, but much of color association is straight science, based upon ease of communication between the eye and the brain. Green’s wavelength is the least demanding on the eye, and therefore the least stressful, while red’s is the most. The evidence is everywhere – since Shakespearean times, actors have calmed their backstage nerves in a “green room,” and few would dream of painting a hospital waiting room, or any other stressful environment, red.
While certain colors and patterns should be approached with care, Paint and Paper offers many suggestions on how to integrate them into a scheme, and break the rules the right way. It’s all about location, location, location. Transitional areas such as hallways and reception rooms allow for greater experimentation than heavily used areas such as living rooms or bedrooms. “These are where you can be experimental, daring, and have fun creating the maximum impact in order to impress,” says Oliver. Regardless of the palette, Oliver recommends using a tonal progression of colors throughout the room to add depth and interest, and give the appearance of higher ceilings and receded cornices.
Every page of Paint and Paper is visually appetizing, filled with rich photography and sample shades, whose names alone are tempting – “Very Well Read,” “Sugared Violet” and “Truffle,” to name a few. And the results speak for themselves in case studies from China, Sweden, France, Australia, England, Italy and the U.S. It is a varied portfolio, covering residences of every style and taste, and demonstrates the relationship between color and character in a home. Above all, Paint and Paper is a celebration of color, and our ability to perceive it. As Oliver says, “Accept it as a very human luxury – many animals see only in tones of black and white – and one with which we have many strong, meaningful associations through culture, experience and daily life.”
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