Monochrome

Excerpt

From: Introduction, "Seeing Color"
By John Saladino

Color often is not seen. We have to learn to experience it by understanding juxtaposition because every hue of every color is influenced or touched by another. No color can exist in isolation.

. . .

The color of floors and the walls and all the fabrics in a room should be a respectful juxtaposition. If you walk into a color-orchestrated room, you will know. The floor, the walls, the ceiling and all the fabrics in that room are in harmony. Like music, there will be passages and arias so that the whole is a legato, ie, the sum of the parts. Most of us choose color viscerally. That is, we don’t choose a color because of a scientific theory, but rather, what pleases us. Color moves us emotionally just like music. When you walk into a room that’s layered with different shades of blue, or any color, you should have a rise in blood pressure. Sometimes colors that we rarely see in decorating will shock us. Imagine a room done in various shades of magenta—a color we usually see only when worn by a cardinal. Can color be appropriate? Why do we like magenta on a cardinal’s sash or in roses but not on a sofa?

Excerpted from Monochrome by Paula Rice Jackson; introduction by John Saladino. Copyright © 2008 by The Monacelli Press;. Excerpted by permission of The Monacelli Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.