COURAGE IN COLOUR.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 320, 24 December 1929, Page 3

COURAGE IN COLOUR.

SOMBRE DRESSES DEPRECATED. Rev. Burns’ Advice. Brightening Streets and Homes. Only a brief resume of the remarks of the Rev. James Burns during the course of a lecture in Dunedin last week, when he deprecated the sombre dresses of women, was telegraphed, but for general information we publish the reportfrom the Otago Daily Times as under. If the women of Dunedin give heed to the advice tendered them the streets of that city shold shortly be paraded by women wearing much gayer, brighter, and cheerier clothing.

Mr Burns said that colour was one of the gifts of God. None of them knew what colour really meant in their lives. If they could imagine a colourless world, a colourless garden, they would at once see where they were. Life in a colourless world would be intolerable. The lecturer stated that they we're now discovering the therapeutic value of colour. There were some colours that were sedative, and others which were joyous—the whole colour in the world was there to cheer them.

“ It is remarkable, therefore,” said Mr Burns, “ that you ladies go about Dunedin in such sombre dress. It isn’t that you like sombre clothes, but you have got the feeling that you should wear them. But why not go about in gay and cheering colours ? These are the things that cheer life, and even in Dunedin there are such things as colour harmonies. If you don’t find harmony in colours they create discord.”

The lecturer said that screaming discords could be seen in Princes Street, looking at some of the surroundings, and at the curtains in the buildings. He suggested the teaching of harmony in colour instead of some things such as higher mathematics. Harmony in colour was like a beautiful chord.

In the new art silk there were such exquisite shades that no one had any reason to be dowdy and depressed. He was perfectly sure they were living a far too depressing life—that they were not getting the real joy of life—and they would have to look to Nature. She was full of colour and radiance, and one of the things which was going to help them was courage in colour.

The lecturer went on to speak of the value of colour in the furnishing of homes, and said he was addressing chieflly the young people. When they were married, and if they were going to have real enjoymest in their homes, they must study the question of harmonious colour—the effect of warm paperings, bringing gaiety and brightness. These were not trivial things, as people spent a great deal of time in their homes.

Let them also have space in their rooms, and not have all their furniture jumbled up. Space was necssary for beauty. Simplicity in furniture was also useful. They did not require bandy-legged or corkscrew-legged chairs, but perfectly plain things. The simple was always the most beautiful.

Then, again, the pictures on the walls ? Did they enjoy them ? Did they often look at them ?• Did they suggest anything to them ? Did they take any real place in their lives ? It was perfectly certain that to a great many people they were meaningless. If they received no enjoyment whatever from them it was quite clear that they should not be there, was it not ? It was most extraordinary what some people put on their walls. The speaker made humorous references to the woollen samplers sometimes seen on the walls, and referred to on, done in red and blue worsted wool, which bore a worked-in text, “ Consider the Lilies.” He also referred to a custom of lifting the top off a wedding cake and putting it away under glass, “as a perpetual illustration of the folly of one’s early days.” (Laughter.) Mr Burns did not favour the photograph hung on the wdll. One had a great respect for one's ancestors, he said, but it was the children who lived in these rooms, and they did not get very much good from the photographs. The only advice he could give was to sweep the walls clean. They should be replaced by something that would cheer them—some little glimpse of Natuie.

He would advise them, if a picture made an appeal to them, to buy that picture. It did not matter about the opinions of others or whether it was a good picture or not—the point was,

did it make some particular appeal ? Appreciatiin of good pictures would grow. The lecturer referred to the beauties of Dunedin, and said that they should safeguard what they had and improve their surroundings wherever possible. He concluded by quoting three verses of a poem by John Drinkwater: — If all the carts were painted grey, And all the streets swept clean, And all the children came to play, By hollyhocks, with green Grasses to grow between. If all the houses looked as though Some heart were in their stones,; If all the people that we know Were dressed in scarlet gowns With feathers in their crowns. I think this gaiety would make A spiritual land. I think that holiness would take $ This laughter by the hand Till both should understand.