“COLOUR INSTINCT.”

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 68

“COLOUR INSTINCT.”

(By Mrs Evan Nepean.)

I was reading an article the other day, in which mention was made of the fact that at certain seasons of the year one experiences a longing tor certain colours. This is perfectly true, and it is strange, to realise how this “colour-hunger” varies, and what different causes govern the longing. Also, the way in which some colours belong to some seasons and environments, and others to a variety of moods and to the predominating fashions, for these, of course, have a good deal to say in the matter, from the woman’s point of view—the right-minded niodisticailyinclined woman, of course I Some seasons, some places, some phases of our lives seem capable of supplying us with, the colour we apparently need. Honestly, we do not dress in white and all the pale tints in the season (when we are very gay and piesumably well and happy) because they are cool. At that time life gives us strong colour enough, whether it be in town, or high summer in the fair country. June— July—August—the very names spell colour and to spare, r 01 them are the clean pale greens, soft rosy pinks, clear’ sky and water-blues, all the gamut of white tones, f rom deep cream to chalk-the elouds on a bright fine day! The clever women who sometimes strike a note of good contrast, by appearing in smartest filmy black, do but correct the general blaze of cob our—toning it down a gratefully the eye appreciates this; m may know why, or it may not! I have been in the Wilds, where sombre winter walks among 'bare woods over grey-green hills, and there the one note of colour was supplied by the beeches. These exquisite trees, so finely, purely green in summer tii?ue, retain thear flowering cloaks of fox-red anf* brown and gold in the most fascinating way, long after the other trees stand

naked and forlorn. Only the firs’ dark warm bine-green backs them, and shows up still more vividly the vivid hot russet. One is more glad than one realises at the time for this colour, on# wants it badly in the Wilds! The ey» —and through the eye, the brain—grows slowly starved, life is seen, through smoked spectacles, and is not any the more pleasing for that! I don’t know Vhat we should do without the beeches. In town, in the dun-coloured days, ■when the sun swims, a clouded sphere, in a sea of mirk, we turn involuntarily to the chrysanthemums in the florists' windows. The true autumn flowers! How bravely gay shine their masses of tawny brown, sulphur and golden yellow, wine-red, the pink of a chilly ■dawn, the flame of a stormy sunset; and their scent, that bitter, pungent, clean, earthy odour, how good it is, and how characteristic! The chrysanthemum is no complex blossom, she i® “all of a piece,” and a very good piece she is, and tho right flower in the right place. I know of a little copse at homo, above an Essex vale, just tlie sort of place where one might have sat to write these lines:— “And from the valley underneath Came little copses climbing,” if ono- had been a genius! There in spring the bare brown soil below the tall oaks is strewn thick with that most perfect blue, the pervencho of the wild hyacinths. They grow knee-high; the tall succulent green stalks that snap off so crisply (and stickily!) are each weighted and curved m an exquisitely-bowed lino by the hanging flowers strung upon them, sweet-fimelling, beautifully hued, good to gather, good to walk among, good to remember —when one can do nothing more, when one is far a way from home and springtime and the oak plantation. And lower down, where the earth grows dark and marshy, the great brazen marsh marigold “shines like fire.”

Just that blue one needs, just that gold. I should clothe the figure of spring in fluttering periwinkle-blue draperies, and add a curiously-wrought golden crown, and set her in a newlybudded wood knee-deep in wild hyacinths, with a sheaf of king-cups over her arm.

Winter calls out for red, ana so winter get® it from the holly! And so -we all havo a hankering after a red cloak, a red tailor-made suit, a red hat, when winter comes, even if we do not confess it to ourselves. Of course, it is dreadfully “obvious” to wear scarlet in winter, but we want to do it, all the samej.aero is also a craving for purple, the warm satisfying rich purple that the empty neutral-tinted days most certainly lack. The sun, red and cheery, does his best for us, hung like a Chinese lantern in a grey sky, the robin put® on his Ohristmas-card waistcoat, the various bushes that can boast of berries “to count,” show them off ever so proudly. They say that lots of berries mean a hard winter, and are Nature’s provision for hungry bird®., I know better! If we are to have cold we must have colour, of course. Nature is sometimes vain enough to think of appearances! This ookl weather w'e are wise. We are wearing wine-red, and beech-brown, and the green of the shrubbery, and all sorts of brilliant touches of various hues, and we generally do much the same any year when the days draw in, partly because we want to, unconsciously, and partly because it is “fashionable.” How much Fashion is influenced by such instincts I should not like to say. She is an unexpected .person, and does all sorts of surprising things—most upsetting and disconcerting—but at this season she is usually more natural, may I say more human, than, usual, and we may be glad of it. It is nice of her! Also, it is becoming to us, and that is the chief tiling. There is a good deal to be said for colour instinct.—“ Daily Chronicle.”