LIFE AND COLOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 286, 2 December 1929, Page 10

LIFE AND COLOUR

PLEA FOR GAYER HUES THE EXAMPLE OF NATURE DUNEIDIN, Nov. 2x. If the women of Dunedin give heed to the advice tendered to them by the Rev. James Burns during the course of a lecture yesterday afternoon the city streets should shortly be paradetl by women wearing much gayer, brighter and cheerier apparel. J\li Burns, who has been supplying the pul. pit of Knox Church since the resignation of the Rev. Tulloch Yuille, and has gained a high reputation locally as a lecturer on art, said colour was one of the gifts of God. None of them knew what colour really meant to 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 were now discovering the therapeutic value of colour. There were some values that were sedative and others whicn were joyous. The whole colour in the world was there to cheer them. Why Wear Sombre Clothes? ‘‘lt is remarkable, therefore,” Mr Burns said, “that you ladiec go about IDunedin 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 in life and even in Dunedin there are such things as colour harmonies. If you don’t find harmony in colours they create discord.’’ In the new artificial silk there were such exquisite shades that no one haa any reason to be dowdy and depressed. He was perfectly sure that they were living a far too depressing life, that they were not getting the real joy of life, and then we would have to look to Nature. {Some 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 the home, and said he was addressing chiefly the young people. When they were married and if they were going to have real enjoyment 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 they spend a great deal of time in their homes. Then again, the pictures on the wall. 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 got 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 some humorous references to the woollen samplers sometimes seen on the -walls, and referred to one don 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.”