SOMETIMES A COLOR ISN’T A WANT, IT’S A NEED.
Yellow can be such a polarizing color. A sizable object in a saturated primary yellow can make you feel like the world is coming to an end, or at least like your retinas are burning…. With mitigating influences, like the chocolatey center of a sunflower, yellow represents optimism and sunny days.
Then there’s a particular yellow common in Chinese surface patterns. It’s a lemon yellow, like the color of a Meyer lemon, that is simultaneously bold and restrained whether seen on a glazed piece of pottery or a print. Although it might be shocking to see a wall this color, I don’t think it would drive anyone crazy, as yellow is reputed to do.
Owen Jones, a Victorian British architect and designer who spent much of his life studying the decorative arts of different cultures, created a mind-blowing design with this color. He initially possessed a negative opinion of Chinese surface patterns, but, as can commonly be the case with what we first dislike, his resistance to its merits fell away. He developed his interest in it enough to write a book on it, Examples of Chinese Ornament. Different sources have named this work ‘114’ or ‘53.’ I’ll call it, Owen Jones, Yellow with Coral Peonies.
As an aside, ongoing attempts are being made to look for primary sources of historical Chinese surface patterns. It’s a goal that has not been reached.
Back to this pattern… If you like botanical and floral patterns, prepare to become obsessed. The coral red peonies emerge from leaves that also produce different species of flowers. It’s realistic and fantastical at the same time and shows the universal nature of using vines to tie together design elements in a decorative pattern.
And then there’s the specific yellow of the background – the elevating hue that is its own character in the story of this design as well as the element on which everything else rests. It stimulates without irritating and evokes all the feelings of luxury that Chinese pottery has to offer. You need this yellow in your life.
