178 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

Never give separate mouldings separate colours (I know this is heresy, but I never shrink from any conclusions, however contrary to human authority, to which I am led by observance of natural principles); and in sculptured ornaments do not paint the leaves or figures (I cannot help the Elgin frieze¹) of one colour and their ground of another, but vary both the ground and the figures with the same harmony. Notice how Nature does it in a variegated flower; not one leaf red and another white, but a point of red and a zone of white, or whatever it may be, to each. In certain places you may run your two systems closer, and here and there let them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the colours and the forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings do; the same for an instant, but each holding its own course. So single members may sometimes have single colours; as a bird’s head is sometimes of one colour and its shoulders another, you may make your capital one colour and your shaft another: but in general the best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not on the points of interest in form. An animal is mottled on its breast and back, rarely on its paws or about its eyes; so put your variegation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of it in the capital and moulding; in all cases it is a safe rule to simplify colour when form is rich, and vice versâ; and I think it would be well in general to carve all capitals and graceful ornaments in white marble, and so leave them.²

§ 37. Independence then being first secured, what kind of limiting outlines shall we adopt for the system of colour itself?

¹ [No traces of colour have been discovered on the frieze of the Parthenon; but there is no reason for supposing that it was not treated with colour as the sculptures from Ægina were, on which traces of brilliant colour remained when they were first unearthed. The ground, in the case of friezes, seems to have been painted blue or red; the figures were coloured to bring out the details. See below, § 41, p. 185.]

² [The idea of this § 36 came to Ruskin from the study of shells, as the following extract from his diary shows:-

“Dec. 20 (1848).-I was struck in looking over the shells at Brit. Mus. yesterday, with the difference in the nicety of outline in the patterns of shells and plumage and in their forms themselves. Now, I think that Form properly so called may be considered as a function or exponent either of Growth or of Force, inherent or impressed; and that one of the steps to

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