THE TRUTH OF MASKS [12]
and green of their costumes harmonised exquisitely with the ferns
through which they wandered, the trees beneath which they lay, and
the lovely English landscape that surrounded the Pastoral Players.
The perfect naturalness of the scene was due to the absolute
accuracy and appropriateness of everything that was worn. Nor
could archaeology have been put to a severer test, or come out of
it more triumphantly. The whole production showed once for all
that, unless a dress is archaeologically correct, and artistically
appropriate, it always looks unreal, unnatural, and theatrical in
the sense of artificial.
Nor, again, is it enough that there should be accurate and
appropriate costumes of beautiful colours; there must be also
beauty of colour on the stage as a whole, and as long as the
background is painted by one artist, and the foreground figures
independently designed by another, there is the danger of a want of
harmony in the scene as a picture. For each scene the colour-
scheme should be settled as absolutely as for the decoration of a
room, and the textures which it is proposed to use should be mixed
and re-mixed in every possible combination, and what is discordant
removed. Then, as regards the particular kinds of colours, the
stage is often too glaring, partly through the excessive use of
hot, violent reds, and partly through the costumes looking too new.
Shabbiness, which in modern life is merely the tendency of the
lower orders towards tone, is not without its artistic value, and
modern colours are often much improved by being a little faded.
Blue also is too frequently used: it is not merely a dangerous
colour to wear by gaslight, but it is really difficult in England
to get a thoroughly good blue. The fine Chinese blue, which we all
so much admire, takes two years to dye, and the English public will
not wait so long for a colour. Peacock blue, of course, has been
employed on the stage, notably at the Lyceum, with great advantage;
but all attempts at a good light blue, or good dark blue, which I
have seen have been failures. The value of black is hardly
appreciated; it was used effectively by Mr. Irving in HAMLET as the
central note of a composition, but as a tone-giving neutral its
importance is not recognised. And this is curious, considering the
general colour of the dress of a century in which, as Baudelaire
says, 'Nous celebrons tous quelque enterrement.' The archaeologist
of the future will probably point to this age as the time when the
beauty of black was understood; but I hardly think that, as regards
stage-mounting or house decoration, it really is. Its decorative
value is, of course, the same as that of white or gold; it can
separate and harmonise colours. In modern plays the black frock-
coat of the hero becomes important in itself, and should be given a
suitable background. But it rarely is. Indeed the only good
background for a play in modern dress which I have ever seen was
the dark grey and cream-white scene of the first act of the
PRINCESSE GEORGES in Mrs. Langtry's production. As a rule, the
hero is smothered in BRIC-E-BRAC and palm-trees, lost in the gilded
abyss of Louis Quatorze furniture, or reduced to a mere midge in
the midst of marqueterie; whereas the background should always be
kept as a background, and colour subordinated to effect. This, of
course, can only be done when there is one single mind directing
the whole production. The facts of art are diverse, but the
essence of artistic effect is unity. Monarchy, Anarchy, and
Republicanism may contend for the government of nations; but a
theatre should be in the power of a cultured despot. There may be
division of labour, but there must be no division of mind. Whoever
understands the costume of an age understands of necessity its
architecture and its surroundings also, and it is easy to see from
the chairs of a century whether it was a century of crinolines or
not. In fact, in art there is no specialism, and a really artistic
production should bear the impress