THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PINK
The fireplace in my new house is made of pink marble. Pink marble and pink granite. What a bold choice! This was a 17th c. Italian choice, at a time historically when people had no access to MTV, digital cameras, and photography, and so expressed themselves through art, music, literature, and architecture. My house is in Lazio, a region of Italy which, without being described as unrefined, is most impressive due to it's jagged landscapes, steep peaks and rough troughs. It lacks the water-softened gentleness of the river valleys, and the classical elegance of Rome itself. I'm not sure yet, but it's possible the winters here may be harsh. So what on Earth is a pink marble fireplace doing in Ciociaria?
Whoever chose this pink marble fireplace, five centuries ago, had a certain confidence of style and, I suspect, a generosity of pocket, to be able to place an order for such an extravagant creation. But attached to the fire surround, on either side, is a rather jarring note: an extremely sensible, narrow wooden bookcase, embedded into the marble. I think this was the husband's input. I imagine, perhaps an enormous battle raged, perhaps for weeks, about whether to splash out for a pink fireplace, or built- in wooden bookcases, with the poor architect or designer caught, piggy-in-the-middle, hunkering down until a decision was reached.
The compromise, between the self-styled pink-tinged chatelaine and her eminently sensible book-loving husband, was to choose the pinkest of pink Rosa Travertine tumbled pink marble from Verona and stick a small bookcase on the side.
"This is my house too!" he bellows. "I have to live here!"
"Try not to display, so obviously, my darling, your boorish country roots" she hisses malevolently, kicking marble tile samples across the floor and ringing the servants bell vehemently for an espresso.
But wait: what about pink? What does pink do to us? What about pink and romance, and sweet femininity, and the prisons in America? I doubt, upon reflection, that such an argument ever occured in such a lovely room. Possibly it was a mutually book-loving couple with a shared love of entertaining who requested this confection.
The fact of the matter is, that 500 years later, I have purchased this house, and this fireplace, and it is down to me, the new owner, to responsibly maintain this fireplace, and incorporate it's colour into my designs. My husband thinks it's a later addition, this bookcase, but if that's the case, then it doesn't make for as lovely a story.
Digressing slightly, I really would love to visit an Italian marble quarry someday. I can't imagine what a sheet rock wall of candy pink marble looks like. Does it pick up and reflect sunlight? It must make the entire area glow pinkly and girlishly. If you go to an Italian marble website like www.italymarble.com you will see the most astonishing array of brightly - and subtly - coloured marble. I wonder if people, when faced with such an impressive array of colours, go mad and choose shades that are perhaps slightly outside the bounds of architectural propriety, in the same way that a bathroom superstore inspires people to go OTT with kitchen and bathroom tiling.
I remember chatting with a stonemason who was building an extension for us, onto a stone cottage in North Wales. He showed me the wall he was building, and a pile of grey granite stones of various shapes and sizes. He pointed to the stones, and began to describe the subtlety of their shading. Some were pink grey, or blue grey, and dark as well as light grey. When somebody points it out to you, you can really see the difference. He was carefully orchestrating this wall to be a subtle harmony of all of these different tones of grey stone - no similar colours next to each other - and it was turning into a really beautiful piece of architectural work.
Well, this Welsh granite stone wall was really subtle, but the bouquet of marble shades on the Italian marble website is truly breathtaking. You can see the results in the astonishing and elegant palazzos, villas, and important buildings all over Italy. And here I've got my little pink patch of stone elegance to play with.
I started researching 17th century Italian design. The images online tended to polarize between massive noble palazzos in Florence, and chalk-white conical peasant cottages in Puglia. There were screeds of Tuscan farmhouses, cleverly, and not-so-cleverly, restored by the English. I had difficulty in finding just the right sort of image to suit my little country palazzo wing. (Apparently, if you decide to go house-hunting in Italy, if the building is a Palazzo with a capital "P" then it is the home of a royal family, and if it's a lower case "p" then it is a noble, but not royal, family).
Our new house is only one small slice of a larger Italian pie. The palazzo, within which it lies, is much larger, spreads all the way down the street, and incorporates the semi-detached village church (which used to be the private church for the family in the palazzo). There are patterns laid into the pavement in front of the house and in the square: designs in multi-coloured cobblestones of incredible charm.
But the pink; the incredibly pink fireplace. Where does this fit into the grander scheme of things? I look around the square, and the small street, and the house itself, and everything seems so solid, and sensible, a bit country but not in a country yokel sort of way. The quick glimpse I had of the church revealed gilt paint and high vaulted ceilings, and a very tender Madonna gazing softly across the sturdy oak pews. I saw no evidence, no warning, that once you had been through all the rooms in the house,worked your way up and up to the top floor room with the best view, that you would suddenly be confronted with a candy pink marble fireplace. It just comes at you, like a sudden stabbing flash of sunlight on a mirror.
If you've ever been inside an Italian villa, or palazzo, or townhouse of any decent proportion you will begin to recognize re-occurring themes in the basic structure, such as vaulted ceilings in the lower rooms, wide hallways, large breeze-blessed tall windows, wrought iron balconies, rooms of good balanced proportions, cool marble and stone, and grace everywhere. We found this exquisite spiral staircase in an empty villa for sale. So so simple, so graceful.
I think the Italians, as a country, are in love with air. With space. With large boundaries. This love is reflected in the homes, palaces, parks, avenues, costumes, gestures, music and food of the nation.
As I wander through my new house and inspect small details that escaped my notice before, I see in my own home the love of air everywhere. Someone had a go at hand-painted friezes on the cupboard doors. I just love that. Someone was inspired enough to dig out the old watercolour set, or crimped set of oil paints, and actually sat patiently ornamenting the cupboards. Alcohol may have been involved, as the friezes (green boughs) go slightly skew-wif in places.
The staircase is elegant, and chunky, at the same time. The ceiling is impossibly high, and the intricate iron balustrades march firmly up the weighty granite stair treads. But suddenly, when you least expect it, the underside of the staircase curls girlishly in on itself, in a sort of architectural simper; it is just delightful. I love this house.
Of course there is another possible reason for the existence of a pink marble fireplace in my new home. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with the nationality, the topography, the century, or the fashion of the time. It may just be that somebody loved pink. Well, why not. You go girl! Fresco the walls, paint the ceilings, pink the fireplace, it's your home, make it your own. So my challenge, and my delight, over the coming years, will be to take this new home, and love this new home, and love it's heights, and it's views, and it's cool marbleness, and yes, it's pinkness. And make these, my own.
Comments
Post a Comment