On Color and the Cultivation of Taste
Or, Why Your Curtains Are Probably Wrong
By Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, 1858
Illustrated with Woodcuts and Coloured Plates of Good and Bad Taste in Daring Contrast
📘 What Is This Book?
Let us not mince words.
This is a gentleman’s attempt to rescue civilisation through colour theory.
Written in 1858 by none other than Sir John Gardner Wilkinson—yes, the same indefatigable soul who brought Ancient Egypt to Victorian parlours—this richly illustrated volume dares to do something extraordinary:
It makes taste a civic virtue.
It declares that beauty, harmony, and colour are not luxuries for the leisured elite, but necessities for every man, woman, and child, regardless of station.
Wilkinson thunders, lectures, and sometimes gently prods us toward a society where every home is elegant, every garden geometrically noble, and every working man knows the proper use of a primary colour.
And God bless him for it.
🎨 What’s Inside?
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Essays on colour theory that predate Josef Albers and put Instagram influencers to shame.
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Philosophical musings on why beauty matters in everyday life.
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Warnings against the garish, the vulgar, and the frightfully ostentatious.
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Woodcuts and full-colour lithographs that show side-by-side examples of “good taste” and “bad taste” (you will feel both seen and shamed).
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Practical guidance on the layout of geometrical gardens, fit for a country estate—or at the very least, a suburban plot with potential.
This is not just a book.
It is a guide, a sermon, a colour-coded revolution in hardcover.
🧠 Who Should Read This?
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Interior Designers seeking historical grounding in colour theory.
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Gardeners and Landscape Architects who want to reclaim the elegant order of classical design.
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Educators teaching art, design, or cultural history—and looking to amuse and enlighten.
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Aesthetic Enthusiasts who thrill at a well-executed cornice and grieve over paisley gone rogue.
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Victorian Literature Lovers who want to read the manifesto Oscar Wilde may have written had he grown up under Wilkinson’s watchful eye.
💬 Why It Still Matters
Wilkinson’s central thesis is breathtaking in its simplicity:
Beauty civilises.
Taste can be taught.
Colour affects the soul.
A well-dressed parlour is as vital as a well-fed child.
And anyone—anyone—can be educated in elegance.
In an age where fast furniture reigns and beige is sold as a lifestyle, this book offers nothing less than redemption.
📦 Available Again — But Not for Long
After more than a century of dignified slumber in private collections and rare book rooms, On Colour is once again available in a museum-quality facsimile edition. Faithfully reproduced with:
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Archival-grade paper
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Original illustrations and colour plates
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Gilded edges and linen-bound spine (select editions)
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A foreword contextualising Wilkinson’s aesthetic crusade
This edition is a gift-worthy heirloom, a cabinet of aesthetic instruction, and frankly, a polite slap in the face to modern mediocrity.
🚨 Order Yours Today
Because the world needs fewer loud carpets and more cultivated sensibilities.
Because you deserve a guidebook to beauty that is both witty and uncompromising.
Because your home—and your mind—will be better for it.
Order now and receive:
✔ A guaranteed place among the aesthetes
✔ A thoroughly entertaining education in 19th-century taste
✔ And the satisfying joy of knowing, definitively, that orange and magenta do not belong in the same room.
With sincere and chromatically balanced regards,
Literary Curator & Keeper of Good Taste
Romantic English & Co.
