Pompeii No.4: Painting Around The Window

In my last posting, I shared the Pompeii Room's color scheme with you. If it were possible to remove the roof from the house and look down into the room, it would look like the image below.

"A" leads to a hallway and the griffin overdoor I posted about on February 24th, "B" leads to my kitchen, and "C" is a window that looks out into my back yard. I'll paint the areas that are colored tan to look like masonry, and that way I think the doorways will make more sense to the rest of the mural.

As I walk through my front door, I face the window, and so I thought it would be important to tackle that rear wall first. There's a 9½" space above the window, and that could make a window frame look a little top-heavy. But the space is also perfect for a torus.

A torus is simply a rounded moulding, but it is most often associated with this design, which is an oak torus.

I'm painting the torus in a rather loose way because I want to give a little momentum to the project. I'll come back later and define those leaves and acorns better, and darken the shadows. I'll also come back at the end of the project and put colorful marble in the plaque, and an inscription. For now, anyway, the window is presentable.

As this photograph was taken, I was repairing a little water damage to the ceiling, so it wasn't painted blue yet. The window also boasts venetian blinds that detract from the illusion of Pompeii, so until I come up with an appropriate window treatment, I'll PhotoShop-mask the window in gray.

Speaking of PhotoShop, the computer is an important tool in the whole process, and in ways that the casual observer would never guess. For example, the ceiling rises approximately ¼" on the right, meaning that my oak torus would have a disturbing gap above it on one side.

However, in PhotoShop I can skew the whole design just a tad so that the torus will  fill and correct the space in an imperceptible way (unlike the exaggerated example above) .

The window frame itself is looking three-dimensional, less for the rendering of stonework than for the shadowing, which gives the appearance of the shadow changing according to the different colors "underneath."

Since my last posting, I've also painted the baseboards a gray that complements both the carpeting and the Greek key. I talked about that Greek key in an early blog posting, here. The design comes from an Irish castle, and I hand-painted it throughout much of my house. That required many hours lying down on the job, with a curious pet rabbit nearby, wondering what I could possibly be doing!

Here's the Pompeii Room as it looks today. As you can see, the ceiling is now all blue, and I'm pleased with the progress of the window wall. Now I can concentrate on blocking in the rest of the base colors.

Next week I'll be painting the columns and the frieze that connects them. The columns, which are very particular to Pompeian design, might be unlike any you've seen before!
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Greek Keys No. 7

This is a Victorian typographic border. The different elements of the border would have been pieced together from metal forms, just as type was also set by hand.

Smithsonian Magazine

This Greek ceramic head was found in a tomb in Tarquinia, Italy. I've replicated the headband pattern on the bottom.

dupuis.ca

My blogging friend Terry of Square With Flair suggested adding this ring to the collection. It's from Tiffany & Co.

Decorative Antique Ironwork  |  D'allemagne

 This is an 18th century keyhole plate, made of iron. It was used on an armoire.

These are storefront tiles from Ybor City, in Tampa, Florida.

Pompeian fresco

My entire series of Greek key designs can be found on my side bar — just look for the brown stele.

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Greek Keys No. 6

detail of a photograph by Guillaume de Laubier  |  The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World

Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590), known as The Iron Pope, came from a poor family from the village of Montalto. The family name was Peretti, so Pope Sixtus V designed his crest to include a lion holding a branch of pears. The image above is a painting of the pope which hangs in the Vatican library that bears his name. Notice that above the painting is a Greek key that incorporates pears. I've recreated the key below.

And now from the Vatican to the Royal Family. Here is the Meander Tiara, which was worn by Princess Alice of Greece, mother of the Britain's Prince Philip.

orderofsplendor.blogspot.com

Princess Alice of Greece   |   alexanderpalace.org

The tiara was a wedding gift from Princess Alice to her daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, who in turn gave it to Princess Anne.

An 18th century decorative frame

is shown with details of the keys.

Source

This is a Louis XV table of ebony and inlay.

Here, I've recreated the key design of a Roman mosaic floor found in Britain. To see and learn about the Sea God Mosaic, featuring a portrait of Oceanus, go here.

My entire series of Greek key designs can be found on my side bar — just look for the brown stele.
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Greek Keys No. 5

Photo by Lubomir Pořizka  |  The Palaces of Prague, Zdeněk Hojda and Jiří Pešek  |  1994

This handsome key is from the ceiling of Villa Lanna, in Prague. The villa was built in the 1860s and today houses the Academy of Sciences.

Pavlovsk Palace  |  Wikipedia Image

This key comes from a frieze in the Pavlovsk Palace, built by Paul I of Russia in the 1780s, near St. Petersburg.

Photo: Erich Lessing  |  Karl Friedrich Schinkel, An Architect for Prussia  | Barry Bergdoll, 1994

This is a detail of a bronze door designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for the entrance to the Bauakademie (architectural academy), in Berlin. The academy was built 1831-36, and was demolished in the 1960s, however the door was saved. Below you can see how closely the door compares to its corresponding part in Schinkel's original design.

Photo: Erich Lessing  |  Karl Friedrich Schinkel, An Architect for Prussia  | Barry Bergdoll, 1994

housebeautiful.com

A chair of leather and brass from Williams-Sonoma incorporates the Greek key.

The Oxford History of Classical Art  |  John Boardman, 1993

This complicated key is Etruscan, and comes from the pediment of a temple at Pyrgi. Pyrgi was an ancient Etruscan port in central Italy, now Santa Severa. Stare at the key that I've reconstructed, and five square diamonds will appear.
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Greek Keys No. 4

I had to laugh at myself when I saw this Greek key on the floor of the Tampa International Airport. I kept wanting to find a repeating pattern, but there is none! It's completely irregular.

I was in New York City and saw this place setting at the Jonathan Adler store, on Madison Avenue.

As a graphic designer, I'm attracted to the key of this Tory Burch storefront, which is simply his initial repeated. It's a design solution reminiscent of the great English designer, David Hicks.

Photo by Van Chaplin  |  Southern Living

The border design of the linens used by designer Randy Powers is the same concept of repeating "T"s.

Here I've recreated tile work I noticed at the entrance to a store in Sarasota, Florida. It could easily be from Pompeii.

And this is a detail of a Pompeian fresco.

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Greek Keys No. 3

Photo by Barbara and René Stoeltie, from Irish Georgian, Herbert Ypma, 1998.

This beautiful space was designed in 1742 by Richard Castle, one of Ireland's greatest architects. It's central to Russborough House, a Palladian treasure and home to the first Earl of Milltown. The fanlight serves to bring light to upper floor bedrooms.

I've recreated these Greek keys, which all originated as mosaics. Of course, they would not necessarily have been in these colors.

Eric Cohler Design  |  leejofa.com

History of Art  |  H. W. Janson, 1962

A detail of a Greek vase from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  H. W. Janson describes this as "the oldest characteristically Greek style in the fine arts, the so-called Geometric." It's 8th century B. C., which means that it was created close to the founding of the Olympic Games.

Greek Keys No. 2

My welcome mat is out,
and I'm ready to share some more Greek keys!

I was looking through a recent style magazine that had an ad for a British salvage company. There was a photo of a marvelous etched glass door in the ad, but it was more than half obscured by other salvage! To spare you my own disappointment, I've reconstructed the design, free from the distraction of all the other salvage. Don't you love the scale of the key?

This ceiling by Robert Adam graces the library of Harewood, home of the Lascelles family. King George V's daughter, The Princess Royal, married the 6th Earl of Harewood in 1922, which makes the current owner of this fine Greek key a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

 Where better to look for Greek keys than on a Greek vase?

I have several excellent books by John Boardman on Athenian figure vases of the Classical period. What I have discovered as I delve into Classical art, is that there are many, many variations of Greek keys. But when these stunning vases were at their height, these three key designs predominated.

My entire series of Greek key designs can be found on my side bar — just look for the brown stele.