A splash of colour in Tudor homes

Jul 23 2010 By Chris Upton

Chris Upton discovers how the Tudors liked to make a lasting impression by decorating their homes with unique art.

For the English middle classes the house has always been as much about making an impression as having somewhere to live. The well-decorated, carefully furnished house helps them look a little more sophisticated than they really are, and to make their friends and neighbours a delicate pastel green with envy. And this was just as true of the Tudors as of the 21st century.

For the Tudors, the best way to make one’s mark was to paint the house. We’re not talking simple blocks of colour here. For a century or so, between the mid-16th and mid-17th century, painting the house most likely meant figurative painting. Not a simple colour wash, but patterns and pictures. Perhaps even a full-length portrait of the owners.

Wall painting was more colourful than oak panelling, and cheaper than wall hangings or tapestry. As such, it tended to appeal to the aspiring middle classes. Something that made their houses bright, meaningful and individual, but didn’t cost the earth.

In most cases the painting would be undertaken by a local craftsman, a man who could turn his hand to plastering and glazing as well as interior decoration. No need to look for a Michelangelo here; the style was usually humble, vernacular and (at times) quite crude. Well, what do you expect for sixpence a yard?

The old houses of the Midlands are full of domestic art such as this. Blakesley Hall in Birmingham has some, as do two houses in Friar Street in Worcester. Harvington Hall (formerly owned by the Packington family) is especially rich in wall paintings. Much has gone, of course, but many examples survive too, a window into a lost world of vernacular art. As the Reformation ordered the wall paintings out of the churches, so they migrated to the house around the corner instead.

The pigments needed to undertake such art-work could usually be picked up locally, but they varied considerably in price. Yellow (ochre), (carbon) black and red (lead) were both very cheap; indigo and vermilion (using much more exotic ingredients) were considerably more pricey. No doubt all this had to be negotiated before even the painter picked up his brush.

The subject matter too needed prior discussion. It might simply be a geometrical or floral pattern, pillaged from a pattern book, but might well be much more elaborate. Religious topics, perhaps with an uplifting moral or a verse from the Bible, were particularly popular, despite the minefield that religious affiliation had become by Tudor times.

Perhaps the theme came from the painter himself.

I could do you a nice hunting scene on that wall, guv’nor, or maybe you’d like a Last Supper? Harvington has a nice frieze of the Nine Worthies, which was a good way of hedging one’s theological bets. There were three classical heroes, three from the Old Testament and three from British history.

What is undoubtedly true is that no two of these pictures were ever the same. No stencilling was involved; the paint was applied directly to the wood or the plaster, and you hoped the painter knew what he was doing.