JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post    Part of the Series on Color, Its Uses and Abuses

I’ve written a number of times on what seems to be “extreme” color in the 1930’s  (as in “Oddly Adjectival Opposites: Color Plumpness and Color-in-Black-and-White, 1941” https://historyofideasblog.com/books/2011/02/odd.html) and come to it again today via the weirdly sublime color contrasts of rugs and floor coverings offered in the Bird Rug Catalog for 1938. I’ve thought about and seen so many of these images in luscious grays and stark blacks that it is difficult to think of these same images in gigantic color. It is just hard to picture Mr. Bogart’s eyes and his accusing/weary glance being framed by that blue chair and all of the colors bombarding it. There should I guess be a diacritical of some sort to attach to the vocabulary of colors to express “surprise”, as I could surely employ it in describing that blue linoleum floor:

Deep closeup of flooring:

Flooring details