'The Most Dangerous Colours': Advice From a 19th-Century House Painter

Pin it Entrance hall designed by David Ramsay Hay in 1824 "Beauty has a real existence, independently of any opinion, fancy, or whim," or so argued David Ramsay Hay, a Scottish house painter who wrote several bestselling books on interior design and color theory. Hay argued that interior design should be executed with strict rules about color harmony in mind, and he wrote exhaustively about what colors work best in the home.