*HAY, DAVID RAMSAY, is the author of some able works on decoration, and on the principles of form and colour applicable to various branches of art. Engaged at Edinburgh in the business of housa•painting, he is one of the very small number of persons follow ing a commercial pursuit connected with building, who may claim to rank as artists—art involving the exercise of original mind and the power to discover and unfold the beautiful in various forma and new relations. Mere house-painting not only requires greater manual skill and chemical knowledge than are ordinarily given to it, but it may be properly regarded as an art, like those higher branches called painting and sculpture.
Mr. Hay was born in Edinburgh in the year 1793. His father dying young, his mother and her family were left wholly unprovided for. Ile had however the good fortune to be named after a kind friend of the family—the proprietor of the Edinburgh Evening Courant '— through whom be received sufficient education to be enabled to act as a ' reading-boy,' with the view of being ultimately bred to the printing business. This employment however did not suit Mr. Hay's taste; he was often caught pencil in hand ; and after having several times incurred the displeasure of the foreman for infecting with his lovo of drawing the boys of the establishment, the young artist, with his benefactor's sanction, at the age of fourteen, left the printing-office, and engaged himself as an apprentice to Mr. Gavin Beugo, a house. painter in Edinburgh. There he learned the rudiments of the trade. He then set to work painting and copying pictures. One of his pro ductions meeting the eye of Mr. (afterwards Sir Walter) Scott, the latter engaged him to paint a portrait of his favourite cat. Scott was pleased with the production, kindly interested himself in the artist, and often talked with him about his (Mr. Hay's) prospects in life : the result was that, by Scott's advice, Mr. Hay devoted his abilities to decorative housa•painting rather than to a field of greater ambition. The story has been often told, and Scott's opinion quoted as applicable to art-education, which, as afforded in schools of design, there was at one time an apprehension might tend to the production, in place of superior art-workmen, of inferior painters and sculptors. Scott, as inducement, promised his prof/0 the painting of the house at Abbots ford, then building; and by the same advice Mr. Hay joined with Mr. William Nicholson, a portrait-painter, but who was also connected with the house-painting business. In 1324 the decoration of Abbots
ford was commenced under Scott's own supervision, and not according to present principles of taste. In 1823 (about which time he began business on his own account) Mr. Hay published his first work, entitled ' The Laws of Harmonious Colouring,' fic., a work which has gone through six editions, the last, in 1847, being in fact a new work, with a section on 'The Practice of House-Painting.' The work has the merit of priority in the exposition of much of the science of colour, to which increased attention has been called by recent writers. During the progress of the editions referred to, and since, Mr. Hay has not only given his time to the duties of an extensive business, but has prosecuted with ardour theoretical inquiries in varied fields. In 1842 be published ' The Natural Principles and Analogy of the Harmony of Form ;' In 1843, ' Proportion, or the Geometric Principle of Beauty Analysed ; ' in 1844, 'An Essay on Ornamental Design, in which its true principles are developed and elucidated,' &c.; in 1845, 'The Principles of Beauty in Colouring Systematised ;' in the same year the first edition, and in 1846 the second edition, of 'A Nomenclature of Colours,' wherein he gives upwards of 200 examples of colours, and their various hues, tints, and shades; in 1346 also he published ' First Principles of Symmetrical Beauty ;' in 1849 ho issued a work On the Science of those Pro Fortiethe by which the Human Head and Countenance, as represented in Ancient Greek Art, are distinguished from those of Ordinary Nature ;' in 1851, 'The Geometric Beauty of the human Figure Defined,' to which is prefixed ' A System of lEathetio Proportion applicable to Architecture and the other Formative Arts ;' in 1852, 'The Natural Principles of Beauty as developed in the Human Figure; in 1853, ' The Orthographic Beauty of the Parthenon referred to is Law of Nature,' to which he has prefixed 'A few Observations on the Importance of Esthetic Science as an Element in Architectural Education ;' iu 1S55, 'The Harmonic Law of Nature applied to Architectural Design;' and iu 1856, The Science of Beauty as developed in Nature and applied in Art.' These works are all illua trated, in some cases profusely, and have been most favourably received. In connection with the practical process of house-painting, Mr. Hay has made several improvements. The decorations of the meeting-hall of the London Society of Arts were designed and exe cuted by him about the year 1846.