Is this finish a good match for your interior door?
Saronno, a tiny commune in Lombardy, a sub-Alpine region in the north of Italiy, is famous for its almond kernel cookies (called amaretti in local parlance) and, naturally, Amaretto, a world-famous liqueur that is a staple at Manhattan cafes and California beach parties. While traditionally it is supposed to take its distinctive, instantly recognizable flavor from bitter almonds, most modern brands are prepared from a base of apricot pits. According to legend, a Saronno church once commissioned Bernadino Luini, one of Leonardo’s more passionate pupils, to cover the walls of its newly renovated sanctuary with frescoes. Interior doors weren’t mentioned. Luini was such an ardent (and gifted) follower of Leonardo’s technique that some of his works were attributed to Leonardo (until, armed with the most advanced scientific tools, a bunch of uncompromising experts produced evidence to the contrary, but that’s a story for another day). He is especially known today as the author of “graceful female figures with elongated eyes,” as one expert put it.
What does any of this have to do with interior doors? Read on.
Among other things, because the church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, one of the artist’s main tasks was to depict the Madonna. The picky painter spent quite some time trying to secure the services of the right model, finally lighting on a young widowed innkeeper who seemed to have all the right qualities and features. They may or may not have become lovers. Out of gratitude, the young lady decided to give the artist a present. Her very modest means would not allow her to splurge. She figured she might as well get creative. She locked herself in the kitchen (one wonders what the inn’s interior doors looked like), she spent some time experimenting. Eventually, steeping apricot kernels in brandy, she presented the resulting beverage to a very grateful, as well as pleasantly surprised, artist. Coincidentally, Luini’s palette features a lot of black, a manner not too many painters can get away with without coming across as bumptious, overbearing, or just tacky. Case in point: many of the French Impressionists renounced black paint altogether, substituting indigo, burnt umber, or a mixture of the two, when they needed to use dark tones. Luini’s trick is in the general pattern he follows when applying black and distributing it in a composition: a pattern in many ways resembling an apricot kernel’s ridges, bulges, and edges. Rather than upstaging the rest of the colors, Luini’s apricot-inspired black brings them all together in a clever, romantic way.
That is something to keep in mind when you choose apricot black as the finish for your interior doors. When thoughtfully applied to interior doors, it can serve as a compliment to your creative thinking, not to mention the joy of knowing that you’re on the same page as one of the beloved Old Masters.
