"I'm a huge believer in using neutrals and muted colours as these can offer a calm and harmonious backdrop for the decoration of any of your rooms," she says, adding, "Brighter and bolder colours can be used to express your personality and how you live and feel, but these should be used in moderation or it may become overpowering".
Most of the galleries on Abu Nawas have at least one bucolic painting of the marshes, usually depicting robed women paddling canoes in calm water against a backdrop of reeds and woven houses.
Some may find it ridiculous to see those structures against a backdrop of a calm and peaceful sea.
When we finally reached the Hudson, the river opened up expansively, the undulating tree-covered west bank a backdrop to the calming scene.
The Buddha's calm face looks stunning against the backdrop of a clear blue sky and Kamakura's densely forested hills; it is hard to imagine it would have been as striking inside a dark temple hall.
Wearing a dark suit and projecting an air of geeky, avuncular calm, Mr. Hubbard appeared before a blue backdrop festooned with the words "Columbia Business School".
Across the calm channel, white blossoms of mountain laurel, against a backdrop of vibrant green foliage, bobbed in a gentle breeze.
As he sat in front of a backdrop bearing the Mariners' logo, Lee seemed as calm as he did in Game 1 of the World Series last Oct. 28 at Yankee Stadium.
As "The Year of the Flood" (McClelland & Stewart) unfolds its devastating tale against a backdrop in "the undefined near future," the eerie calm of its narration casts an even more unsettling gloss on a hyperreal canvas of a future still going terrifyingly wrong.
The subtle smile, reminiscent of archaic funerary statues (kouroi, korai), the languid eyes, the puzzling backdrop of nature, the intricate loops of the neckline, the calm hands, even the absence of visible facial hair (eyebrows and eyelashes were not the style) add to the mysterious, semi-abstract quality of the face.
