Color harmony

“ COLOR (Continued) —VALUES—SUBTLETY SO far in our talk on color we have laid stress on three points: first, that color is light; secondly, that color is affected by light; thirdly, that the painter who is a colorist arranges color in relation to other colors, so as to produce a harmony.
The reason was, that I wished you not to think of color as paint. Paints, or as artists call them, pigments, are only the materials that man has invented to imitate the real thing. The real thing is nature’s color. ”

“ Returning to our classification of harmonies, already stated, we find the first to be Contrasted Harmony, which covers those combinations in which a positive color, as a spectrum color for example, is combined with white, black or gray, leaving out for the present silver and gold, which may be confusing, and can at best be used only as outlines. ”

“ Colors are like musical notes and chords, while color is a pleasing result of their artistic use in a combined way. So colors are means to an end, while color is the end itself. The first are tools, while the other is a distinctive harmony in art composed of many lines and shades. ”

“ When all is said and done, tone is the result of color relations, so arranged that they produce a rhythmic harmony.
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An artist, when he paints a tonal picture, has in mind the relative dark and light of colors, and their relative coolness and warmth. Let me explain. First the relative coolness or warmth of colors. The artist regards blue as the coolest hue. As a matter of fact violet reflects even less light than blue; still, for his practical purposes, an artist says that the cool hue is blue, and he associates with it violet and green. ”

“ But even though the colors complementary to each other may be determined scientifically there will always remain ample opportunity for the exhibition of color sense and artistic feeling in the choice of colors because the difference between a very beautiful composition in complementary harmony and an indifferently good one may be found in the choice of tones, or in the proportions of each and their arrangement with relation to each other. ”

“ The three primary colors must always be present in a picture to produce harmony. Colors are divided into what are called warm and cold colors, the yellow and red being termed warm, and the blue cold. Yellow and red produce light and warmth, and it is impossible to produce coolness without the use of blue. In painting we [Pg 104] use the three terms, light, shade and color, because they best express the qualities of color. Light is expressed by yellow, shade by blue, and color by red. ”

“ Color, like music, while subjected to positive rules of harmony, appeals to natures according to the responsiveness of their nerve sense, and the practical decorator in dealing with a customer should discover at the outstart the character of that nerve sense. Some natures respond to the normal colors, barbaric colors. Some respond to the softer tints and are disturbed by the sharper tones. A dulled sense requires sharp contrasts; a quickened sense is satisfied with the soft gray tones. ”

“ People who are less refined admire deeper tones; yet want absolute harmony, while coarse individuals are satisfied with bright gaudy colors. Color is a sensation produced on the retina of the eye, by the action of one or more of the elements of light. Exact proportion by parts are not given in the following in order to let you be the judge of the exact shade. Follow the simple rule of using a little more of the dark colors of each color combination if a deeper shade is wanted and vice versa for a lighter one. ”

“ Colors get, it is thought, their value for feeling either through some connection with emotionally toned objects, like vegetation, light, the sky, blood, darkness, and fire, or else through some relation to emotional situations, like mourning or danger, which they have come to symbolize. And there is little doubt that such associations play a part in determining the emotional meaning of colors—the reticence and distance of blue, the happiness of yellow, for example, are partly explained through the fact that blue is the color of the sky, yellow the color of sunlight ”

“ Color, if you stop to think, is really the decorative touch which God gives to the universe. It would have been just as easy to make everything gray—every rose but the shadow of itself—every tree and rock and cloud a monotone of gradation. Instead of that, everything we look at, from a violet to an overbending sky, is enriched and glorified by millions of color tones as infinite in their gradation as the waves of sound and light. ”

“ This emotional attribute of color is keenly felt even in a work of art as devoid of any intellectual appeal, as a Turkish rug or a Japanese ceramic; but when color is used purposely to enhance and offset some poetic mood of nature, as in a Venetian sunset by Gedney Bunce, or a spring morning by Corot, its poignant charm is overpowering and irresistible. ”

“ I am beginning to say with conviction that color-schemes are the mark of a narrow and rigid taste—that they are born of convention and are meant not for living things but for wall-papers and portià ̈res and clothes. Moreover, I am really growing callous—or is it, rather, broad? Colors in my garden that would once have made my teeth ache now leave them feeling perfectly comfortable. I find myself looking with unmoved flesh—no creeps nor withdrawals—upon a bed of mixed magentas, scarlets, rose-pinks, and yellow-pinks. I even look with pleasure. ”

“ If it were not that colors can be compounded, we should be limited in hue and shade to the seven spectral colors; the wealth and beauty of color in nature, art, and commerce would be unknown; the flowers with their thousands of hues would have a poverty of color undreamed of; art would lose its magenta, its lilac, its olive, its lavender, and would have to work its wonders with the spectral colors alone. By compounding various colors in different proportions, new colors can be formed to give freshness and variety. ”

“ A very little positive warm colour, as it were set in blue, from whatever cause, gives it a surprising glow. We desire to see the theory of colours treated, not with regard to their corresponding harmony in their power one upon the other, nor in their light and shadow, but, if we may so express it, in their sentimentality—the effect they are capable of in moving the passions. ”

“ What significance have these abstract principles of beauty in the combination of colors for representative art? In the choice of objects with a definite local color, of course, these laws will be found operative. A scheme of blues and yellows is likely to be more effective than one of reds and violets. If we analyze the masterpiece of coloring, we shall find that what we at first supposed to be the wonderful single effects of color is really the result of juxtapositions which bring out each color to its highest power. ”

“ There with all the influences of reflection and refraction eliminated you find yourself moving through an infinitely soft blue that is semi-opaque merely because a million generations of use has fitted the human eye for seeing details through air only. Yet the perception of color remains. Hold your breath desperately and swim as far down as you may and there is no change. The color has all the softness and gentle beauty of the turquoise. ”

“ On the other hand, a timid, delicate nature could often gain courage and poise by living in surroundings of rich red tones, the tones of the old Italian damasks in which the primitive colors of the Middle Ages have been handed down to us. No half shades, no blending of tender tones are needed in an age of iron nerves. People worked hard, and they got downright blues and reds and greens—primitive colors, all. Nowadays, we must consider the effect of color on our nerves, our eyes, our moods, everything. ”

“ The principles connected with coloring should be understood if one desires to produce the most pleasing and harmonious effects in painting. The three colors, red, yellow, and blue, with the white of the paper, are equal in theory to all the requirements of art in its true relation to color. ”

“ As an artist's color, it replaces almost all the other red pigments which we have inherited from the past. The same chemists have an equally powerful yellow and blue under careful observation, and it is highly probable that in another year or two these, also, will be given to the world. Now it is evident that if painters can secure these three primary colors in two values, a light and a dark shade, they will, with the addition of white and black, have a perfect palette ”

“ The general tone of the work is warm;—the blues, greys and greens are used as a foil to give value to the warm colours, the shadows and middle tints: the greys are glazed warm, to preserve the richness of the general effect throughout. The reds and blues are combined of colours possessing the properties of each. The quantity of warm and cold colours are to be principally observed—the union of one part with another—preservation of the breadth, and the general harmony. ”

“ It is no mere chance, this use of vivid colour. Man's psychology to-day craves it. A revolution is on. Did not the strong red, green, and blue of Napoleon's time follow the delicate sky-blues, rose and sunset-yellows of the Louis?
Colour pulses on every side, strong, clean, clear rainbow colour, as if our magicians of brush and dye-pot held a prism to the sun-beam; violet, orange and green, magentas and strong blue against backgrounds of black and cold grey. ”

“ Color is surely contagious; for the wild birds, that sang deliriously, wore coats that dazzled the eye; the grass and flowers, the trees and blossoms were tinged with a beauty found nowhere else on earth; and even the human inhabitants caught the spirit of the Color Queen and fashioned their garments to harmonize with their surroundings. ”

“ Nor can it long be doubted that it is also the most impressive way to others; for the third great advantage possessed by the colorists is, that the delightfulness of their picture, its sacredness, and general nobleness, are increased exactly in proportion to the quantity of light and of lovely color they can introduce in the shadows, as opposed to the black and grey of the chiaroscurists. ”

“ We deal with color as with sound—so far ruling the power of the light, as we rule the power of the air, producing beauty not necessarily imitative, but sufficient in itself, so that, wherever [68] color is introduced, ornamentation may cease to represent natural objects, and may consist in mere spots, or bands, or flamings, or any other condition of arrangement favorable to the color. ”

“ Color preferences are often determined in this way; yet sometimes they spring from another and more radical source—an affinity between personal temperament and the feeling tone of the preferred color. A consistent choice of blues and grays indicates a specific kind of man or woman, very different from the chooser of yellows and reds.
Although single color tones are expressive, they seldom exist alone in works of art. Significant expression requires variety. The invention of original and expressive color combinations is a rare gift of genius. ”

“ COLOR IT was mentioned in the previous chapter that artists may be divided into two classes: those who are particularly interested in the shape or form of what they see, and those who see the world as an arrangement of “colored masses.” It is the latter way of seeing things that we are now going to consider.
We know that everything visible to the eye has color. When we think of a garden lawn, an impression of green comes into our mind. Green, an artist would say, is the local color of the lawn—the general hue which distinguishes it from the paths and flower beds. ”

“ That white stands for purity or blue for fidelity is a conventionalized and attached conception. But the pleasure which a man has in some colors or his dislike for others depends upon the effect each color has upon his emotions, and this effect determines for him the symbolic value of the color. ”

“ If the general harmony or hue of a picture is warm, the deepest shadows should be warm also; while the strongest colour, being brought into the middle space, will serve to connect both the light and the shadow. Indian red, in most instances, should be the mixing medium, using cold colours sparingly, and only where they are wanted as a foil; as the greens of trees are set off from the rich brown shadows, producing a splendid effect, and bringing the hot and cold colours into harmony. ”

“ These variations in hue, value, and intensity of color afford specific æsthetic satisfactions. The blueness of the sky is its specific beauty; the greenness of foliage in springtime is its characteristic and quite essential charm. Apart from anything else, sensations themselves afford satisfaction or the reverse. A loud color, a strident or a shrill sound may cause a genuine revulsion of feeling. A soft hue or a pellucid note may be an intrinsic pleasure, though a formless one, and one expressive of no meaning at all. ”

“ From what we have said, it will be seen that the relations and harmony of colours form a complex subject, requiring constant and careful study; one, indeed, into which he who would become a colourist must enter heart and soul. ”

“ The most convincing proof of the unimportance of color lies in the accurate observation of the way in which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we look at nature carefully we shall find that her colors are in a state of perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. ”

“ Given a good range of brilliant colors, it becomes possible by their varied combinations to produce the most peculiar, pleasing, and attractive shades of grays and olives and browns, and the thousand and one delicate tints beloved by the artist; and they yield when desired a richness and life and body of color compared with which older colors are poor and lifeless. ”

“ His idea seems to be, that in the representation of spiritual subjects the artist should avoid the sensualism of color, and give only the most chaste and severe tone. Hence he makes much use of white, pale blue, and cloudy grays, avoiding the gorgeousness of the old masters. But it seems probable that in the celestial regions there is more, rather than less, of brilliant coloring than on earth. ”