Coloration

“ Probably the effects of colour on educated minds are as various as the tints and shades of tones of the many substances which receive them,—reflected from all surrounding objects, blazing in light, or softened by shadow,—fresh and glowing, or permanently faded—shining with modern varnish, or sobered by the dust of ages.
It is the art of the colourist, whether he paints pictures, or dyes textiles, or embroiders them, to reduce the tints of the prism to an endurable and delightful lowness of tone, while preserving as far as possible all their light and purity. ”

“ Nothing so nearly approaches pure white as the palest blue; nothing is so nearly black as the darkest.
Green has been assigned by nature the place of the universal background. It is the complementary colour of red, softening and assimilating it by reflected shadows, and setting off the glory of every flower and fruit. The expression of green is gaiety and modesty, light and tenderness, shadow and repose, to both the eye and the mind. ”

“ In the first place we have the abstract basis of all colour in light and dark. When we posit this contrast and its transitions by themselves without further distinctions of colour effect, we get thereby simply the contrasts supplied us by white as light and black as shadow together with their transitional grades and nuances, contrasts which offer to the art of drawing its integrating quality, appertaining as they do to the real plastic character of form, and producing the prominence, retreat, rondure, and distance of objects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The white light that the glorious orb of day spreads over the face of nature is the original source of all those brilliant and sombre colours with which the works of the Creator are beautified. To the rays of the sun we owe not only the whiteness of the lily, but the scarlet of the field poppy, the modest blue of the timid violet, the splendour of the peacock's plumage, the cool green of the meadows, and the purple and gold of the distant mountains. ”

“ For I should be sorry if, when you were led by the course of your study to observe closely such things as are beautiful in colour, you had not longed to paint them, and felt considerable difficulty in complying with your restriction to the use of black, or blue, or grey. You ought to love colour, and to think nothing quite beautiful or perfect without it; and if you really do love it, for its own sake, and are not merely desirous to colour because you think painting a finer thing than drawing, there is some chance you may colour well. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though in the paintings of animals and birds considerable realism is often seen (fig. 7) , yet for human figures certain conventional colours are employed, e.g. white for females' flesh, red for the males, or black to indicate people of negro race. Heads are painted in profile, and little or no shading is used. Considerable knowledge of harmony is shown in the arrangement of the colours; and otherwise harsh combinations of tints are softened and brought into keeping by thin separating lines of white or yellow. ”

“ The beauty lies in the colouring. What a feast these ruins afford to the eye by their colour, what a revel of blues, greens, and low-toned reds in their unfaded paintings! Taken as bits of colour only, without dwelling too much on the forms, all in such light, the shadows filled with golden reflections—taken thus, or deeply tinged with the lustrous after-glow, or the golden moonlight, they are all-satisfying. ”

“ White, which is also a cold color when added to black makes a cold gray. Yellow added to red forms a warm orange.
MEANING OF COLORS White is said to mean purity; blue, fidelity or truth; red, love or sacrifice; green, envy; pink, modesty; violet, innocence; yellow, jealousy; black, sorrow or distress, and lavender, passion.
4 ART OF COLOR MIXING Mixing colors is an art in itself. With a combination of the chief colors—red, yellow, blue (and black and white) , thousands of shades and hues may be produced. ”

“ Marny. Paint is not color. Color is an essence, a rhythm, a blending of tones as exquisite as the blending of sounds in the fall of a mountain brook. Match each sound and you have its melody. Match each tone and you have light. ”

“ We must expect, then, in painting, to find that neutral gray will be more altered by pale tints of red, orange, or yellow, which are slightly lighter than itself, and that the gray will be less altered by these colors when differing considerably from it in luminosity; analogous conclusions with regard to green, blue, violet, and purple, can also be drawn. Saturated or intense colors in a painting have less effect on white or gray than colors that are pale; this was shown in the preliminary experiment when gray was placed on a ground of strong color. ”

“ If your taste inclines to more delicate shades, do not be discouraged because by that choice you are told you haven't much sense of colour. That you know in your heart of hearts is not true. The beauty of twilight, or the delicacy of a misty landscape, or the sombreness of the grey old woman in her dark frock have fully as much 'colour' as the gorgeous sunset, or the meadows rioting with gold and crimson blossoms. ”

“ 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 (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. ”

“ Complementary Colors.—A colored object shows a certain color by absorbing part of the light rays and reflecting part of the light rays. For instance, we know that light consists of the colors of the spectrum, red, green and violet. If an object is red, it absorbs the green and violet rays, and reflects only the red rays of light. Therefore, green blue which is a combination of green and violet is the complementary color to red or the shade which is absorbed by a red object. ”

“ The very bright red, again, is one of the ugliest warm colours that art ever stumbled upon: it is never mellowed by damp or anything else, and spoils everything near it by its intolerable and inevitable glare. ”

“ THE APPRECIATION OF COLOUR.
Most people understand each other sufficiently to agree in their ideas about various colours. Thus every one agrees in saying that poppies are red, that the sky is blue, and the leaves green; but if any one were to assert that the sky was red, that the leaves were blue, and poppies green, who could possibly contradict him? ”

“ Colouring is a distinct and subsequent branch, and is only to be learnt by long and minute observation of the diversified tints and hues of Nature. The principle of Light and Shade, on the contrary, is established by theory. ”

“ The painters of today have discovered anew the world’s coloring. We now recognize everywhere the power and vivaciousness, the thousandfold freshness, and the infinite changefulness of color. To us colors now talk directly; they are not drowned by covering tints, not hide-bound by a preconceived harmony. ”

“ The Palette.—You try to attain nature's effects of light with pigment. Pigment is less pure than light. You cannot have the same scale, the same range, but you must do the best you can, and the arrangement of your palette will help you. As you have not a perfect blue, a perfect red, and a perfect yellow, you must have two colors for one. ”

“ When I come to treat of colouring, I shall particularly shew in what manner the gradating of prime tints serve to the making a beautiful complexion; in this place we shall only observe how nature hath by these gradating shades ornamented the surfaces of animals; fish generally have this kind of shade from their backs downward; birds have their feathers enriched with it; and many flowers, particularly the rose, shew it by the gradually-increasing colours of their leaves. ”

“ One artist may revel in exquisite golds, reds, and blues; another may prefer silvery greys and blues, warm fawn, and dull reds. But it is not true to say that the latter has not as much sense of colour as the former. His choice of tints is different. He sees Nature in more subdued hues. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When all is said and done, tone is the result of color relations, so arranged that they produce a rhythmic harmony.
. . . . . .
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. ”

“ Colors have their greatest importance for us in so far as they are properties of bodies and can serve as signs for the recognition of bodies.... We have become accustomed, in forming a judgment in regard to the colors of bodies, to eliminate the varying brightness and [Pg 18] color of the illumination. We have sufficient opportunity to investigate the same colors of objects in full sunshine, in the blue light of the clear sky, in the weak white light of a cloudy day, in the reddish-yellow light of the sinking sun or of the candle. ”

“ Green would be the dominant color, but the blue atmosphere and the clouds would enfold her as a bride is shrouded in her veil—a veil the vapory transparent folds of which the earth, through her ministers the winds, never tires of laying and folding about herself anew. ”

“ If you have a good eye for colours, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral grey, and the like; and how she strikes these colour-concords for general tones, and then works into them with innumerable subordinate ones; and you will gradually come to like what she does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour in her work every day. If you enjoy them, depend upon it you will paint them to a certain point right: or, at least, if you do not enjoy them, you are certain to paint them wrong. ”

“ But as to this question of freshness of colour, which is of such paramount importance, I may quote the same authority I used before—that of the maker of the colour—to back my own experience and previous conviction on the point, which certainly is that fresh colour, used the same day it is ground and fired the same day it is used, fires better and fires away less than any other. ”

“ Dark colours are best calculated for varnishing; the lighter colours, such as sky-blue, apple-green, rose-colour, delicate yellow, &c., will not bear varnishing so well, and in spite of the greatest care are liable to get dirty. ”

“ That beautiful diffusion of æriel and fluctuating pearly reflections, that play equally over the surfaces of the strongest colours, shadows, and lights, in the tenderest hues and forms, and with which all nature appears invested, should engage our deepest attention and enquiry, as their properties so softly blend and break down the harshness and influence of positive colour, and the asperity of opposing tints, by tempering them with their airy and luminous sweetness. ”

“ But though you cannot produce finished coloured drawings of any value, you may give yourself much pleasure, and be of great use to other people, by occasionally sketching with a view to colour only; and preserving distinct statements of certain colour facts—as that the harvest-moon at rising was of such and such a red, and surrounded by clouds of such and such a rosy grey; that the mountains at evening were in truth so deep in purple ”

“ A third mode of contrast in colouring is that of warmth and coolness, upon which depend the toning and general effect of a picture. Fourthly, there is the contrast of colour and neutrality, the chromatic and achromatic, or hue and shade. By the right management of this, local colours acquire value, gradation, keeping, and connection: whence come breadth, aërial perspective, and the due distribution of greys and shadows in a picture. ”