Colorism

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Between these two modes of pursuing it, come two modes of refusing it—one, dark and sensual; the other, statuesque and grave, having great aspect of nobleness.
Thus we have, first, the coarse love of color, as a vulgar person’s choice of gaudy hues in dress.
Then, again, we have the base disdain of color, of which I have spoken at length elsewhere. Thus we have the lofty disdain of color, as in Durer’s and Raphael’s drawing: finally, the severest and passionate following of it, in Giorgione and Titian.
5. Color is, more than all elements of art, the reward of veracity of purpose. ”

“ This last, the loveliest of all, gives the warmth of a summer twilight with a tinge of color on the gray paper so slight that it may be a question with some of you whether any is there. And I must beg you to observe, and receive as a rule without any exception, that whether color be gay or sad the value of it depends never on violence, but always on subtlety. It may be that a great colorist will use his utmost force of color, as a singer his full power of voice ”

“ Christian America created the color line; and all the great currents of critical opinion, from the eighteenth century to our time, have found the great barrier impassible and well-nigh impervious. Behind the color line one has to think perpetually of the color line, and most of those who grow up behind it can think of nothing else. Even when one essays to think of other things, that thinking is tinged with the shades of the surrounding atmosphere. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These six bright colours, when used in conjunction with black and white, with each other, or with their complementaries, will strengthen, intensify and enrich each other without altering their true value—when such vivid effects and sharp contrasts offend the taste of the worker, when they appear too crude, too conspicuous and too obtrusive—which they are apt to do—they may be harmonised quite simply, either by modifying the complementaries or by using a tint or a shade, that is, a lighter or a darker tone of the same colour. ”

“ And this 49 is more or less the case with all chiaroscurists; with all painters, that is to say, who endeavor in their studies of objects to get rid of the idea of color, and give the abstract shade. They invariably exaggerate the shadows, not with respect to the thing itself, but with respect to all around it; and they exaggerate the lights also, by leaving pure white for the high light of what in reality is grey, rose-colored, or, in some way, not white. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More and more, as the supreme artist matures, do we find him disdaining the showier and more evident forms of virtuosity. His colour is more and more marked in its luminous beauty by reticence and concentration, by the search after such a main colour-chord as shall not only be beautiful and satisfying in itself, but expressive of the motive which is at the root of the picture. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Color, with its infinity of relations, is baffling; its finer harmonies, like those of music, can be grasped by the appreciations only, not by reasoning or analysis. Color, in art, is a subject not well understood as yet, and there are violent differences of opinion among artists, teachers and critics, as to what constitutes good color-instruction. ”

“ An artist, in his first essay of imitating nature, would make the whole mass of one colour, as the oldest painters did; till he is taught to observe not only the variety of tints, which are in the object itself, but the differences produced by the gradual decline of light to shadow: he then immediately puts his instruction in practice, and introduces a variety of distinct colours. He must then be again corrected and told, that though there is this variety, yet the effect of the whole upon the eye must have the union and simplicity of the colouring of nature. ”

“ We demand that certain music shall be full of color, and we always seek color in the pages of our favorite books. One poet has color and to spare, another is cynical and hard and—gray. We think and criticize from the standpoint of an appreciation of color, although often we have not that appreciation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To return a moment to the problem of color: illusion is frequently lost through a failure to adjust the shade of the high-light and shadow to the tone of the foundation grease paint, or natural complexion. The commonest offence is the use of an unmixed, unblended slate for shadows, and white, and high-lights, whether the underlying color be florid, sallow, pink, or pale flesh. ”

“ But alas! the paintings of the old masters have faded and the great dyer had no language in which to describe his colors in his writings, and therefore it is claimed that little or no advance in color perception has been made in modern times, if indeed we have held our own. The further assertion is made that those semi-civilized nations whose drawings are the least artistic greatly surpass us in natural color perceptions. ”

“ There never yet was colorist who could not draw; but faculty of perceiving form may exist alone. I believe, however, it will be found ultimately that the perfect gifts of color and form always go together. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am apt to believe that the not knowing nature's artful and intricate method of uniting colours for the production of the variegated composition, or prime tint of flesh, hath made colouring, in the art of painting, a kind of mystery in all ages ”

“ This colour, and the imaginative phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem.
The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about colour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The insistence upon manner in its relation to local color is wider than a self-strain for effect. If local color is a natural part, that is, a part of substance, the art-effort cannot help but show its color—and it will be a true color, no matter how colored ”

“ Colouring is the decorative part of Art. It answers to Rhythm and Rhyme in poetry, as the means of attracting the senses. As it is a means of producing, so its indispensable qualification is,—BEAUTY. In the higher aims of Art it should be made subservient to Character and Expression, by according with the nature of the subject; but, still under the limitation and regulation of those principles which govern Pictorial Effect. ”

“ Finally: connected with this profanity of temper is a strong tendency to deny the sacred element of color, and make our boast in blackness. For though occasionally glaring, or violent, modern color is on the whole eminently sombre, tending continually to grey or brown, and by many of our best painters consistently falsified, with a confessed pride in what they call chaste or subdued tints ”