Rouge

“ Who has not admired the lustre and beauty of those eyelets,—the kidney-like nucleus of deepest purple, the surrounding band of green, widening in front and filling the notch of the pupil, the broad circle of brown, and the narrow black ring edged with chestnut, and then the decomposed barbs of the feather, gilded green, all presenting the effulgence of burnished metal, or rather the glitter and glow of precious gems, flashing in the varying light? ”

“ Crimson, red, scarlet, orange, yellow, greenish yellow, green, bluish green, blue, violet, and with added red get back to crimson.
A room or a series of rooms may run to all colors and be still a harmony of analogy if the sequence or succession is gradual.
35. No more delightful harmonies can be imagined than those provided by nature. One may start with the brown of the earth and run into several shades of green, and from that touch upon yellow, and from yellow to orange, and from orange to red, and red to violet, and violet to the blue of the sky. ”

“ I have actually heard people say that blue and green were discordant; the two colors which Nature seems to intend never to be separated, and never to be felt, either of them, in its full beauty without the other!—a peacock's neck, or a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave with green lights through it, being precisely the loveliest things, next to clouds at sunrise, in this colored world of ours. If you have a good eye for colors, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral gray, and the like ”

“ Of what is the colour of green that the earth’s best page is made of it? Of what is the colour of young green that it brings, unbidden, tender thoughts? It is more than the gold of Corn, and the brown of ploughed earth, and the glory of flowers. By it comes peace to the eyes, and through the eyes to the heart of man, so that men say of youth and the times of youth that they are salad days; and of old age, if so be it is a fine old age, that it is green. It is the colour of the body as blue is the colour of the soul. ”

“ The principal red pigments are carmine, vermilion, chrome red, scarlet lake, madder lake, light red, burnt sienna, for yellow reds; and Venetian red, Indian red, crimson lake, for blue reds. Red, in Christian art, represented by the ruby, signified fire, divine love, the Holy Spirit, heat or the creative power, and royalty. In a bad sense, red signified blood, war, hatred, and punishment. Red and black combined were the colours of purgatory and the devil. (See Realgar, Indigo.)
Red Chalk or Reddle is a mixture of clay and red iron OCHRE, used as a crayon in drawing. (See Ochre.) ”

“ We follow the Red and the Blue today,
And love thee forever more.
Blue is the heav'nly hue that shows
When a cloud above us parts;
Red is the tint of the tide that flows,
The life-blood of our hearts ”

“ With red Nature heightens the brilliant parts of the most beautiful flowers. She has given a complete clothing of it to the rose, the queen of the garden: and bestowed this tint on the blood, the principle of life in animals: she invests most of the feathered race, in India, with a plumage of this color, especially in the season of love ”

“ 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. ”

“ The kerchief about her shoulders over a light chemise rivals the rainbow. I try to fix my eyes on some predominating colour, but when I decide that it is yellow, in will blaze a green stronger than the yellow, and then huge red roses splash their lurid colour into the yellow and green, and royal purple and blue daisies and magenta buttercups career around in wild indifference as to conventional form and tint. ”

“ There pulsed the mystic glowing red, heart and lord of colour; there the jubilant yellow, light-glorified to ethereal gold; there the loveliest blue, the truth unfathomable, profounder yet than the human red; there the green, that haunts the brain with Nature’s soundless secrets! all together striving, yet atoning, fighting and fleeing and following, parting and blending, with illimitable play of infinite force and endlessly delicate gradation. ”

“ The showman gets animated, and the three balls are sent spinning rapidly from hand to hand: they seem all to be in the air at once, blending and dashing about each other until there is no red, or yellow, or blue, no distinct orange, purple, or green, but a thousand indefinite shafts and ripples of colour. Is it red, blue, green, orange, purple, yellow, or gems and sparkles of fire? They are only three, three that are a host, three that have become brown, grey, black, all sorts of browns, every description of that subtle and endless grey. ”

“ The rose-red ghost which is thus developed has a color which is complementary to that which called it into existence, and this will also be the case if we employ little squares of other colors: red will give rise to a greenish-blue image, blue to a yellow, violet to a greenish-yellow, etc., the color of the image being always complementary to that which gave rise to it. ”

“ RED ILLUSIONS UNDER GLASS Life as green illusion - the cool fronds of the fern are deep set in firmest soil and the grassy narrows brook a silent, liquid play. Red illusions under glass - quietly picking strawberries where a woman hums to the buzz of flies with the afternoon sun disappearing overhead. Each grasp of the berry a red stain, the darting of seeds, crimson tendrils do confuse the eye with a polka dot starling raucous in glee above. ”

“ Her hair was red and her eyes were purple with fire in them; her lips were red as a flame-tree's flower, or maybe more red. She was slender without being slim and moved as easily as a pandanus leaf swinging in a little breeze. ”

“ Here out in the fields we seldom use such brilliant colours: russet, blanket, grey, blue, and English green are our usual wear. It is only when the knight, the doctor, or the merchant from the town is drawn this way that we see the real taste of the bon ton: the parti-coloured green and vermeil, white and blue, vert perdu and slate colour, yellow and black, white and vermeil, that are, with the universal black and green, the last cry of the mode. ”

“ In the autumn, nearly all leaves show brilliant patches of colour.
In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth our ideas, we have become possessors of a mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we can speak of life, light, cheer and vitality. Red tells of fire, heat, blood, excitement and passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and restraint. In choosing green for its most universal colour, Nature harmonizes life and restraint, warmth and coolness, as represented by the component blue and yellow. ”

“ Yellow being the colour of the sun and of corn and gold, represents riches, generosity, and light. Red stands between the dark and the lively colours, and represents warmth and animation, dignity, splendour, life, love, and joy. ”

“ Won't it be funny to run across something yellow in this dismal blue country?"
"There are worse colors than yellow in this country," asserted the Glass Cat, in a spiteful tone.
"Oh; do you mean the pink pebbles you call your brains, and your red heart and green eyes?" ”

“ All colors of red were red. Black was black, and brown was just plain brown until it became yellow, when it was no longer brown. Purple he had always imagined was red, something like blood, until she taught him better. Once they rode out on a high hill brow where wind-blown poppies blazed about their horses' knees, and she was in an ecstasy over the lines of the many distances. ”

“ Simply what we call blue by daylight became some kind of grey; what we call green a totally distinct kind of grey and blacker than the darkest shadow of the stone-pine was the shouting scarlet of the geraniums. ”

“ Here "The MS. corrector of the folio 1682 converts 'grey' into 'green:' 'Her eyes are green as{408} grass;' and such, we have good reason to suppose, was the true reading." (Collier's Shakspeare Notes and Emendations, p. 25.)
The modern slang, "Do you see anything green in my eye?" can hardly, I suppose, be called in evidence on the question of beauty or ugliness. Is there any more to be found in favour of "green eyes?"
Harry Leroy Temple.
SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.
On the Death of Falstaff (Vol. viii., p. 314.) ”

“ Colors which harmonize with each other by analogy, reduce each other's brilliancy to a greater or less degree, as white and yellow, blue and purple, black and brown.
The various shades of purple and lilac, dark blues and dark greens, lose much of their brilliancy by gaslight, while orange, scarlet, crimson, the light browns and light greens, gain brilliancy by a strong artificial light. ”

“ These two complementary colours, red and green, delight us most when seen thus—a little red to a good deal of green, and the more luminous the red and vivid the green the better they please us. We see this in flowers—in the red geranium, for example—where there is no brown soil below, but green of turf or herbage. I sometimes think the red campions and ragged-robins are our most beautiful wild flowers when the sun shines level on the meadow and they are like crimson flowers among the tall translucent grasses. ”

“ Green (Complementary Colour, Purple) .—Green, the most prevalent colour in nature, and the least stimulating, has a remarkably distinct and striking effect on the eye. It is highly refreshing as well as soothing, and is the necessary restful colour, the opposite of red. Yet the nervous power of the eye is sooner exhausted by strong greens than by any other hue; thus, a piece of work with a preponderance of green is not so pleasing to look at constantly as the piece where blue predominates. Symbolically, green is the emblem of bountifulness, youth, happiness and prosperity. ”

“ We are familiar with the effects of red which are stimulating, exciting, or irritating. The toreador, recognizing this principle, waves a flaming red mantle before the bull. Blue has an exactly opposite effect. It quiets and soothes, and when it runs into violet, it becomes depressing. Experiment with purple lights and you will find that they give a note of gloom, mystery, or of impending disaster. Yellow is the color that brings gaiety and light-heartedness, as you will recall when you contrast your own feelings on a sunshiny day and on a gray day. ”

“ It pictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude soil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid machinery of death, and then—note this conceit—it blushes for the sinful nature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you see—a rose that was white before. ”

“ Green, grey, orange, purple, and, in the farthest distance, blue as of the heaven itself, make the land one vast rainbow, and fit dwelling-place for its sunny folk, still happy and industrious—once the most cultivated and luxurious people in Europe. ”

“ You get physical pleasure from the sight; the eye seems to vibrate to the harmony as the ear enjoys a chord struck upon the strings. Therefore do not fear. But mind, it must be in nature's actual colour, not merely "green" and "red": for I once saw the head of a celebrated tragic actress painted by a Dutch artist who, to make it as deathly as he could, had placed the ashen face upon a background of emerald-green with spots of actual red sealing-wax. ”

“ Instead of the sober browns, the plain yellows, and the occasional patches of red or blue or orange that adorn our European species, we meet with the most intense metallic blues, the purest satiny greens, the most gorgeous crimsons, not in small spots but in large masses, relieved by a black border or background. ”

“ These shades have been selected for the following reasons:—Black is symbolical of the gloom which surrounds one when those who are nearest and dearest are taken. Black and white express sorrow mixed with hope, and white alone the light which follows the night of mourning. Blue, the tint of the heavens, to which it is hoped the spirit forms have taken flight. ”

“ Between the ages of three and five they are able to distinguish red in any gradation, green nearly always, with an occasional confusion with red, while yellow is sometimes confused with orange, orange sometimes replaced by rose, blue often not recognized in its gradations, and violet often selected in place of blue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Red—the deep blood red—is decidedly the favorite color among the enslaved damsels of my acquaintance. If a red ribbon does not encircle the neck, you will be certain to find all the hair of their woolly heads tied up with red strings of one sort or another. ”

“ You would think, by the way she paints, that her colours cost her something enormous: she will only give you a single pure touch [Pg 349] just where the petal turns into light; but down in the bell all is subdued, and under the petal all is subdued, even in the showiest flower. What you thought was bright blue is, when you look close, only dusty grey, or green, or purple, or every colour in the world at once, only a single gleam or streak of pure blue in the centre of it. ”