Texture

“ However, whether this be so or not, the fact remains that a great number of people derive pleasure from the textures of objects. So let us now see how the artist, who, as I have said before, has instincts and feelings like our own, takes advantage of this feeling for texture to add to the beauty of his picture. ”

“ If we take as our problem the changes of colour, transparency, texture, taste, odour, produced by small changes in the ingredients, how can we expect to give a mechanical account of these, till we can give a mechanical account of colour, transparency, texture, taste, odour, themselves? ”

“ The materials of which structures and works of art are composed are liable to so many and so considerable inequalities of texture, that any rule which can be deduced, even by the most extensive series of experiments, must be regarded as a mean result, from which individual examples will be found to vary in so great a degree, that more than usual caution must be observed in its practical application. ”

“ It is obvious that when the aim is diagrammatic, brilliancy, sharpness, correct drawing, and the truthful rendering of texture are the requisites, as in the reproductions of negatives from nature to illustrate scientific works, books of travel, &c. ”

“ Texture, in its original meaning, represents what has been produced by weaving. A lady, when she is shopping, presses the linen or silk, or cotton goods between her fingers in order to judge of their texture ”

“ It is really very little use going on to describe the way the colour acts in these various processes; for its behaviour varies with every degree of all of them. One may gradually acquire the skill to combine all the processes, in all their degrees, upon a single painting; and the only way in which you can test their relative value, either as texture or as light and shade, is to constantly practise each process in all its degrees, and see what results each has, both when seen near at hand and also when seen from a distance. ”

“ We have thus three characteristic kinds of surface resulting from the conditions of treatment, marking out three natural divisions of the art: and be it noted that questions of surface or texture are all-important in the arts; beauty is skin deep. First, the natural skin of the metal solidified in contact with the mould, and more or less closely imitative of the surface of the original model, usually for our purposes a plastic surface ”

“ The texture of the upper or lower side, the kind of hair growing on their surface, and the number and size of their pores, are the most usual ways of leaves arming themselves against an oversupply of the one thing that their neighbors in the cool forest fight to the death to obtain. ”

“ In Art, the surface appearance of a representation not of textiles only, but of the other parts of a picture—wood, marble, skin, hair, &c. Gerard Dow excels in texture.
Thalamifera, Gr. A term applied, in describing ancient sculpture, to kneeling figures supporting tablets, on which figures of the gods or inscriptions are carved. ”

“ It stretches, this little trick of mine, from book to book, and everything else, comparatively, plays over the surface of it. The order, the form, the texture of my books will perhaps some day constitute for the initiated a complete representation of it. ”

“ The wood is deliciously fragrant, and fine in grain and texture; it is of a rich cream-yellow, as if formed of condensed sunbeams. ”

“ One may be said, for example, to eliminate the color of a fabric when one is examining its texture, but the fabric keeps on being green or blue as well as smooth or rough. And similarly, though one may ideally eliminate the self when discussing the thing ”

“ There are formed successive layers relatively friable in texture, each of which, thickest at the most exposed parts, and being presently lost by weathering, leaves the contained mass in a shape more rounded than before ”

“ Looking back then over what we have been saying, we find that when the artist suggests to us the different kinds of sensation we may receive from touching things, he greatly increases the expressiveness of his pictures. By rendering or representing the textures, as well as the form and color of objects, he accomplishes at least four results. Firstly, he makes the objects more life-like; we feel as if we might really handle them and receive the sensation that such objects, if they were real, would give us. ”

“ Color is due to the modifications of the influent rays of light, which is according to the contexture of the reflecting object, the reflected rays being thereby modified, and producing variation in color according to the laws of light and sight. ”

“ In addition to the foregoing, a further consideration is that of interest of surface, which may consist of contrast in textures of rough surface with smooth, of patterning on form, veining and striation of leaves and flowers, and of the employment of trellis or imbricated pattern. The latter in conjunction with other details, occur in the decorative work of the later French Renaissance. ”

“ Secondly, he gives us a more keen enjoyment of their beauty; consciously or unconsciously we receive a sensation of the pleasure of handling them. Thirdly, the increased life-likeness and beauty increases the general animation of the whole picture. Fourthly, this rendering of the separate character of each object contributes to our understanding and appreciation of the character of the whole subject. To sum up, the rendering of textures suggests reality, beauty, animation, and character. ”

“ When you have got the whole well into shape, proceed to lay on the stains and spots with great care, quite as much as you gave to the forms. Very often, spots or bars of local colour do more to express form than even the light and shade, and they are always interesting as the means by which Nature carries light into her shadows, and shade into her lights, an art of which we shall have more to say hereafter, in speaking of composition. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We know that the sensation of light or color, if not too weak or too violent, is in itself pleasing. The bright, the glittering, shining object, so long as it is not painful, is pleasantly stimulating. Gems, tinsel, lacquer, polish, testify to this taste, from the most primitive to the most civilized man. Color, too, if distinct, not over-bright, nor too much extended in field, is in itself pleasing. The single colors have been the object of comparatively little study. ”

“ Here is a key to the very heart of nature, if one will only use it. And I would but add my faint echo in an entreaty for a deeper sense of the infinity of nature’s living tone and palpitating color—a plea for the more intelligent recognition of the elements that yield the tint which we vainly strive to imitate upon the canvas. Such knowledge will give a voice to every pigment on the palette, and to the brush an answering consciousness ”

“ In respect to primitive works we may distinguish four steps in the acquisition of esthetic features of form, three of which are normal, the fourth abnormal: First, we have that in which functional characters alone are considered, any element of beauty, whether due to the artist's hand or to the accidents of material, construction, or model, being purely adventitious; second, that in which the necessary features of the utensil appear to have experienced the supervision of taste, edges being rounded, curves refined, and symmetry perfected ”

“ 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. ”

“ You will not, in Turner's largest oil pictures, perhaps six or seven feet long by four or five high, find one spot of color as large as a grain of wheat ungradated: and you will find in practice, that brilliancy of hue, and vigor of light, and even the aspect of transparency in shade, are essentially dependent on this character alone; hardness, coldness, and opacity resulting far more from equality of color than from nature of color. ”

“ It is my intention to confine myself to the discussion of colour, in as far as it belongs to the dyes of textiles and the materials for embroidery. I will adhere as closely as I can to this part of what is a great and most interesting subject—one which the science of to-day has opened out, and by the test of experiment, cleared of erroneous theories; revealing to us all its beauty and fitness for the use and delight of man. ”

“ And when we find on examination that every form which, by the consent of human kind, has been received as lovely, in vases, flowing ornaments, embroideries, and all other things dependent on abstract line, is composed of these infinite curves, and that Nature uses them for every important contour, small or large, which she desires to recommend to human observance, we shall not, I think, doubt that the preference of such lines is a sign of healthy taste, and true instinct. ”

“ Light and shade, colour, novelty, variety, contrast, and even simplicity, all become defects in their excess!—the spirit of the rules by which they are regulated is to be more observed than their literal sense. ”

“ Their fashioning, obviously, can be made to teach principles of line, design and color. Is it not safe to say that no other modeling medium—edible or inedible—possesses this threefold recommendation? Fondant or paste can be colored by painting directly upon the finished surfaces, or the coloring matter can be worked into the mass. ”

“ In the foreground are large strong masses of light and shade, broken up into details—clothes, hands, faces, and features; in the background are misty effects, either of trees or other details of a landscape; in the middle distance are groups of people, some sitting and some walking, their clothes of dark or uniform tint, their faces misty blurs, their features indistinguishable. ”

“ When it is dry, you may add a little colour to retouch the edges where they want shape, or heighten the lights where they want roundness, or put another tone over the whole; but you can [Pg 338] take none away. If you touch or disturb the surface, or by any untoward accident mix the under and upper colours together, all is lost irrecoverably. Begin your drawing from the ground again if you like, or throw it into the fire if you like. ”

“ WHEN we contemplate the extraordinary diversity of colors offered to us by the numberless flowers and fruits, ranging through all possible gradations from the purest white to the most intense black, we can do no less than admire so surprising a wealth of color-shades, and are naturally prompted to imagine that chemical processes influence their tone and effect the manifold changes. ”

“ The crudity is the result of the man, not of the method.
The Application.—The application of all this to your own work is that when you want pitch and sunlight you can get it through the observance of the laws of color contrast, and such a laying on of pigment as will bring this about. Try to study the actual contrasts of color, not as they seem, but as they are in nature. Study the facts which have been observed as to colors in their effects on each other, and then try to see these in nature and to paint the results. ”

“ In connection with inlaid ornament, we give a few hints to guide the workman in choice of colours. Much of the effect produced will result from the relations which the colours will bear to each other. A well-executed piece of work may be spoiled by the injudicious selection of colours. If the finisher be ignorant of the lessons which nature teaches in the distribution of colours, he cannot expect to please a connoisseur whose taste has been corrected and refined by a study of the harmonies of colours. ”

“ The web of each human existence may be compared to a woven fabric, in which one material predominates in weft and warp, but blended threads of many hues wind in and out, checkering the prevailing uniform tint, and giving variety to the general aspect. ”

“ In landscape we see nature employing broken colours in harmonious consonance and variety, while, equally true to picturesque relations, she uses also broken forms and figures, in conjoint harmony with colours; occasionally throwing into the composition a regular form, or a primary colour, for the sake of animation and contrast. And if we inspect her works more closely, we shall find that they have no uniform tints. ”

“ But the fact that certain varieties of the arts of form, more especially outline drawing, dispense with the pleasure of color, and even with that of light and shade, suggests that the pleasure of visual form includes a sensuous element as well as an intellectual. ”

“ Light and shade, and colours, also must have their distinctness to make objects completely beautiful: but of these in their proper places——only I will give you a general idea of what is here meant by the beauty of distinctness of forms, lights, shades, and colours, by putting you in mind of the reverse effects in all them together.
Observe the well-composed nosegay how it loses all its distinctness when it dies; each leaf and flower then shrivels and loses its distinct shape; and the firm colours fade into a kind of sameness: so that the whole gradually becomes a confused heap. ”