The Painter in Oil / A complete treatise on the principles and technique necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors

by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

So, as I knew his work before and after this self-training, and as I know personally of the means he took to attain his purpose, I think I can speak positively of the fact that such development of the color sense is possible.

Taste.—It is well to remember that taste in color is not dependent on personal judgment alone; that what is good and what is bad in color does not rest on mere opinion. That a good colorist's idea of color does not agree with your own is not a matter of mere whim or liking, in which you have quite as good a right to your opinion as he has to his. The colorist, it is true, does not produce or judge of color by rule. He works from his feeling of what is right. But there is a law back of his taste and feeling. The laws of color harmony are definite, and have been definitely studied and definitely calculated. Color depends for its existence on waves of vibration of rays of light, just as sound is dependent on sound waves.

Color Waves.—These waves of light give sensations of color which vary with the rapidity or length of the wave, and certain combinations of wave lengths will be harmonious (beautiful), and others will not be. This is a matter of scientific fact; it is not a notion. The mathematical relations of color waves have been calculated as accurately as the relations of sound waves have been. It is possible to make combinations of mathematical figures which shall represent a series of harmonious color waves. And it is possible to measure the waves radiated from a piece of bad coloring and prove them, mathematically, to be bad color.

It is a satisfaction to the artist to know that this is so; because although he will never compose color-schemes by the aid of mathematics, it gives him solid ground to stand on, and it diminishes the assurance of the man who claims the right to assert his opinion on color because "one man's taste is as good as another's." It is also encouraging to the student to know it, because he then knows that there is a definite knowledge, and not a personal idiosyncrasy, on which he can found his attempts to cultivate this side of his artistic life.

Color Composition.—The artist's problem in color composition is analogous to that of line and mass, but is of course governed by conditions peculiar to it. The qualities which derive from line and mass are emphasized or modified by the management of color in relation to them. The painter in this direction uses the three elements together. Contrast and accent are attributes of color. Dignity and weight, as well as certain emotional qualities, such as vivacity and sombreness, may give the key to the picture in accordance with the arrangement of its color-scheme.

The mass may be simplified and strengthened, or broken up and lightened, by the color of the forms in it. By massing groups of objects in the same color, or by introducing different colors in the different forms in the same group, the mass is emphasized or weakened. So in line, the same color in repetition will carry the line through a series of otherwise isolated forms, and effect the emphasis of line. Masses can be strung into line, like beads, on a thread of color. In the great compositions of the old Venetian painters this marshalling of color groups constituted a principal element. The decorative unity of these great canvases could have been possible in no other way.

As I have said, the key of the color-scheme has a direct emotional effect, so adding to the power and dignity or the grace and lightsomeness of the composition. The analogy between color and imagination is marked. Certain temperaments instinctively express their ideals through color. To the painter color may be an all-influencing power; it is the glory of painting.

Drawing appeals to the intellect, but color speaks directly to the emotions, and conveys at a glance the idea which is re-enforced through the slower intellectual perception of the meaning of forms. In some unexplained way it expresses to the observer the temperamental mood; the joyousness, the severity or agitation which was the cause of its conception. In this strange but direct manner the color note aids the expression by line and mass of the æsthetic emotion which is the meaning of the painter's thought.

Key.—The key, then, is an important part of the picture. The very terms warm and cold applied to colors suggest what may be done by color arrangement. The pitch of the picture places it, in the emotional scale.

Tone.—Tone is harmony; the perfect balance of color in all parts of the picture. Fine color always means the presence, in all the color of the picture, of all the three primaries in greater or less proportion. Leave one color out in some proportion, and you have just so much less of a balance. I do not mean that some touch may not be pure color. On the contrary, the whole picture may be built up of touches of pure color. But the balance of color must be made then by touches of the different colors balancing each other, not only all over the picture, but in each part of it, to avoid crudity or over-proportion of any color. Generally the color scheme is dominated by some one color: which means that every touch of color on the canvas is modified to some extent by the presence of that color, keeping the whole in key. Each color retains its personal quality, but the quality of the dominant color is felt in it.