I shall give you the results of my experiences (quantum valeant) not only about colors, but about such prosaic matters as brushes, palettes, and mediums. It appears to me that many a student is kept back or discouraged because his palette is in a hopeless mess; his brushes are like old birch-brooms, and his canvas is slippery and greasy.
If you were learning to write, instead of learning to paint, you would not provide yourselves with stumpy worn-out pens, bad ink, and cartridge paper. You would get fairly good pens and ink and white foolscap, so as to give yourselves a chance.
I don’t wish you to be fastidious about the choice of your materials. This is as bad as being too careless; nor do I want to bind you to use the colors and brushes which I myself find most convenient for life studies.
All I desire is that you should not multiply your difficulties unnecessarily by using bad materials.
Before, however, entering on these details, I wish to make a few observations about the effect and contrast of colors.
In the first place, I would observe that, pictorially speaking, no color can, taken individually, be called either pretty or ugly. The dullest mud-color, if in its right place, is charming; and the most delicate mauve, if in the wrong place, hideous.
Dirt has been defined as matter in the wrong place. No one while digging among his flower-beds would call the rich mould “dirt,” but if he proceeds to wipe his spade with his pocket-handkerchief, he will certainly “dirty” it. In the same way when in a picture we speak of a color being ugly or dirty, all we mean is that it appears so with reference to its surroundings. Take the same color and put it in a more harmonious setting, and it will appear all right.
We are told by scientific writers on color, that the primaries (red, yellow, and blue) harmonize with their secondaries, viz., red with green, yellow with purple, and blue with orange. This is no doubt true in a general way, but it is by no means invariably true. Any color will, under certain conditions, harmonize with any other, provided they are of the proper shade, and the surrounding setting and background are suitable; whilst, on the other hand, we often see in pictures by bad colorists the most orthodox combination of reds and greens, which, instead of being harmonious, are painfully discordant.
The truth is that color cannot be subjected to theoretical rules. The only safe book for the student to consult is the Book of Nature. He will there find no limit to the harmonious combinations of the primary and secondary colors. Do the golden blossoms of the ragwort or the blue-bells of the wild hyacinth not harmonize with their respective green leaves? Are the orange orchards of the South, or the mingled blue, green, and gold of the peacock’s plumage, unpleasant to the eye? And yet these combinations of color violate the rules laid down by theorists.
Another obvious truth to be gleaned from Nature, and which may be made applicable to art, is that she varies her tints according to climate. In the plumage and coloring of exotic birds and insects we find the most gorgeous combinations of bright colors. In the parrot-house of the Zoölogical Gardens we see red and blue, orange and purple, blue and green plumages of the most brilliant hues. The coloring of these birds, although not as discordant as their voices, seems in our gray climate too crude and violent, but in their native tropical forests, with an intensely blue sky overhead, the crudity would disappear, and they would be as much in keeping with the surrounding scenery as eagles and hawks are on our mountains, black and white seafowl on our coasts, or sparrows in our streets.