Colour as a Means of Art / Being an Adaption of the Experience of Professors to the Practice of Amateurs

by Frank Howard

Or, of a balance, or harmonic arrangement of Colours.

Or, of a balance, or harmonic arrangement of Tones and Colours.

Or, by relieving a SPARK of COLOUR against a mass of TONES.

Or, by relieving a spot of black or white, the concentration of TONES, against a general aspect of COLOURS.

Pictures may be warm in tone, qualified by so much cool tint as will prevent their appearing hot.

Or cool, with so much warm tint as will prevent their appearing cold.

A small spark of bright colour will balance a large mass of subdued tint. Equal brightness will require equal masses.

For the principles by which the shapes and situations of masses and points must be governed, the reader is referred to the Sketcher's Manual, where they will be found at length, and carefully illustrated. The same regulations that govern the distribution of several lights or shadows, must guide the positions of several masses of the same colour. If two or more are introduced, they must not be equal in size, nor similar in shape, nor must they be so placed, that a line drawn through them, would be either horizontal or vertical—parallel with either base or side. The great principle of colouring being Variety within the limits of Harmony, such masses of similar tints should be of different sizes and shapes, and should be interspersed at different distances through the picture, so as to suggest an undulating line, traversing all, or at least three, of the four quarters of the picture, that all the particular colour shall not be on one side, and none on the other, nor all at the lower, and none in the upper half of the picture. But if the arrangement of relieving a spark of colour against a mass of tones, or the reverse be adopted, it must not be placed in the centre of the picture, nor equidistant from either top and base, or the two sides.

With regard to the beauty of individual tints, it would be difficult to come to any very strict definition, as what is pleasing to one person, is not so to another; and particularly in reference to the use of colours in Art, for they then become so dependent upon the other tints by which they are surrounded, that they may be said to cease to have positive designations, and to become only comparative; and there is scarcely any tint, however disagreeable in itself, but may be made by Art to appear agreeable, if not beautiful. But the object of the present work being to collect the certain or decided principles of Art, for the benefit of those who desire to derive pleasure or amusement from it, the doubtful or questionable hypotheses will be left untouched, and those points only brought forward which are calculated to ensure success.

For this purpose, the amateur should avoid greenish blues and greenish yellows; they both appear sickly: and never place such a green between blue and yellow as would result from the mixture of the particular tints of those two colours which are made use of.