The great painters of the earlier school have consequently as a rule made little use of such contrasts or specific schemes of lighting. And they did rightly, inasmuch as their emphasis was rather on the spiritual aspect as such than on the sensuous impression of their pictures. And on account of the pre-eminent ideality and spiritual significance of the content they were able to dispense with the aspect of their work which inclined more or less to the material side. In the case of landscapes, on the contrary, and subjects of less importance taken from ordinary life, the question of lighting makes a very different appeal. In these important artistic and, often, artificial and mysterious effects are indispensable. In the landscape the bold contrasts between large masses in illumination and other parts in the strongest shadow will receive their full effect, but tend also to develop the artistic mannerism. Conversely we find, more especially in the treatment of landscape, reflections of light, the flash and its counterfeit, that wonderful echo of light, which arises from the interplay of light and dark, and offers an ample and progressive subject of study both to the artist and the spectator. Such a scheme of lighting, which the artist has either by direct imitation or imaginatively conceived in his work, can, however, by itself only be a transient one, which is subject to rapid change. However sudden or uncommon the lighting thus permanently retained may be, the artist must see in the treatment of his composition, even though it be as full of movement as possible, that the whole, despite all its variety, is not injured by mere restlessness and wavering motive, but is throughout clear and marked with unity.
(ββ) In accordance with what has already been stated the art of painting, however, has not merely to express light and dark in its purely abstract intension, but to add to it the distinctions of colour. Light and shadow must be coloured light and shadow. We have therefore in the second place to discuss colour simply.
The first point we have to deal with here is the brightness and obscurity of particular colours respectively to one another, that is in so far as they are operative as light and dark in their varied relations, and either emphasize or suppress and impair their individual effect. Red, for example, and still more yellow, is at an equal grade of intensity more brilliant than blue. This is dependent upon the nature of the colours themselves, which in recent times Goethe has for the first time fully explained[286]. In other words, we find that in blue shadow is of main significance, which, in its first operation through a brighter, but not as yet fully transparent medium, appears to our sight as blue. The sky, for example, is dark, and on the highest mountains it is yet darker. Seen through a transparent but thick medium, such as the atmosphere of its lower planes is, it appears as blue, and its brightness increases in proportion as the air is less transparent. In the case of yellow, on the contrary, essential brightness works through a density, which, however, suffers this brightness to shine through it. Smoke, for example, is such an obscuring medium; looked at in front of anything black which works its way through it, it appears of a bluish tint, and before anything bright it appears yellow and reddish. Genuine red is the actively royal and concrete colour, in which blue and yellow, themselves also extremes of opposition, press together in fusion, We may also regard green as such a union, not, however, in a unity that is concrete, but merely as a difference that is cancelled, as a medium of satiated and tranquillized neutrality[287]. These colours are the purest, simplest, and original cardinal colours. We may consequently find a symbolical significance in the way that the old masters made use of them. Especially is this so in their use of blue and red. Blue corresponds with the milder, sensuous, more tranquil aspect, a contemplation which is rich in feeling, in so far as it has obscurity for its principle, and offers no resistance, whereas the brightness therein rather suggests that which resists, produces, is alive and blithesome. Red corresponds with what is masculine, dominant, and royal, green with that which is indifferent and neutral. According to such symbolism for example, the Virgin Mary is frequently clothed in red where she is enthroned, and set before us as queen of heaven; where she is depicted as mother, she wears a blue mantle[288]. All the other colours in their endless variety must be regarded as mere modifications of the above, in which we must recognize a certain degree of shadow fused with the cardinal colours. In this sense no painter would call violet a colour[289]. Furthermore all these colours, in their mutual relation to each other, are respectively of greater brightness or obscurity, a fact that the artist must bear in mind if he is not to fail in getting the just tone which any particular section of his modelling or distance effects ought to have. In other words we have here a source of exceptional difficulty. In the countenance, for example, the lip is red, the eyebrow dark, black, brown, or, if blonde, at least darker as such than the lip; in the same way the cheeks with their reddish tint are more brilliant in colour than the nose, with its main impression of yellow, brownish, or greenish tint. Such portions of the face can readily receive a greater brightness and intensity owing to this local colour than is consonant with their modelling as parts of the whole. In sculpture, indeed in mere drawing too, such parts of a composition receive their light and shadow wholly in reference to their particular form and its manner of lighting. A painter on the contrary must accept their local colouring, and this disturbs such a relation. Such a difficulty is even more obvious between objects more removed from one another. For the ordinary vision of sight it is our mind which determines the distance and form of such objects, not merely by means of their colour appearance, but also on a variety of other grounds. In painting, however, all that we have before us is colour, which as such is able to interfere with that which is demanded by mere brightness and darkness as such. The art of the painter, therefore, consists in his ability to resolve this contradiction, and so to arrange his colours that neither in their local tints, nor in their mutual relation in any other way, they impair the modelling as a whole. Only if success is secured in both respects are we likely to see the actual shape and colour of the objects realized in perfection. With what consummate art, for example, have the Dutch painted the sheen of satin dresses with all their variety of reflections and gradations of shadow in their folds, or the flash of silver, gold, copper, vessels of glass and velvet; and in the same way we may mention the lighting a Van Eyck gives to his jewels, gold borders, and metals. The colours by means of which the flash of gold is presented have nothing of metallic about them: looked at closely we merely see yellow, which by itself is of no great brightness. The entire effect is due on the one hand to the prominence of the form, and on the other to the contiguity of the mutual gradations of distinct colour tones.
A further aspect in the second place is the harmony of the colouring.
I have already observed that the very nature of the facts necessitates that colour should have itself an articulated system. And this complete result should appear. No fundamental colour should be wholly omitted, otherwise our sense of this integrated whole is lost. To an exceptional degree the old Italian masters and the Dutch satisfy us in this respect. We find in their pictures blue, yellow, red, and green[290]. It is this completeness which supplies the basis of our colour harmony. The colours, moreover, must be so arranged that not merely their artistic contrast, but also their mediation and resolution, and a repose and reconciliation as the result of such, is made visible to the sight. Such effective contrast and repose in conciliated extremes is brought about partly by the way the colours are associated, and partly by the degree of intensity which characterizes each colour. In early painting it was principally the Dutch school[291], which employed the cardinal colours in their purity and their unimpaired brilliance, by which means the harmony is rendered more difficult by reason of the emphasis laid on contrast, but when secured should be pleasing to the eye. Where, however, the decisive character and force of colour is insisted on the nature of the subject-matter itself should be more definite and simple. And by attending to this a higher degree of harmony between colouring and content is also obtained. The important personages, for instance, must receive the colour that is most emphatic, and in their characterization, their entire deportment and expression should appear more imposing than the subordinate figures, who will receive merely the composite colours. In landscape painting the contrast of pure cardinal colours is less pronounced. In scenes, on the contrary, in which human figures are of most importance, and more particularly where drapery occupies large spaces of canvas, the more simple colours will be in their right place. In such we have a scene taken from the world of spiritual life, in which that which is inorganic, the natural environment, is more abstract, in other words must not appear in its natural completeness and isolated manner of effect, and the varied tints of landscape in all the profusion of their gradations are less suitable. As a rule the landscape is not so entirely fitted to the environment of human scenes as a room, or generally that which is architectural, inasmuch as situations which take place in the open air are in general not accepted from a class in which the life of soul without considerable reserve is manifested. If a man is placed before us with the open landscape around him it should appear simply as environment. And in cases of this type it is right to make use of colours that are exceptionally prominent. But the use of such involves also boldness and power of execution. Sickly sweet, overpowered[292], doting faces are not the kind for such treatment. Such soft expressions, such over-diluted countenances, which, ever since Mengs gave them as people are wont to think typical of ideality, would be entirely pulverized by such decision of colour. In recent times and among us Germans, weak faces which have essentially nothing to say[293], carefully posed in ways that imagine themselves to possess grace, simplicity, and imposing character, are all the fashion. This lack of distinction, on the side of spiritual characterization, has its counterpart in and indeed produces a similar lack of definition in colour and tone, so that all colours are run together in one confusion, and forceless condition of mutilation and evaporization, and no real emphasis is laid on any. You cannot say that one suppresses another exactly, but then none adds contrast to another. It is no doubt a colour harmony of a kind, and frequently it impresses with its excessive sweetness and flattering endearment, but the note of distinction is absent. In this connection Goethe thus expresses himself in his observations added to the translation of Diderot's essay on painting: "Critics do not by any means admit that it is easier to make weak colour harmonious than a strong scheme: but it stands to reason when colour is strong, when colours are placed before us vividly, in that case the eye will experience their harmony or discord with greater vividness. If, however, we weaken our colours, employ some with brilliance, others in fusion, others in obscure squalour, then it is obvious no one will be able to say whether the picture he looks at is harmonious or not. One thing in any case we can say of it, it lacks distinction."
With harmony of colour, however, we have not by any means attained the goal of the art of colouring. To reach this consummate effect, in the third place, several other aspects must not be neglected. In this respect I will restrict my observations to three points, first, the so-called atmospheric perspective, secondly, flesh-colour, and in conclusion, the magic of colour brilliancy.[294]
Linear perspective is connected in the first instance merely with the different degrees of size, which the lines of objects possess in their greater or less remoteness from the human eye. This alteration and reduction of form is, however, not the only thing painting has to reproduce. In Nature everything is affected by the presence of atmosphere, not merely between different objects, but even different parts of them, a difference which asserts itself in colour. This tone of colour which thus as it were evaporates with the distance is what constitutes atmospheric perspective, in so far as thereby objects are modified partly in deliberate outline, and partly in respect to their light and shadow and general colouring. As a rule people think that what is nearest to the eye in the foreground is brightest, and what lies in the background is more obscure; in truth the matter is otherwise[295]. But lights and shadows in the foreground are strongest, in other words the contrast between light and shade has a more powerful effect, and outlines are more defined near to the spectator. In proportion, however, to the degree of their remoteness, they lose in definition of colour and form, because the contrast of their light and shadow is gradually reduced, until finally everything disappears in transpicuous gray. Different schemes of lighting, however, necessitate in this respect various modes of treatment. In landscape painting more especially, but also in other compositions, which present large spaces, atmospheric perspective is of first importance, and the great masters of colour have carried out by this means the most bewitching effects.
The most difficult achievement in colouring, the ideal and consummation of its art, is the colour effect of the human flesh[296], which unites in its perfection all other colour tones, without permitting any particular one to be singly prominent. The healthy red in the cheeks of youth is, no doubt, pure carmine without any admixture of blue, violet, or yellow, but this red is itself only a flush, or rather a sheen, which appears to rise on the surface, and imperceptibly passes into the prevailing flesh-tints. And this is an ideal[297] commixture of all the fundamental colours. Through the transparent yellow of the skin the red of the arteries and the blue of the veins is visible, and along with the light and shade and all the variety of sheen and reflection we have further tones of gray, brown, even green, which at first sight appear as contrary to Nature, but for all that may contribute to the justness and truth of the effect. Moreover, this composite treatment of many apparent tints is wholly without sheen as such, that is, it reflects nothing alien to it on its surface; its vital quality is entirely a result of itself and the living thing it is. It is this rendering of that which is the life shining through the organic integument which constitutes the main difficulty. We may compare it to a lake in the evening glow, in which we behold the objects that it reflects[298] no less than the clear depth and native character of water. The flash of metal combines on the contrary, no doubt, both light of its own and transparency, jewels both flash and are translucent, and something similar is seen in the case of velvet and silk-stuffs, but none of these approaches the life-conferred interfusion of colours apparent on the surface of the living flesh. The skin of animals, whether hair or hide, wool, and so forth, are in like manner of the most varied colouring, but it is a colour capable of more direct and independent definition in its parts, so that the variety is rather the result of different surfaces and planes, it is not a single transfusion and suffusion of many colours such as human flesh is. The nearest approach to it perhaps is the interplay of colour visible in the bunch of grapes, or the exquisitely tender gradations of translucent colour in the rose. And yet even this last example is unable to give us the counterfeit of ideal animation[299] which flesh-colour should possess. It is this volatile emanation of the soul exhibited on a non-transparent surface which is one of the most difficult problems of painting. For this ideality, this reflex of the inward life of soul must not appear on a surface as imported there, must not be pasted there as so many streaks, hatchings, and so forth of material colour, but seem to us itself to belong to the living whole[300], a transparent depth, as the blue of heaven, which offers our vision no repellent surface, but one in which we are infallibly invited to unfold. Already Diderot, in the essay on painting translated by Goethe, expressed himself as follows on this head: "He who once has truly felt and secured the apparition of flesh-colour is far on his way to perfect victory. Thousands of painters have died without such a feeling, and many thousands more will die without doing so."
In so far as the material is concerned, by means of which this untransparent vitality of flesh is reproduced, the first medium to declare its suitability for such an effect was the oil-pigment. Work in mosaics is of all the least fitting to present us such a composite effect. Its permanency is no doubt a recommendation, but inasmuch as it can only express colour gradations through variously coloured glass cubes or stones placed in juxtaposition, it is wholly unable to reproduce the intermingling flow of one unified presentment of many colours. Fresco and tempera painting carry us considerably further in this direction. Yet in the case of fresco-painting the colours are put on the wet plaster with too great rapidity, so that, on the one hand, the greatest facility and sureness of brushwork is an essential, and, on the other, the work has to be carried out with broad adjacent strokes, which on account of their drying so rapidly do not admit of a fine degree of finish[301]. The same kind of difficulty meets us in the case of tempera-painting, a process[302] which no doubt admits of great lucidity of expression[303] and beautiful contrasts of light and shadow, yet for all that, by reason of the fact that its medium dries so quickly, is less adapted to the fusion and elaboration of its effects, and necessitates an articulate surface made up of definite strokes of the brush. The oil pigment, on the contrary, not only permits of the most tender and subtle melting together and elaborate fusion of colour effect, so that transitions are so imperceptible we cannot say where one colour begins and where it leaves off, but it is, where its component elements are properly fused and the execution of it is as it should be, itself remarkable for a luminous quality like that of precious stones, and it can, by virtue of its distinctions between opaque or transparent colours[304], reproduce in a far higher degree than tempera painting the translucency of different layers of colour.