According to the foregoing relations, grays favour the effects and force of warm colours, which in their turn also give value to grays. It is hence that the tender gray distances of a landscape are assisted, enlivened, and kept in place by warm and forcible colouring in the foreground, gradually connected through intermediate objects and middle distances by demi-tints declining into gray; a union which secures full value to the colours and objects, and by reconciling opposites gives repose to the eye. As a general rule, it may be inferred that half of a picture should be of a neutral hue, to ensure the harmony of the colouring; or at least that a balance of colour and neutrality is quite as essential to the best effect of a painting as a like balance of light and shade.
283. MINERAL GRAY,
or Mineral Grey, as it is often improperly spelt, is obtainable from the lapis lazuli, after the blue and ash have been worked out. So derived, it is a refuse article, worthless if the stone has been skilfully exhausted of its ultramarine. As this is now generally the case, the best mineral gray is no longer a waste product, but a lower species of ash, a pale whitish blue with a grey cast. Possessing the permanence of ultramarine, it may be regarded in colour as a very weak variety of that blue, diluted with a large quantity of white slightly tinged by black. A pigment peculiar to oil painting, it is admirably adapted to that gray semi-neutrality, the prevalence of which in nature has been just remarked. For misty mornings, cloudy skies, and the like, this gray will be found useful.
284. MIXED GRAY
is formed by compounding black and blue, black and purple, black and olive, &c.; and is likewise produced by adding blue in excess to madder brown, sepia, &c., transparent mixtures which are much employed. It should be borne in mind that the semi-neutrals, like the secondaries and tertiaries, may be so compounded as to be permanent, semi-stable, or fugitive. The due remembrance of this cannot be too strongly insisted upon, seeing that in every picture the browns and grays are of frequent occurrence. These it is that lend such charm to the whole, flowing, as it were, like a quiet under-current of colour beneath the troubled surface of more decided hues. In the work of every true artist—between whom and the mere painter there is as much difference as between the poet and the poetaster—there is sentiment as well as colour, whether the subject be an exciting battle-scene or a bit of still life. This sentiment, as strongly felt as the colour is clearly seen, is imparted in no small degree by the skilful use of semi-neutrality, the compounding of which, as time goes on, will therefore affect a picture for good or for evil.
Subjoined is an analysis of the three semi-neutrals, which serves partly to show in what great variety they may be obtained by admixture.
| Brown | = | Black | + | Yellow | } | ||
| " | = | " | + | Orange | + | Red, Purple, &c. | |
| " | = | " | + | Citrine | |||
| " | = | 2 Yellow | + | Red | + | Blue | |
| " | = | 2 Orange | + | Green | + | Purple | |
| " | = | 2 Citrine | + | Russett | + | Olive | |
| Marrone | = | Black | + | Red | |||
| " | = | " | + | Purple-red | |||
| " | = | " | + | Russet | |||
| " | = | 2 Red | } | ||||
| " | = | 2 Purple-red | + Dark Brown or Black | ||||
| " | = | 2 Russet | |||||
| Gray | = | Black | + | Blue | } | ||
| " | = | " | + | Purple-blue | + | 2 White | |
| " | = | " | + | Olive | |||
| " | = | 2 Blue | } | ||||
| " | = | 2 Purple-blue | + Light Brown, or Black + 2 White | ||||
| " | = | 2 Olive | |||||
In the last division, the White has been added to remind the reader that grays are coloured greys, not coloured blacks; and are therefore faint of hue. This paleness, however, need not necessarily be produced by admixture with white: it can be gained by means of thin washes. As a pigment, gray may be to all appearance black in bulk.