Of the rank and value of this department of painting, there will be, as there has been, difference of judgment and opinion, as there is variety in the powers of the eye and understanding. But take from Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, and other distinguished masters, the estimation of their colouring, and we fear all that is left to them would hardly preserve their names from oblivion. Art cannot, indeed, attain its appropriate end, that of pleasing, without excellence in colouring. It is colour which the true artist most loves, and it is colouring in all its complex and high relations, that he ever seeks to attain. Looking above, and around, and beneath him, with the intelligent eye of the colourist, he finds a boundless source of never-ceasing enjoyment. With harmonies and accordances lost to the untutored gaze, colour meets him in every stone he treads on—in the mineral, vegetable, and animal creation—in the heavens, sea, and earth. For him, in truth, colour is as equally diffused as light, spreading itself over the entire face of nature, and clothing the whole world with beauty.
[CHAPTER II.]
ON THE RELATIONS AND HARMONY OF COLOUR.
Assured as we must be of the importance of colouring as a branch of art, colours in all their bearings become interesting to the artist, and on their use and arrangement his reputation as a colourist must depend.
Colour, remarks Ruskin, is wholly relative; each hue throughout a work is altered by every touch added in other places. Thus, to place white beside a colour is to heighten its tone; to set black beside a colour is to weaken its tone; while to put grey beside a colour, is to render it more brilliant. If a dark colour be placed near a different, but lighter colour, the tone of the first is heightened, while that of the second is lowered. An important consequence of this principle is, that the first effect may neutralize the second, or even destroy it altogether. What was cold before, becomes warm when a colder colour is set near it, and what was in harmony before, becomes discordant as other colours are put beside it. For example, to place a light blue beside a yellow, tinges it orange, and consequently heightens its tone. Again, there are some blues so dark relatively to the yellow that they weaken it, and not only hide the orange tint, but even cause sensitive eyes to feel that the yellow is rather green than orange—a very natural result when it is considered that the paler the yellow becomes, the more it tends to appear green.
We learn from these relations of colours, why dapplings of two or more produce effects in painting so much more clear and brilliant than uniform tints obtained by compounding the same colours: and why hatchings, or a touch of their contrasts, thrown as it were by accident upon local tints, have the same effect. We see, too, why colours mixed deteriorate each other, which they do more—in many cases—by imperfectly neutralizing or subduing each other chromatically, than by any chemical action. Finally, we are impressed with the necessity, not only of using colours pure, but of using pure colours; although pure colouring and brilliancy differ as much from crudeness and harshness, as tone and harmony from murkiness and monotony.
The powers of colours in contrasting each other agree with their correlative powers of light and shade, and are to be distinguished from their powers individually on the eye, which are those of light alone. Thus, although orange and blue are equal powers with respect to each other, as regards the eye they are totally different and opposed. Orange is a luminous colour, and has a powerfully irritating effect, while blue is a shadowy colour, possessing a soothing quality—and it is the same, in various degrees, with other colours.
There are yet further modes of contrast or antagonism in colouring, which claim the attention and engage the skill of the colourist. Of the contrast of hues, upon which depend the brilliancy, force, and harmony of colouring, we have just spoken; but there is, secondly, the contrast of shades. To this belong all the powers of chiaroscuro, by which term the painter denotes the harmonious effects of light and shade; and though they form the simplest part of colouring, yet they cannot be separated from it—light and shade, the chiaroscuro, being a distinct and important branch of painting. A third mode of contrast in colouring is that of warmth and coolness, upon which depend the toning and general effect of a picture. Fourthly, there is the contrast of colour and neutrality, the chromatic and achromatic, or hue and shade. By the right management of this, local colours acquire value, gradation, keeping, and connection: whence come breadth, aërial perspective, and the due distribution of greys and shadows in a picture.
This principle of contrast applies even to individual colours, and conduces greatly to good colouring. It may be carried with advantage into the variety of hue and tint in the same colour, not only as regards light and shade, but likewise with respect to warmth and coolness, as well as to colour and neutrality. Hence the judicious landscape-painter knows how to avail himself of warmth and coolness in the juxtaposition of his greens, in addition to their lightness and darkness, or brilliancy and brokenness, in producing the most beautiful and varied effects; effects which spring in other cases from a like management of blue, white, &c. These powers of a colour upon itself are highly important to the artist, and lead to that gratification from fine colouring, which a good eye ever enjoys.