ON THE SECONDARY, PURPLE.
Purple, the third and last of the secondary colours, is composed of red and blue, in the proportions of five of the former to eight of the latter; proportions which constitute a perfect purple, or one of such a hue as will neutralize and best contrast a perfect yellow, in the ratio of thirteen to three, either of surface or intensity. When mixed with its co-secondary colour, green, purple forms the tertiary olive; and, when compounded with the remaining secondary, orange, it constitutes in like manner the tertiary russet. Of the three secondary colours it is the coolest, as well as the nearest in relation to black or shade; in which respect, and in never being a warm colour, it resembles blue. In other respects also, purple partakes of the properties of blue, which is its archeus, or ruling colour; hence it is to the eye a retiring colour, that reflects light little, and loses rapidly in power in a declining light, and according to the distance at which it is viewed. By reason of its being the mean between black and blue it becomes the most retiring of all positive colours. Nature employs this hue beautifully in landscape, as a sub-dominant, in harmonizing the broad shadows of a bright sunshine ere the light sinks into deep orange or red. Girtin, who saw Nature as she is, and painted what he saw, delighted in this effect of sunlight and shadow. As a ruling colour, whether in flesh or otherwise, purple is commonly too cold, or verges on ghastliness, a fault which is to be as much avoided as the opposite extreme of viciousness in colouring, stigmatized as foxiness.
Yet, next to green, purple is the most generally pleasing of the consonant colours; and has been celebrated as a regal or imperial colour, as much perhaps from its rarity in a pure state, as from its individual beauty. Romulus wore it in his trabea or royal mantle, and Tullus Hostilius, after having subdued the Tuscans, assumed the pretexta or long robe, broadly striped with purple. Under the Roman emperors, it became the peculiar emblem or symbol of majesty, and the wearing of it by any who were not of the Imperial family, was deemed a "treasonable usurpation," punishable by death. At the decline of the empire, the Tyrian purple was an important article of commerce, and got to be common in the clothing of the people. Pliny says, "Nepos Cornelius, who died in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, when I was a young man, assured me that the light violet purple had been formerly in great request, and that a pound of it usually fetched 100 denaria (about £4 sterling): that soon after the tarentine or reddish purple came into fashion; and that this was followed by the Tyrian dibapha, which could not be bought for less than 1000 denaria (nearly £40 sterling) the pound; which was its price when P. Lentulus Spinter was Ædile, Cicero being then Consul. But afterwards, the double-dyed purple became less rare, &c." The Tyrian purple alluded to was obtained from the purpuræ, a species of shell-fish adhering to rocks and large stones in the sea adjoining Tyre. On account, probably, of its extreme costliness, it was frequently the custom to dye the cloth with a ground of kermes or alkanet, previous to applying the Tyrian purple. This imparted to the latter a crimson hue, and explains doubtless the term, double-dyed. The Greeks feigned the ancient purple to be the discovery of Hercules Tyrius, whose dog, eating by chance of the fish from which it was produced, returned to him with his mouth tinged with the dye. Alexander the Great is said to have found in the royal treasury, at the taking of Susa, purple to the enormous value of 5000 talents,[A] which had lain there one hundred and ninety-two years, and still preserved its freshness and beauty.
When inclining to red, purple takes the name of crimson, &c.; and when leaning to blue, the names of violet, lilac, mauve, &c. Blue is a colour which it serves to mellow, or follows well into shade. The contrast or harmonizing colour of purple is yellow on the side of light and the primaries; while purple itself is the harmonizing contrast of the tertiary citrine on the side of shade, and less perfectly so of the semi-neutral brown. As the extreme primaries, blue and yellow, when either compounded or opposed, afford, though not the most perfect harmony, yet the most pleasing consonance of the primary colours; so the extremes, purple and orange, yield the most pleasing of the secondary consonances. This analogy extends likewise to the extreme tertiary and semi-neutral colours, while the mean or middle colours furnish the most agreeable contrasts or harmonies.
In nature pure purple is not a common colour, and on the palette purple pigments are singularly few. They lie under a peculiar disadvantage as to apparent durability and beauty of colour, owing to the neutralizing power of yellowness in the grounds upon which they are laid; as well as to the general warm colour of light, and the yellow tendency of almost all vehicles and varnishes, by which the colour of purple is subdued.
208. BURNT CARMINE
is the carmine of cochineal partially charred till it resembles in colour the purple of gold, for which, in miniature and water-painting, it is substituted. It is a magnificent reddish purple of extreme richness and depth, eligible in flower-painting and the shadow of draperies. As it is generally impossible, however, to alter the nature of a pigment by merely changing its colour, burnt carmine is scarcely more permanent than the carmine from which it is produced. If used, therefore, it should be in body, and not in thin washes or as a glaze. Durable pigments are admissible in any form; but semi-stable pigments (gamboge excepted) should only be employed in body.
209. BURNT LAKE
holds the same relation to crimson lake as burnt carmine to ordinary carmine; and is hence a weaker variety of the preceding, with less richness, and likewise less permanence.