A thing to remember always: avoid greenish tones.
Chassériau.
CXLVIII
One is a colourist by values, by colour and light; there are colourists who are luminarists as there are colourists pure and simple. Titian is a colourist but not a luminarist, while Correggio is a colourist and a luminarist.
The simple colourists are those who content themselves with representing the tones in their value and colour without troubling about the magic of light; they also give to tones all their intensity.
The luminarists, as the word indicates, make light the most important thing. Three names will make you understand; Rembrandt, Correggio, and Claude Lorraine.
Claude, taking the light of the sun for a starting-point, justifies his method by nature: you know that he starts from a luminous point, and that point is the sun.
To make this brilliant you must make great sacrifices, for you have no doubt remarked that we painters always begin with a half-tint; as our paintings are not brightened by the light of the sun, and start with a half-tint, it is necessary by the magic of tones to make this half-tint shine like a luminous thing. You see that it is a difficult problem to solve; how does Claude do it? He does not copy the exact tones of nature, since beginning with a dull one, he is obliged to make it luminous. He transposes as in music; he observes all things constituting light, remarks that the rays prevent us from seizing the outline of a bright object, that then the flame is enveloped by a bright halo; then by a second one less vivid, and so on until the tones become dull and sombre. In short, to make myself understood, his picture seen from distance represents a flame.
Correggio also works in this way. Take for example his picture of Antiope.