However well it may express the palpable substance and texture of objects that are but parts, if it fail in these first two rules, the colour of a picture is not good. With regard to the first, its agreeability. Is it a startling assertion to say, that this does not depend upon its naturalness? That it does so is a common opinion. Aware, however, that the term naturalness would lead to a deeper disquisition than I here mean to enter upon, I shall take it in its common meaning, as it represents the common aspect of nature. Now, besides that this aspect is subject to an almost infinite variety by changes of atmosphere, and other accidents, affording the artist a very wide range from which to select, it has a characteristic as important as its light and its dark of colour,—its illumination; so that a sacrifice (for art is a system of compensation) of one visible truth, say a very light key, does not necessarily render a picture less natural, if it attain that superior characteristic, which by the other method it would not attain.
Then, again, that very variety of nature, by its multiplicity, disposes the mind ever to look for a constant change and new effect, so that we are not easily startled by any actual unnaturalness, unless it be very strange indeed, and entirely out of harmony, one part with another, as we should be were one aspect only and constantly presented to us. This may be exemplified by a dark mirror—and, better still, by a Claude glass, as it is called, by which we look at nature through coloured glasses. We do not the less recognise nature—nay, it is impossible not to be charmed with the difference, and yet not for a moment question the truth. I am not here discussing the propriety of using such glasses—it may be right or it may be wrong, according to the purpose the painter may have; I only mean to assert, that nature will bear the changes and not offend any sense. The absolute naturalness, then, of the colour of nature, in its strictest and most limited sense, local and aerial, is not so necessary as that the eye cannot be gratified without it. And it follows, that agreeability of colour does not depend upon this strict naturalness.
I said, that it is of the first importance that the colouring be agreeable per se; that, without any regard to a subject, the eye should be gratified by the general tone, the harmony of the parts, and the quality—namely, whether it be opaque or transparent, and to what degree. There are certain things that we greatly admire on this very account—such as all precious gems, polished and lustrous stones and marbles, especially those into which we can look as into a transparent depth.
A picture, therefore, cannot be said to be well coloured unless this peculiar quality of agreeability be in it. To attain this, much exactness may be sacrificed with safety. It should be considered indispensable.
And this perfect liberty of altering to a certain degree the naturalness of colouring, leads properly to that second essential—its adaptation to a subject, or its expressing the sentiment. For it is manifest, that if we can, without offending, alter the whole aspect of nature in most common scenes, we can still more surely do so when the scenes are at all ideal or out of the common character. And we can do it likewise without a sacrifice of truth, in the higher sense of truth, as a term of art or of poetry.
For the mind also gives its own colouring, or is unobservant of some colours which the eye presents, and makes from all presented to it its own selections and combinations, and suits them to its own conception and creation. It has always been admitted that the painter's mind does this with objects of form, omitting much, generalizing or selecting few particulars. Now if this power be admitted with regard to objects themselves, as to their forms and actual presence, why should it not, with equal propriety, be extended to the colours of those objects, even though they have a sensible effect upon the scenes which are before us? But, as was said,
the mind colours; it is not the slave to the organ of sight, and in the painter, as in the poet, asserts its privilege of making, delighting even to "exhaust worlds" and "imagine new." It takes for an imperial use the contributions the eye is ever offering, but converts them into riches of its own. It will not be confined by space, nor limited by time, but gathers from the wide world, and even beyond its range. Thus, in the simple yet creative enthusiasm of his passion, did Burns gather, at one moment, the flowers of all seasons, and all
"To pu' a posy for his ain sweet May;"
and cold would be the criticism that would stop to note the impossibility; yet was it a great truth, the garden was his own heart, and his every wish a new flower. Here they all were.
It is the misfortune of art that this great power of the mind over materials is not sufficiently and practically admitted. In colouring we seem to have altogether abandoned the idea of invention. We go quite contrary to the practice of those good architects of other ages, who spoke and painted by their art; who invented because they felt the religious awe, that solemn chiaro-scuro—and the painted windows, not gorgeous and flaring with large masses of unmixed colours, (as are the unmeaning windows the modern Templars have put up in their ill-painted church, in which, too, the somewhat tame and dead Byzantine colouring of the walls agrees not with the overpowering glass of the windows;) these old architects, I say, affecting the "dim religious light," and knowing the illumination and brilliancy of their material, took colours without a name, for the most part neither raw reds, nor blues, nor yellows, but mixed, and many of a low and subdued tone; and so, when these windows represented subjects, the designs had a suitable quaintness, a formality, a saint-like immutability, a holy repose; and the very strong colours were sparingly used, and in very small spaces; and the divisions of the lead that fastened the parts together had doubtless, in the calculation of the architect, their subduing effect. Religious poetry—the highest poetry, consequently the highest truth—was here. There are who might prefer the modern conventicle, with its glare of sunshine, and white glass, and bare, unadorned, white-washed walls, and justify their want of taste by a reference to nature, whose light and atmosphere, they will tell you, they are admitting. And like this is the argument of many an artist, when he would cover the poverty of his invention under the plea of his imitation of nature—a plea, too, urged in ignorance of nature, for nature does actually endeavour—if such a word as endeavour maybe used where all is done without effort—to subdue the rawness of every colour, and even to stain the white-wash we put upon her works, and covers the lightest rocks with lichen.