Fields Chromatography | Page 4

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