Read Ebook: Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Field George Salter Thomas W Editor

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Chapter. Page.

Addendum 414

Index 417

NOTICE.

Among the works consulted in this Edition are the following, from most of which extracts have been taken:

Bancroft's Philosophy of Colours.

Brande's Manual of Chemistry.

Chemical News.

Chevreul on Colour.

Fownes' Manual of Chemistry.

Gmelin's Handbook of Chemistry.

Handbooks on Art.

Liebig and Kopp's Annual Report of the Progress of Chemistry.

M?rim?e's Painting in Oil.

Normandy's Commercial Handbook of Chemical Analysis.

O'Neill's Chemistry of Calico Printing.

Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society.

Ruskin's Elements of Drawing.

ON COLOURS AND COLOURING.

CHROMATOGRAPHY;

OR,

A TREATISE ON COLOURS AND PIGMENTS.

ON COLOURING.

How early, and to what extent, colouring may have attained the rank of science among the ancients, are questions not easily set at rest; but that some progress had been made, even at a very remote period, is proved by the magnificent tombs of the Egyptian kings at Thebes, where the walls of the royal mausoleum are described as being covered with paintings so fresh and perfect, as to require neither restoration nor improvement. So far from this, indeed, that with all care in copying, it was difficult to equal the brilliancy of the originals, which, as far as colours went, threw all others in the background. And yet, in spite of the scale having comprised pure vermilion, ochres, and indigo, it was not gaudy, owing to the judicious balance of the colours, and the artful management of the black. Nor was there an ornament throughout the dresses, wherein the red, yellow, and blue, were not so employed as to produce a delicious harmony.

Moreover, it is stated that in one painting eighty feet high and proportionably broad, which was divided into two ranges of gigantic figures, these were glowing with most exquisite colours, suited to the drapery and naked parts; and in which the azure, yellow, green, &c., were as well preserved as though they had been laid on yesterday. Again, an apartment was discovered among the stupendous ruins at Carnac, on the site of ancient Thebes, one hundred paces wide and sixty deep, completely crowded with pillars, which, together with the ceiling, roof, and walls, were decorated with figures in basso-relievo, and hieroglyphics--all marvellously beautiful and finely painted, and as fresh, splendid and glorious, after so many ages, as if they had just been finished.

But, as shown by Layard in his discoveries at Nineveh, a knowledge of colouring was not confined to the Egyptians; it was likewise possessed by the Assyrians. The painted ornaments of the latter are stated to have been remarkably elegant; and although the colours were limited to blue, red, white, yellow, and black, yet they were arranged with so much taste and skill, and the contrasts were so judiciously preserved, that the combinations were in general agreeable to the eye. The pale yellowish-white ground on which the designs were painted, resembled the tint on the walls of Egyptian monuments, and a strong well-defined black outline was found to be as peculiar a feature in Assyrian as in Egyptian painting, black frequently combining with white alone, or alternating with other colours. As far as they have been analysed, the pigments employed were mineral, the brightest being a blue derived from copper. No traces of vegetable colours have been found; it is presumed that they existed, but being subject to more rapid decay than the mineral pigments, they have disappeared. That all the colours, indeed, employed by the ancients were not permanent, was proved by the fact of certain blues and reds, brilliant and vivid when the earth was removed from them, fading rapidly when exposed to the air.

The partial restoration of this branch seems to have been coeval with the earliest practice of painting in oil. The glory of it belongs to the Venetians, to whom the art of painting passed with the last remains of the Greek schools after the capture of Constantinople at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Giovanni Bellini laid the foundation of colouring, and Titian carried it to its highest practical perfection. From the Venetian it extended to the Lombard, Flemish, and Spanish schools. In the practice of these, however, there was perhaps as much of instinct as principle, colouring still remaining to be established in its perfection as a science.

In the practice of the individual in painting, as well as in all revolutions of pictorial art, in ancient Greece as in modern Italy, colouring in its perfection has been the last attainment of excellence in every school. It has been justly observed, indeed, that for near three hundred years, since painting was revived, we could hardly reckon six painters that had been good colourists, among the thousands who had laboured to become such. But there is reason to hope that as Zeuxis succeeded and excelled Polygnotus, and Titian Raphael, the artists of Britain will transcend all preceding schools in the chromatic department of painting. It is even probable that they may surpass them in all other branches, and in every mode and application of the art, as they have already more particularly done in an original and unrivalled use of water-colours.

Happily, too, there has arisen among us a school of colouring that confirms this expectation, strengthened as it is, by the suitableness of our climate to perfect vision. For in it we have that mean degree of light which is best adapted to the distinguishing of colours, a boundless diversity of hue in nature relieved by those fine effects of light and shade which are denied to more vertical suns, besides those beauties of complexion and feature in our females peculiar to England; respects in which at least our country is not unfavourable to art.

Colouring, then, is a necessity; but there is in it a vicious extreme; that in which it is rendered so principal as, by want of subordination, to overlay the subject. There is also a negative excellence which consists in not always employing pleasing tints, but of sometimes taking advantage of the effects to be derived from impure hues, as Poussin did in his "Deluge." In this work, neither black nor white, blue, red, nor yellow appears; the whole mass being, with little variation, of a sombre grey, the true resemblance of a dark and humid atmosphere, by which every object is rendered indistinct and almost colourless. This absence of colour, however, is a merit, and not a fault. Vandyke employed such means with admirable effect in the background of a Crucifixion, and in his Pieta; and the Pha?ton of Giulio Romano is celebrated for a suffusion of smothered red, which powerfully excites the idea of a world on fire.

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.

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.

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.

In landscape we see nature employing broken colours in harmonious consonance and variety, while, equally true to picturesque relations, she uses also broken forms and figures, in conjoint harmony with colours; occasionally throwing into the composition a regular form, or a primary colour, for the sake of animation and contrast. And if we inspect her works more closely, we shall find that they have no uniform tints. Whether in the animal, vegetable or mineral creation--flesh or foliage, earth or sky, flower or stone--however uniform the colour may appear at a distance, it will, when examined nearly, be found to consist of a variety of hues and shades, compounded with harmony and intelligence.

It is for this reason that no two colours are ever found discordant in nature, however much so they may be in art. Blue and green have been termed discordant, and in painting they may undoubtedly be made so. Yet those are two colours which nature seems to intend never to be separated, and never to be felt, either of them, in its full beauty, without the other--a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave with green lights through it, being precisely the loveliest things, next to clouds at sunrise, in this coloured world of ours. A good eye for colour will soon discover how constantly nature puts green and purple together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral grey, and the like; and how she strikes these colour-concords for general tones, before working into them with innumerable subordinate ones.

The former process may be said to be the carrying out of the principle of separate colours to the utmost possible refinement, by using atoms of colour in juxtaposition, instead of in large spaces. And it is to be noted, in filling up minute interstices of this kind, that if the colour with which they are filled be wanted to show brightly, a rather positive point of it had better be put, with a little white left beside or round it in the interstice. This plan is preferable to laying a pale tint of the colour over the whole interstice. Yellow or orange, for instance, will hardly show, if pale, in small spaces; but they show brightly in free touches, however small, with white beside them. The latter mode is founded on the fact, that if a dark colour be laid first, and a little blue or white body-colour struck lightly over it, a more beautiful gray will be obtained than by mixing the colour and the blue or white. Similarly, if over a solid and perfectly dry touch of vermilion there be quickly washed a little very wet carmine, a much more brilliant red will be produced than by mixing the two colours.

Such are some of the powers of contrast in colouring alone, and such is the diversity of art upon which skill in colouring depends. It must not be forgotten, however, that contrasts or extremes, whether of light and shade, or of colours, become violent and offensive when they are not reconciled by the interposition of their media, or intermediates, which partake of both extremes of the contrasts. Thus blue and orange in contrast become reconciled, softened in effect, and harmonized, when a broken colour composed of the two intervenes. The same may be said of other colours, shades, and contrasts.

Seeing that the management and mastery of colours are to a great extent dependent on the same principles as light and shade, it might become a point of good discipline, after acquiring the use of black and white in the chiaroscuro, to paint designs in contrast; that is, with two contrasting colours only, in conjunction with black and white--for example, with blue and orange, before attempting the whole. Indeed, black can be dispensed with in these cases, because it may be compounded, since the neutral grey and third colours always arise from the compounding of contrasting colours. In this way, even flesh may be painted--for instance, with red and green alone, as Gainsborough is said at one period to have done.

Some artists have produced pictures in the above hot and cold colours only; which, although captivating to the eye, and true in theory with respect to colour, light and shade, are generally false in practice with regard to nature, which rarely employs such extreme accordances. Colouring like this, therefore, is more beautiful than true. It is as though a painter were to execute a landscape in the full light of day, as he saw it looking through a prism, so that every object glowed with rainbow hues. Such a picture would present a beautiful fairy scene, and be true as regards colours, but as respects nature, it would be false.

The perspective of colours depends upon their powers to reflect the elements of light, powers which are by no means uniform. Accordingly, blue is lost in the distance before red, and yellow is seen at a point at which red would disappear; yet blue preserves its hue better than yellow, because colours are cooled in the distance. In this respect, the compound colours partake of the powers of their components, in obedience to a general rule, by which local colours closely connected with black are first lost in the distance, and those nearly related to white disappear last. The same may be said of local light and shade, the latter of which is totally lost at great distances; and it is for this reason the shadowed side of the moon is not generally seen. These powers of colours are, however, varied by mist, air, altitude, and mixture, which produce evanescence; and by contrast, which preserves the force of colours by distinguishing them. Colours do not decline in force so much by height as by horizontal distance, because the upper atmosphere is less dense and clouded with vapour: and hence it is that mountains of great elevation appear much nearer than they really are. From all these circumstances, it is evident that a simple scumbling or uniform degradation of local colours will not effect a true perspective--for this will be the a?rial of light and shade only--but such a subordination of hues and tints, as the various powers of colours require, and as is always observable in nature.

From what we have said, it will be seen that the relations and harmony of colours form a complex subject, requiring constant and careful study; one, indeed, into which he who would become a colourist must enter heart and soul. For as colouring is the beginning and end of a painter's craft, so colour in all its aspects must be the chief lesson of his life. And this lesson can only be learnt, by ever watching with a loving eye those wondrous colourings of nature, in which there is nothing inharmonious or out of place.

ON COLOURS AND PIGMENTS GENERALLY.

ON CLASSES OF COLOURS.

The above classification of colours enables us to understand the simplicity of relation which exists among an infinity of tints, hues, and shades of colour. Also, it is calculated to give precision to language respecting colours, the nomenclature of which has too often been vague and uncertain.

ON THE DURABILITY AND EVANESCENCE OF PIGMENTS.

Pigments may be defined as colours in a solid or insoluble state, prepared for the artists' use. Hitherto, we have treated of colours in the abstract sense, as appealing to the eye only: we have now to consider them as material bodies.

As colour itself is relative, so is durability of colour relative. For the reason that all material substances are changeable and in perpetual action and reaction, no pigment is so permanent as that nothing will alter its colour. On the other hand, none is so fugitive as not to last under some favouring circumstances. Time, of long or short continuance, has often the effect of fire, more or less intense. Indeed, it is some sort of criterion of the stability and changes of colour in pigments, that time and fire are apt to produce similar effects thereon. Thus, if fire deepen, or cool, or warm a colour, so may time; if it vary its hues, so may time; if it destroy a colour altogether, so may time ultimately. The power of time, however, varies extremely with regard to the period in which it produces those effects, that are instantly accomplished by fire.

That there is no absolute but only relative durability of colour may be proved from the most celebrated pigments. For instance, the colour of native ultramarine, which will endure a hundred centuries under ordinary circumstances, may be at once destroyed by a drop of lemon juice; and the generally fugitive and changeable carmine of cochineal will, when secluded from light and air, continue fifty years or more; while fire or time, which merely deepen the former colour, will completely dissipate the latter. Again, there have been works of art in which the white of lead has retained its freshness for ages in a pure atmosphere, but has been changed to blackness after a few days' or even hours' exposure to foul air. These and other peculiarities of colours will be noticed, when we come to speak of pigments individually; not for the purpose of destroying the artist's confidence, but as a caution, and a guide to the availing himself of their powers properly.

It is, therefore, the lasting under the usual conditions of painting, and the common circumstances to which works of art are exposed, that entitles a colour to the character of permanency; and it is the not-so-enduring which attaches to it rightly the opposite character of evanescence: while a pigment may obtain a false repute for either, by accidental preservation or destruction under unusually favourable or fatal circumstances.

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