This Principle Of Contrast Applies Even To Individual Colours And
:
ON COLOURS AND COLOURING.
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
bril
iancy and brokenness, in producing the most beautiful and varied
effects; effects which spring in other cases from a like management of
blue, white, &c. These powers of a colour upon itself are highly
important to the artist, and lead to that gratification from fine
colouring, which a good eye ever enjoys.
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.
Upon the more intimate union, or the blending and gradience of contrasts
from one to another mutually, depend some of the most fascinating
effects of colouring. The practical principle employed in producing them