With Regard To Colours Individually It Is A General Law Of Their
:
ON COLOURS AND PIGMENTS INDIVIDUALLY.
relations, confirmed by nature and the impressions of sense, that those
colours which lie nearest in nature to light have their greatest beauty
in their lightest tints: and that those which tend similarly towards
shade are most beautiful in their greatest depth or fulness, a rule of
course applying to black and white particularly. Thus, the most
beautiful yellow, like white, is that which is lightest and most vivid;
blue is most beautiful when deep and rich; while red is of greatest
beauty when of intermediate depth, or somewhat inclined to light; and
their compounds partake of these relations. We speak here only of the
individual beauty of colours, and not of that relative beauty by which
every tint, hue, and shade of colour become pleasing, or otherwise
according to space, place, and reference; for this latter beauty belongs
to the general nature and harmony of colours.