DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2086#0185
lo7
SECTION X.—CONTRASTS OF COLOUR.
With a view of affording the student as much assistance as possible in the present
work with the smallest amount of labour on his part, the subject of colour, in its
application to Landscape Painting, has been treated in the most simple manner,
avoiding all those short and technical expressions in which artists indulge for the
sake of brevity, but which are little understood except by those in constant com-
munication with them. The author trusts that this mode of proceeding, aided by
numerous diagrams and examples, will now have so far removed the difficulties
obstructing the onward course of the student, that, having acquired a due know-
ledge of the nature of the materials employed, and an efficient dexterity in handling
them, he will have leisure to search into the causes of the extraordinary and beauti-
ful effects of the contrasts of colour seen in nature, and to trace the sources from
which they arise; and that, in transferring them to his paper, he will not only be
able to imitate them with accuracy, but also to apply his representative pigments in
strict conformity with the laws governing the relation of colours with each other.
A mere faithful copyist of nature may, no doubt, succeed in producing a per-
fectly correct representation of the various modifications of colour in a natural
scene ; but, to accomplish this, he must use his brush from beginning to end in the
immediate presence of the effect to be conveyed; his first wash and his last glazing
must each be applied in exact imitation of the actual landscape: and, when after
laying aside his work from fatigue or other interruptions, he resumes his study, he
will require that every niinutioe of atmospheric appearance, light, &c, should be iden-
tical with that of the previous day, because, from alterations of the light and many
other causes, he will find the effect and tints will have changed, tending to confuse
and mingle those delicate variations of colour on the exact representation of which
his complete success depends; even as a slight movement of objects submitted to the
photographic process suffices to destroy the truthfulness of the picture.
Frequent study from nature, attended with all these precautions, is most valuable,
and cannot be too highly recommended to the beginner as the best training to which
he can subject himself, and indeed as the only school in which the attainment of
perfection is possible; but it is evident that, if no education either of the eye or the
SECTION X.—CONTRASTS OF COLOUR.
With a view of affording the student as much assistance as possible in the present
work with the smallest amount of labour on his part, the subject of colour, in its
application to Landscape Painting, has been treated in the most simple manner,
avoiding all those short and technical expressions in which artists indulge for the
sake of brevity, but which are little understood except by those in constant com-
munication with them. The author trusts that this mode of proceeding, aided by
numerous diagrams and examples, will now have so far removed the difficulties
obstructing the onward course of the student, that, having acquired a due know-
ledge of the nature of the materials employed, and an efficient dexterity in handling
them, he will have leisure to search into the causes of the extraordinary and beauti-
ful effects of the contrasts of colour seen in nature, and to trace the sources from
which they arise; and that, in transferring them to his paper, he will not only be
able to imitate them with accuracy, but also to apply his representative pigments in
strict conformity with the laws governing the relation of colours with each other.
A mere faithful copyist of nature may, no doubt, succeed in producing a per-
fectly correct representation of the various modifications of colour in a natural
scene ; but, to accomplish this, he must use his brush from beginning to end in the
immediate presence of the effect to be conveyed; his first wash and his last glazing
must each be applied in exact imitation of the actual landscape: and, when after
laying aside his work from fatigue or other interruptions, he resumes his study, he
will require that every niinutioe of atmospheric appearance, light, &c, should be iden-
tical with that of the previous day, because, from alterations of the light and many
other causes, he will find the effect and tints will have changed, tending to confuse
and mingle those delicate variations of colour on the exact representation of which
his complete success depends; even as a slight movement of objects submitted to the
photographic process suffices to destroy the truthfulness of the picture.
Frequent study from nature, attended with all these precautions, is most valuable,
and cannot be too highly recommended to the beginner as the best training to which
he can subject himself, and indeed as the only school in which the attainment of
perfection is possible; but it is evident that, if no education either of the eye or the