DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0167
CHAP. I
Colour
i47
with pearly neutrals in the half-tints. Corot paints in grays
just kindling into more positive hues. A classic instance
of painterlike treatment of colour is the ‘ Blue Boy ’ by
Gainsborough at Grosvenor House, London. Every one
knows the story of it; how Reynolds had laid down the
principle that the chief mass of colour in a picture could
never be a cold tint like blue, and how his great rival
painted his portrait of Master Buttall clad entirely in azure,
as a practical rejoinder. As has often been remarked,
Gainsborough so broke up his blues with warm greens and
browns that the effect of a mere mass of the single pigment
gives place to that of a delightful harmony, with blue only
as the dominant note.
It is true that we only find this free and painterlike
handling of colour among the really great masters of the
brush. Both in older and in modern times there have been
innumerable graphic artists to whom the name ‘ painter ’
cannot be disallowed, who have used colour in patches more
or less distinctly defined and positive in hue. The old
painters before the sixteenth century employed colour in
this definite way, and such was throughout the practice of
the frescoist. Wherever indeed the strength of painting
lies in its clear delineation of form, there colour will be
used mainly in subordination thereto, and will serve to
mark the boundaries of forms, tint being laid over against
tint within defined outlines. Work of this kind misses the
peculiar charm of painting of which so much has already
been said. It may have excellent qualities of its own but
from the point of view of pure painting it is imperfect.
The outline filled in with colour is no more the ideal of the
graphic art than is the outline alone.
On the other hand painting may convey the impression
of colour only, without any suggestion of nature. This is
the work of the decorator, who may provide for the eye, as
Colour
i47
with pearly neutrals in the half-tints. Corot paints in grays
just kindling into more positive hues. A classic instance
of painterlike treatment of colour is the ‘ Blue Boy ’ by
Gainsborough at Grosvenor House, London. Every one
knows the story of it; how Reynolds had laid down the
principle that the chief mass of colour in a picture could
never be a cold tint like blue, and how his great rival
painted his portrait of Master Buttall clad entirely in azure,
as a practical rejoinder. As has often been remarked,
Gainsborough so broke up his blues with warm greens and
browns that the effect of a mere mass of the single pigment
gives place to that of a delightful harmony, with blue only
as the dominant note.
It is true that we only find this free and painterlike
handling of colour among the really great masters of the
brush. Both in older and in modern times there have been
innumerable graphic artists to whom the name ‘ painter ’
cannot be disallowed, who have used colour in patches more
or less distinctly defined and positive in hue. The old
painters before the sixteenth century employed colour in
this definite way, and such was throughout the practice of
the frescoist. Wherever indeed the strength of painting
lies in its clear delineation of form, there colour will be
used mainly in subordination thereto, and will serve to
mark the boundaries of forms, tint being laid over against
tint within defined outlines. Work of this kind misses the
peculiar charm of painting of which so much has already
been said. It may have excellent qualities of its own but
from the point of view of pure painting it is imperfect.
The outline filled in with colour is no more the ideal of the
graphic art than is the outline alone.
On the other hand painting may convey the impression
of colour only, without any suggestion of nature. This is
the work of the decorator, who may provide for the eye, as