DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19950#0029
KEEPING.
shade and the distance, on this system, are rendered in the
general hne which best expresses their attributes of coolness
and transparency; and the lights and the foreground are
executed in that which best expresses their warmth and
solidity. The idea of space, warmth, and freshness not
being successfully expressible in a single tint, and being
perfectly expressible by the admission of three or four, the
student may allow himself this advantage when it is pos-
sible, without embarrassing himself with the actual colour
of the objects to be represented."*
This theory, as a means of educating his eye, was
carried out by the celebrated Turner with great severity for
some years, till it became more or less modified by the
cautious introduction of colour as the painter felt his
liberty increasing. " Gradually and cautiously the blues
became mingled with delicate green, and then with gold j
the browns in the foreground became first more positive,
and then were slightly mingled with other local colours;
while the touch, which had at first been heavy and broken,
grew more and more refined and expressive, until it lost
itself in a method of execution often too delicate for the
eye to follow, rendering with unexampled precision both
the texture and the form of every object."*
We must not forget that a far higher attainment than
the practice of Colour merely, is that which Colour itself
cannot represent—which cannot be strictly said to have
even form—namely, air, space, freshness. These are the
magic charms in a landscape, and to re-present these is
* Ruskiii.
shade and the distance, on this system, are rendered in the
general hne which best expresses their attributes of coolness
and transparency; and the lights and the foreground are
executed in that which best expresses their warmth and
solidity. The idea of space, warmth, and freshness not
being successfully expressible in a single tint, and being
perfectly expressible by the admission of three or four, the
student may allow himself this advantage when it is pos-
sible, without embarrassing himself with the actual colour
of the objects to be represented."*
This theory, as a means of educating his eye, was
carried out by the celebrated Turner with great severity for
some years, till it became more or less modified by the
cautious introduction of colour as the painter felt his
liberty increasing. " Gradually and cautiously the blues
became mingled with delicate green, and then with gold j
the browns in the foreground became first more positive,
and then were slightly mingled with other local colours;
while the touch, which had at first been heavy and broken,
grew more and more refined and expressive, until it lost
itself in a method of execution often too delicate for the
eye to follow, rendering with unexampled precision both
the texture and the form of every object."*
We must not forget that a far higher attainment than
the practice of Colour merely, is that which Colour itself
cannot represent—which cannot be strictly said to have
even form—namely, air, space, freshness. These are the
magic charms in a landscape, and to re-present these is
* Ruskiii.