Howard, Frank: Colour, as a means of art: being an adaptation of the experience of professors to the practice of amateurs (London, 1838)

COLOURING OBJECTS. 87

" familiarity breeds contempt," and
consequently is destructive of that grandeur,
solemnity, or refinement, which is indispensable
in high art; and they take refuge in the
" cloistered tone" of Ludovico Caracci, so
commended by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a
conventional beauty which will presently be
noticed. The Landscape painters, on the other
hand, almost universally belong to the Bianchi
party; as truth or apparent truth is so much more
indispensable in subjects that only display the
scenery of nature, and which depend upon that
resemblance for producing an impression, than
in subjects which appeal to the passions by
the display of some stirring incident. From
the nature of the materials employed, the
tendency of oil painting, is to the side of
the Neri; whilst the general inclination, induced
by Watercolour drawing, is in favor of the
Bianchi party. The alleged principle of the
colouring of the Neri is deduced from the
hypothesis laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, that
neither white nor black are colours, therefore say
the Neri, " neither should appear in a finely
coloured picture: the brightest lights should not
be white; the deepest shadows should not be