Theory of Colours — trans. Charles Lock Eastlake (1840)

The separation of light and dark from all appearance of colour is possible and necessary. The artist will solve the mystery of imitation sooner by first considering light and dark independently of colour, and making himself acquainted with it in its whole extent.

852.

Chiaro-scuro exhibits the substance as substance, inasmuch as light and shade inform us as to degrees of density.

853.

We have here to consider the highest light, the middle tint, and the shadow, and in the last the shadow of the object itself, the shadow it casts on other objects, and the illumined shadow or reflexion.

854.

The globe is well adapted for the general exemplification of the nature of chiaro-scuro, but it is not altogether sufficient. The softened unity of such complete rotundity tends to the vapoury, and in order to serve as a principle for effects of art, it should be composed of plane surfaces, so as to define the gradations more.

855.

The Italians call this manner "il piazzoso;" in German it might be called "das Flächenhafte."[4] If, therefore, the sphere is a perfect example of natural chiaro-scuro, a polygon would exhibit the artist-like treatment in which all kinds of lights, half-lights, shadows, and reflexions, would be appreciable.--Note E E.

856.

The bunch of grapes is recognised as a good example of a picturesque completeness in chiaro-scuro, the more so as it is fitted, from its form, to represent a principal group; but it is only available for the master who can see in it what he has the power of producing.

857.

In order to make the first idea intelligible to the beginner, (for it is difficult to consider it abstractedly even in a polygon,) we may take a cube, the three sides of which that are seen represent the light, the middle tint, and the shadow in distinct order.

858.

To proceed again to the chiaro-scuro of a more complicated figure, we might select the example of an open book, which presents a greater diversity.

859.

We find the antique statues of the best time treated very much with reference to these effects. The parts intended to receive the light are wrought with simplicity, the portion originally in shade is, on the other hand, in more distinct surfaces to make them susceptible of a variety of reflexions; here the example of the polygon will be remembered.--Note F F.

860.

The pictures of Herculaneum and the Aldobrandini marriage are examples of antique painting in the same style.

861.

Modern examples may be found in single figures by Raphael, in entire works by Correggio, and also by the Flemish masters, especially Rubens.

TENDENCY TO COLOUR.

862.

A picture in black and white seldom makes its appearance; some works of Polidoro are examples of this kind of art. Such works, inasmuch as they can attain form and keeping, are estimable, but they have little attraction for the eye, since their very existence supposes a violent abstraction.

863.

If the artist abandons himself to his feeling, colour presently announces itself. Black no sooner inclines to blue than the eye demands yellow, which the artist instinctively modifies, and introduces partly pure in the light, partly reddened and subdued as brown, in the reflexes, thus enlivening the whole.--Note G G.

864.

All kinds of _camayeu_, or colour on similar colour, end in the introduction either of a complemental contrast, or some variety of hue. Thus, Polidoro in his black and white frescoes sometimes introduced a yellow vase, or something of the kind.

865.

In general it may be observed that men have at all times instinctively striven after colour in the practice of the art. We need only observe daily, how soon amateurs proceed from colourless to coloured materials. Paolo Uccello painted coloured landscapes to colourless figures.--Note H H.

866.

Even the sculpture of the ancients could not be exempt from the influence of this propensity. The Egyptians painted their bas-reliefs; statues had eyes of coloured stones. Porphyry draperies were added to marble heads and extremities, and variegated stalactites were used for the pedestals of busts. The Jesuits did not fail to compose the statue of their S. Luigi, in Rome, in this manner, and the most modern sculpture distinguishes the flesh from the drapery by staining the latter.

KEEPING.

867.

If linear perspective displays the gradation of objects in their apparent size as affected by distance, aërial perspective shows us their gradation in greater or less distinctness, as affected by the same cause.

868.

Although from the nature of the organ of sight, we cannot see distant objects so distinctly as nearer ones, yet aërial perspective is grounded strictly on the important fact that all mediums called transparent are in some degree dim.

869.

The atmosphere is thus always, more or less, semi-transparent. This quality is remarkable in southern climates, even when the barometer is high, the weather dry, and the sky cloudless, for a very pronounced gradation is observable between objects but little removed from each other.

870.