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

In the process of colouring, the preparation merely washed as it were underneath, was always effective. A drapery, for example, was painted with a transparent colour, the white ground shone through it and gave the colour life, so the parts previously prepared for shadows exhibited the colour subdued, without being mixed or sullied.

905.

This method had many advantages; for the painter had a light ground for the light portions of his work and a dark ground for the shadowed portions. The whole picture was prepared; the artist could work with thin colours in the shadows, and had always an internal light to give value to his tints. In our own time painting in water colours depends on the same principles.

906.

Indeed a light ground is now generally employed in oil-painting, because middle tints are thus found to be more transparent, and are in some degree enlivened by a bright ground; the shadows, again, do not so easily become black.

907.

It was the practice for a time to paint on dark grounds. Tintoret probably introduced them. Titian's best pictures are not painted on a dark ground.

908.

The ground in question was red-brown, and when the subject was drawn upon it, the strongest shadows were laid in; the colours of the lights impasted very thickly in the bright parts, and scumbled towards the shadows, so that the dark ground appeared through the thin colour as a middle tint. Effect was attained in finishing by frequently going over the bright parts and touching on the high lights.

909.

If this method especially recommended itself in practice on account of the rapidity it allowed of, yet it had pernicious consequences. The strong ground increased and became darker, and the light colours losing their brightness by degrees, gave the shadowed portions more and more preponderance. The middle tints became darker and darker, and the shadows at last quite obscure. The strongly impasted lights alone remained bright, and we now see only light spots on the painting. The pictures of the Bolognese school, and of Caravaggio, afford sufficient examples of these results.

910.

We may here in conclusion observe, that glazing derives its effect from treating the prepared colour underneath as a light ground. By this operation colours may have the effect of being mixed to the eye, may be enhanced, and may acquire what is called tone; but they thus necessarily become darker.

PIGMENTS.

911.

We receive these from the hands of the chemist and the investigator of nature. Much has been recorded respecting colouring substances, which is familiar to all by means of the press. But such directions require to be revised from time to time. The master meanwhile communicates his experience in these matters to his scholar, and artists generally to each other.

912.

Those pigments which according to their nature are the most permanent, are naturally much sought after, but the mode of employing them also contributes much to the duration of a picture. The fewest possible colouring materials are to be employed, and the simplest methods of using them cannot be sufficiently recommended.

913.

For from the multitude of pigments colouring has suffered much. Every pigment has its peculiar nature as regards its effect on the eye; besides this it has its peculiar quality, requiring a corresponding technical method in its application. The former circumstance is a reason why harmony is more difficult of attainment with many materials than with few, the latter, why chemical action and re-action may take place among the colouring substances.

914.

We may refer, besides, to some false tendencies which the artists suffer themselves to be led away with. Painters are always looking for new colouring substances, and believe when such a substance is discovered that they have made an advance in the art. They have a great curiosity to know the practical methods of the old masters, and lose much time in the search. Towards the end of the last century we were thus long tormented with wax-painting. Others turn their attention to the discovery of new methods, through which nothing new is accomplished; for, after all, it is the feeling of the artist only that informs every kind of technical process.

ALLEGORICAL, SYMBOLICAL, MYSTICAL APPLICATION OF COLOUR.

915.

It has been circumstantially shown above, that every colour produces a distinct impression on the mind, and thus addresses at once the eye and feelings. Hence it follows that colour may be employed for certain moral and æsthetic ends.

916.