Field's Chromatography: or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by ArtistsField, George
Science
Field's Chromatography: or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists
Field, George
Color; Colors; Painting -- Technique
was first introduced to the art-world at the International Exhibition of
1862, where it was universally admired for its extreme brilliancy and
beauty, a brilliancy equalled by few of the colours with which it was
associated, and a beauty devoid of coarseness. We remember well the
power it possessed of attracting the eye from a distance; and how, on
near approach, it threw nearly all other pigments into the shade. It has
in truth a lustrous luminosity not often to be met with, added to a
total absence of rankness or harshness. A simple original colour,
containing no base but cadmium, it is of perfect permanence, being
uninjured by exposure to light, air or damp, by sulphuretted hydrogen,
or by admixture. Having in common with cadmium sulphides a certain
amount of transparency, it is invaluable for gorgeous sunsets and the
like, either alone or compounded with aureolin. Of great depth and power
in its full touches, the pale washes are marked by that clearness and
delicacy which are so essential in painting skies. As day declines, and
blue melts into green, green into orange, and orange into purple, the
proper use of this pigment will produce effects both glowing and
transparent. Transparency signifies the quality of being seen through or
into; and in no better way can it be arrived at than by giving a number
of thin washes of determined character, each lighter than the preceding
one. With due care in preserving their forms, from the commencement to
the termination, such washes of orange will furnish hues the softest and
most aerial. For bits of bright drapery, a glaze over autumn leaves, and
mural decoration, this colour is adapted; while in illumination it
supplies a want formerly much felt. "With the exception of scarlet or
bright orange," said Mr. Bradley, nine or ten years since, in his Manual
of Illumination, "our colours are everything we could wish." As an
original pigment, a permanent scarlet does not yet exist; but the
brilliancy of cadmium orange cannot be disputed, nor its claim to be the
only unexceptionable bright orange known. It even assists the formation
of the other colour: remarks the author mentioned, "Brilliancy is
obtained by gradation. Suppose a scarlet over-curling leaf, for example.
The whole should be painted in pure orange, with the gentlest possible
after-touch of vermilion towards the corner under the curl. When dry, a
firm line--not wash--of carmine, (of madder, preferable.--_Ed._), passed
within the outline on the shade side only of the leaf, will give to the
whole the look of a bright scarlet surface, but with an indescribable
superadded charm, that no merely flat colour can possess." In the same
branch of art, illumination, cadmium orange, opposed to viridian,
presents a most dazzling contrast, especially if relieved by purple.
157. CHINESE ORANGE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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