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
Hence citrine, according to its name, which is that of a class of
colours and used commonly for a dark yellow, partakes in a subdued
degree of all the powers of its archeus yellow. In estimating,
therefore, its properties and effects in painting, it is to be regarded
as participating of all the relations of yellow. By some this colour is
improperly called brown, as almost all broken colours are. The
harmonizing contrast of citrine is a _deep purple_, which may be seen
beautifully opposed to it in nature, when the green of summer declines.
As autumn advances, citrine tends towards its orange hues, including the
colours termed aurora, chamoise, and others before enumerated under the
head of yellow. It is the most advancing of the tertiary colours, or
nearest in relation to light; and is variously of a tender, modest,
cheering character.
To understand and relish the harmonious relations and expressive powers
of the tertiary colours, require a cultivation of perception and a
refinement of taste for which study and practice are needed. To a great
extent the colourist, like the poet, is born not made; but although he
must have an innate sense of the beautiful and the true, hard work
alone, with his head, his eyes, and his hands, will enable him to learn
and turn to account the complex beauties and relations of tertiary
colours. They are at once less definite and less generally evident, but
more delightful--more frequent in nature, though rarer in common art,
than the like relations of the secondaries and primaries. There is very
little pure colour in the world: now and then a gleam dazzles us, like a
burst of sunshine through grey mists; but as a rule, nature prefers
broken colours to absolute hues. Most pure in spring, most full in
summer, most mellow in autumn, most sober in winter, her tints and
shades of colour are always more or less interlaced, from white and the
primaries to the semi-neutral and black.
Of original citrine-coloured pigments there are only a few, unless we
include several imperfect yellows which might not improperly be called
citrines. The following are best entitled to this appellation:--
223. BROWN PINK,
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