310. They who know the difficulties of _chiaro-’scuro_ and drawing, may give the name of colourists to painters remarkable for the skill with which they bring out objects placed upon the different planes of their pictures, by means of correct drawing and a skilful gradation of light and shade, even when their pictures do not exactly produce every modification of coloured light, and have not this harmony of different colours properly distributed to complete the effects of perfect colouring. 311. Persons unaccustomed to judge of painting, or _chiaro-’scuro_, are generally inclined to refuse the title of colourist to such painters, while they unhesitatingly accord it to others who reproduce the modifications of coloured light, and who tastefully distribute the different colours of their pictures. Besides, the eye is so powerfully influenced by colour, that frequently those who are strangers to painting can only conceive a colourist to be skilful whose tints are vivid, although his works may evince a want of observation. 312. We see by this how judgments will differ according to the importance respectively attached to one quality of colouring rather than to another. 313. For a painter to be a perfect colourist, he must not only imitate the model by reproducing the image faithfully, with respect to the variously coloured light, but also with regard to harmony of tints in the local colours, and in the colours of the different objects imitated. And although there are colours inherent to the model, which the painter cannot change without being unfaithful to nature, yet, in every composition, there are also colours at his disposal which must be chosen so as to harmonize with the rest. We shall return to this subject in the next chapter. 314. It is thus evident, that when a change in the colours of a picture has been effected by time, it is impossible to decide whether the artist who painted it should be called a _perfect_ colourist (310). But if we refer to what I have said of the painter who has correctly seized all the modifications of light adapted to bring out the distances and relief of objects, who has truly represented the modifications of coloured light, but which are not those of the model (312), we may very easily conceive how, at the present day, after the lapse of centuries, we may apply the name of _colourist_ to Albano, Titian, Rubens, and others. In fact, the pictures of these great masters now present to us gradations, more or less perfect, of light and shade, and such harmonies of colours, that it is impossible to mistake or not to admire them; and the idea that many pictures, not more than twenty or five-and-twenty years old, painted by artists of undoubted ability, have failed in colour more than the preceding, also increases our admiration of the latter. CHAPTER II. _Utility of the Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colours in the Art of Colouring._ 315. As to the advantages the painter will find in it when it is required,—