The laws of contrast of colour : $b and their application to the arts of painting, decoration of buildings, mosaic work, tapestry and carpet weaving, calico printing, dress, paper staining, printing, military clothing, illumination, landscape, and flower gardening, &c.Chevreul, M. E. (Michel Eugène)
Science
The laws of contrast of colour : $b and their application to the arts of painting, decoration of buildings, mosaic work, tapestry and carpet weaving, calico printing, dress, paper staining, printing, military clothing, illumination, landscape, and flower gardening, &c.
Chevreul, M. E. (Michel Eugène)
Color
323. From this principle it results that in many cases where grey
is near to a pure colour in the model, the painter, if he wishes to
imitate this grey which appears to him tinted with the complementary of
the pure colour, need not use a coloured grey, as the effect will be
produced in the imitation by the juxtaposition of the colour with the
grey contiguous to it.
Besides, the importance of this principle cannot be doubted, when
we consider that all the modifications which a monochromous object
presents (excepting those which result from the reflections of coloured
lights emanating from neighbouring objects,) arise from the different
relations of position between the parts of the object and the eye of
the spectator; so that it is strictly true to say that, to reproduce by
painting all these modifications, it suffices to have a colour exactly
identical to that of the model, with black and white. In fact, with
white we can reproduce all the modifications due to the weakening of
the colour by light, and with black, those which are due to the height
of its tone. If the colour of the model in certain parts gives rise
to the manifestation of its complementary, because these parts do not
return to the eye enough colour and white light to neutralize this
manifestation, the modification may be imitated by the employment of a
normal grey tone, properly surrounded with the colour of the object.
It is necessary, in many cases, to employ with the colour of the
object the colours which are near it; that is to say, the hues of the
colour. For example; in imitating a rose, we can employ red shaded with
a little yellow, and a little blue, or, in other terms, shaded with
orange and violet; but the green shadows which we perceive in certain
parts arise from the juxtaposition of red and normal grey.
5. To put a dark colour near a different, but lighter colour, is to
heighten the tone of the first, and to lower that of the second,
independently of the modification resulting from the mixture of the
complementaries. An important consequence of this principle is, that
the first effect may neutralize the second, or even oppose it. For
example; a light blue placed beside a yellow tinges it orange, and
consequently heightens its tone; while there are some blues, so dark
relatively to the yellow, that they weaken it so much as not only to
hide the orange tint, but even to cause sensitive eyes to feel that
the yellow is rather green than orange. A very natural result, if we
consider that the paler the yellow, the greener it appears.
6. Put beside each other two flat tints of different tones of the same
colour, chiaro-’scuro is produced, because, in setting out from the
line of juxtaposition, the tint of the band of the highest tone is
insensibly enfeebled, while, setting out from the same line, the tint
of the band of the lowest tone becomes heightened; thus there is a true
gradation of light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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