This Principle Of Contrast Applies Even To Individual Colours And

: ON COLOURS AND COLOURING.

conduces greatly to good colouring. It may be carried with advantage

into the variety of hue and tint in the same colour, not only as regards

light and shade, but likewise with respect to warmth and coolness, as

well as to colour and neutrality. Hence the judicious landscape-painter

knows how to avail himself of warmth and coolness in the juxtaposition

of his greens, in addition to their lightness and darkness, or

bril
iancy and brokenness, in producing the most beautiful and varied

effects; effects which spring in other cases from a like management of

blue, white, &c. These powers of a colour upon itself are highly

important to the artist, and lead to that gratification from fine

colouring, which a good eye ever enjoys.



In landscape we see nature employing broken colours in harmonious

consonance and variety, while, equally true to picturesque relations,

she uses also broken forms and figures, in conjoint harmony with

colours; occasionally throwing into the composition a regular form, or a

primary colour, for the sake of animation and contrast. And if we

inspect her works more closely, we shall find that they have no uniform

tints. Whether in the animal, vegetable or mineral creation--flesh or

foliage, earth or sky, flower or stone--however uniform the colour may

appear at a distance, it will, when examined nearly, be found to

consist of a variety of hues and shades, compounded with harmony and

intelligence.



It is for this reason that no two colours are ever found discordant in

nature, however much so they may be in art. Blue and green have been

termed discordant, and in painting they may undoubtedly be made so. Yet

those are two colours which nature seems to intend never to be

separated, and never to be felt, either of them, in its full beauty,

without the other--a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave with

green lights through it, being precisely the loveliest things, next to

clouds at sunrise, in this coloured world of ours. A good eye for colour

will soon discover how constantly nature puts green and purple together,

purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral grey, and the

like; and how she strikes these colour-concords for general tones,

before working into them with innumerable subordinate ones.



Upon the more intimate union, or the blending and gradience of contrasts

from one to another mutually, depend some of the most fascinating

effects of colouring. The practical principle employed in producing them



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