COLOR
It was mentioned in the previous chapter that artists may be divided
into two classes: those who are particularly interested in the shape or
form of what they see, and those who see the world as an arrangement of
“colored masses.” It is the latter way of seeing things that we are now
going to consider.
We know that everything visible to the eye has color. When we think of a
garden lawn, an impression of green comes into our mind. Green, an
artist would say, is the local color of the lawn--the general hue which
distinguishes it from the paths and flower beds. There may be dandelions
spotted about the grass; indeed it is a lucky lawn that is not overrun
with them; yet, notwithstanding the yellow patches, the local color of
the lawn is green. And this is true, although here and there the grass
may appear yellow in the warm sunshine, or, where the shadows of the
trees lie, may have a bluish tinge; or again, in the distance may appear
to be almost gray. You see then, that when we begin to talk about color,
we do not think only of the general hue or local color, but also of the
changes which take place in its appearance, according as it is subject
to light and shadow or is seen near or further off.
Now let us take another case. A woman, we will suppose, has a quantity
of white cotton material which she proposes to dye blue. She buys some
indigo, and puts it in a tub of water. Into this dye-bath she plunges
the cotton, and then hangs it on a line to dry. When she has taken it
down and ironed it, it presents a uniform hue of blue, its local color.
But what happens when she has made it up into a dress? The local color
remains the same; but the appearance is no longer of a uniform hue. In
some parts the blue is paler or whiter than the local color, in other
parts darker; for now the material is not spread out smoothly, the light
no longer falls upon every part of it in the same way. The skirt, for
example, hangs in folds; and the full light strikes directly only on the
raised edges of the pleats. Into the hollow of the fold less light
penetrates, and at different angles.
Just what do we mean by angle of light? We must remember that the rays
of light coming from the sun, radiate or travel outward in straight
lines, as the spokes of a wheel radiate from the hub; except that the
spokes of light are not confined to a flat circle, but radiate in all
directions from every part of the sun’s orb. But to return to the wheel.
Let us suppose that it is a buggy’s wheel, and that the buggy is jacked
up, so that we can turn the wheel easily. We will do so until one of the
spokes is pointing straight down to the ground, and, to make sure that
it is exactly vertical, we will suspend in front of it a string with a
weight attached to its lower end. If the spoke follows exactly the
direction of this plumb line, then we know that it is pointing down
directly to the surface of the ground. We know, in fact, that the
direction of the spoke is at right angles to the surface of the ground;
or, which amounts to the same thing, we may say that the surface of the
ground is at right angles to the direction of the spoke.
But what about the direction of the other spokes of the wheel? With them
the plumb line will not help us. We must get a straight stick, say the
handle of the stable broom. If we hold this along the direction of
either of the spokes, nearest to the center one, we shall find that when
the handle touches the ground, it will be at a point further off from
the hub, and not at a right angle to the ground but at an acute angle.
If we try the same experiment with the next spoke, we may need a longer
stick, for the point where it reaches the ground will be still further
from the hub, and the angle of direction will be still more acute. If we
follow on to the next spoke, we shall probably find that its direction,
when extended, does not reach the ground. It points above it. Perhaps it
hits the barn wall; and then again comes the question: does it hit the
wall at a right angle or at an acute angle? The answer to this, if you
think a moment, will depend upon the position, not only of the spoke,
but also of the wall. For example, the spoke may point directly at the
wall, so that when you stand at the corner of the barn and run your eye
along the wall, the spoke will make a right angle with the wall’s
vertical direction. But the wall has another direction--a horizontal
one; and this may slope away from the direction of the spoke, so that if
you stand in front of the wall, your stick makes with it an acute angle.
Evidently under some circumstances a single direction may make with the
surface of the wall both an acute and a right angle.
By this time our experiment, which started out so simply, has become
perhaps a little puzzling to follow. But I don’t mind if it has; for I
wish you to realise that, although this matter of direction and angles
is simple in principle, it works out in a very complicated way. The more
we realise this, the more we shall realise the wonderful effects of
light upon color. As a beginning, let us imagine that the hub of the
wheel is a center of heat, white-hot, and that the spokes are rays of
light, not stationary like the woodwork but travelling outward at great
speed. The shaft of light that runs straight down and strikes the ground
at right angles to the surface, would make the spot where it touches
very bright. The second shaft, however as it reaches the ground further
off from the hub will illumine the spot with less light. Moreover, since
it hits an acute angle and is travelling fast, some of it will glance
off the spot. It will be reflected from the surface back and forth,
somewhat as a ball is tossed backwards and forwards from the hands of a
group of children.
This fact of reflection and the fact that the so-called angle of
reflection is the same as the angle of incidence, or, in other words,
the angle at which the light falls upon the object, explains a familiar
sight. Have you never seen, late in the afternoon, when the sun is above
the horizon, a blaze upon a hill side, so bright that your first thought
is it must be a house on fire? You saw it suddenly; and, if you walk a
few steps to the right or left, it as suddenly disappears; to reappear,
however, when you resume your former position. By this time you know it
is not a fire, but the reflection of the sun from some window or tin
roof. The light, striking down upon it, glances off, and, as you happen
to be in the line of its angle of reflection, strikes you full in the
eyes. But move your position, so as to get out of the “line of fire,”
and the reflected ray passes you by without attracting your notice.
Here is another example of reflected light, which you yourself can
control. Do you remember the fairy _Tinker Bell_, in “Peter Pan”; how
she appeared as a patch of light, dancing over the walls? Very likely
when you returned from the theater you made her appear on the walls of
your home. As you sat at the breakfast table you picked up a tumbler of
water, or a bright bladed knife, and moved it about until it caught the
light and tossed it across the room on to the wall, where you could make
the fairy hover by gently shaking the glass or knife. On the other hand
by changing the position of the glass or knife you could cause her to
disappear; to reappear if you wished it, on another part of the wall.
Now after considering the difference between direct and reflected light,
let us go back to the blue dress. We were saying, you will remember,
that the skirt no longer presented an appearance of uniform hue. For the
local color of the material had become affected by the way in which the
light reached the folds. On the raised edges the blue appears almost
white; in the bottom of the hollows, where no light penetrates, it
appears to be almost black. Meanwhile on the sloping edges of the folds
there are varying degrees of lighter or darker blue, according as the
material approaches nearer to the light, or recedes further from it. In
other words, the light strikes the surfaces of the dress at different
angles; there are varieties of reflections, and some parts of the skirt
are almost entirely removed from the action of the light.
But all this time we have been speaking of light, and yet the subject of
this chapter is color. Well, the reason is, that color is light and
light is color. If we were shut up in a cellar from which all light was
excluded, we should see no color. Our eyes would experience no
sensations of sight whatever, and, if we were left there a long time,
our eyes, not being used, would probably lose their sense of sight. But,
if after we had been in a cellar a little while surrounded by “thick
darkness” as the old English expression is--meaning a darkness so
opaque that the eye cannot penetrate it--the window shutter should be
opened a trifle, then immediately our eyes would experience a sensation
of color. The shaft of light, cutting across the darkness, would look
white; but, if it hit upon a shelf of apples, our eye would receive a
sensation of green or red or yellow. If light is color, why should it
seem white in one case and some other hue in another? It is because in
the whiteness of light are contained all the colors of which we are
conscious. Very likely you know the experiment by which the truth of
this is shown. Supposing you are still in the cellar and place in the
pathway of the shaft of light a prism--that is to say, a bar of glass
not round or square, but triangular--what will happen? The glass being
transparent, the light will pass through it. But not in a straight line;
for, as it hits one of the sloping surfaces of the prism, it will be
bent out of its course; and then, as it reaches the opposite sloping
side, it will again be bent into another direction. So the light in its
passage through the prism will have been twice bent out of its original
direction; and, when it emerges, it will be no longer a single shaft of
white light, but will appear as a broad band of many colored lights;
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. We may call this succession, a
scale of color lights. They correspond in hue and order to the bands or
scale of colored lights in the rainbow, for the latter is the result of
an act of nature, which on a very large scale is like our experiment
with the prism. Only nature’s prism is formed by a bar of rain on which
strikes a shaft of light through a slit in the thick upper clouds.
With this scale of colored lights scientists have made delicate
experiments. They have analysed the colors more exactly; discovering,
that is to say, the distinct degrees of color, for instance, between the
red and the orange, as the one passes into the other; and again between
the orange and the yellow, the yellow and the green, and so on. Then,
after discovering the succession of monochromatic tints, as they call
them, by optical instruments, they have tested the power of the human
eye to discriminate, or detect the difference between these various
tints. Notwithstanding that the difference between the latter is so
slight, they have found that the eye is sensitive to something like two
million monochromatic tints. I mention it not to trouble you with
figures but to stir your imagination; for such a fact should fill us
with admiration not only of the marvellous qualities of light but also
of the marvellous capacity of the human eye. It helps us to begin to
realise the miracle of light and the immense field of study that lies
open to the artist who is a colorist, to whom, that is to say, it is the
color of the visible world that most appeals.
Light, then, contains within itself all colors. When light falls upon an
object, for example, a leaf, the latter absorbs some of the colors of
the light and throws off others. The part thrown off in the case of the
leaf is what we call its color: green, or it may be greenish yellow, or
a bluish green, or in autumn, crimson. Every substance has this power of
absorbing some of the light and of throwing off the rest; and it is the
different chemical properties of different substances that decide which
of the colors of light they will absorb and which they will throw off;
or, as we say, causes them to be a certain color.
We have spoken of the human eye being sensitive to an immense variety of
colors. Let us consider the meaning of sensitive. In the first place,
the eye receives an impression that causes it to telegraph to the brain
a record of the hue; but it means more, for the word sensitive implies a
capacity to feel. In some way or other the brain receives an impression
of feeling. Just how it does, I understand, is not known; but scientists
tell us that these impressions of sight, while they are not quite
similar to the feelings aroused by sound, have something in common. Just
as some sounds give pleasure while others are disturbing, so with
colors--we receive from them sensations of pain or pleasure. According
to the degree of our sensitiveness to sound or color our feelings are
aroused. It may be only slightly, or it may be more intensely. It is
pleasant, for example, to hear the sound of the robin’s note, and, as we
peep out of our bedroom window to look at him, we may catch sight of the
yellow or red notes of color that the tulips are beginning to make
against the dark earth. They too will give us pleasure. And in both
cases our pleasure may go no further than just a little enjoyment of
their note of color or sound. Or, on the other hand, they may stir our
imagination. We recognise their notes as the first signs of spring.
Nature in her mysterious way has whispered alike to the robin and the
tulip that the rigor of winter is over; that spring is come with its
birth of new life, bringing beauty and happiness in its train. And in
ourselves, as we recognise the notes of spring, life leaps up with a new
sense of the beauty and happiness of living. Those notes, in fact, which
began by giving only simple pleasure to our ear, have stirred ideas in
our minds; they have become associated in our imagination with a fuller
and higher sense of life.
On the other hand, some notes of sound distress us. The unexpected
discharge of a gun may strike us unpleasantly; the roar of the wind and
the rain against the window fill us with melancholy; the cry of a
creature in pain, even before we know whence the cry comes or the reason
of it, may cut us like a knife. I mean, that sounds, quite apart from
any definite thoughts that we associate with them, may hurt us. So may
colors. I might illustrate this by saying that sometimes when we enter a
room the color of the carpet, perhaps green with red roses as big as
cabbages, and the color of the furniture, which may be of gold
upholstered in blue, seem to start up and hit us a bang in the eye. But
perhaps you like smart colors, so I will offer another example.
Shakespeare said--
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat, like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Shakespeare’s opportunity of seeing pictures had been very limited. In
fact, I am sure that he was not thinking of pictures when he described
melancholy as “green and yellow.” Either he had an instinctive dislike
of this combination that probably he could not have explained; simply he
felt it to be disagreeable; or he may have associated it in his
imagination with something he had observed. Perhaps for instance, since
he speaks in the next line of a “monument,” he may have been thinking of
the green and yellow stains on old tombstones, so that “green and
yellow” suggested to him the very opposite of “damask cheek” with its
rosiness of healthy life; in fact the signs of wasting and decay.
Anyhow, to Shakespeare’s imagination these colors represented something
disagreeable. That is the point. Colors, like sounds, may excite
feelings of distress or pleasure.
And, if single notes may give pleasure, how much more a number of them.
It is when a number of them are combined into a composition that a
harmony is produced. The musician creates a harmony of sound, the
painter a harmony of color. The secret of a harmony is the relation that
the separate notes of sound or color in it bear to one another. If I
try to explain this, it is not because I wish to tell you how to make a
color harmony, but because I hope the explanation may help you to enjoy
it. Perhaps we may get an idea of what relation means if we think of a
football team. It consists of a number of individuals with separate
duties. Some play forward, others half-back, quarter-back, and so on.
When each member not only does his own work as well as possible but
plays well into the hands of the other members, we speak of the
excellence of the team work. And in nine cases out of ten it is not
brilliant individual play, but fine all-round team-work that wins the
game. The different members are so well related to one another, that the
whole team works harmoniously.
It is similar in a harmony of colors. For perhaps you see that what I
wish you to understand is not that a few bright colors make a harmony,
but that it is the result of a combination. There must be team-work
among the colors. They count as individual spots of color, but still
more in relation to all the other colors. There may be one or more crack
players--I mean predominant[9] notes of color,--but they will have
colleagues or assistants--colors of the same hue but differing in
degree--which will repeat or echo their effect, with variations all over
the canvas. These subordinate colors and the crack ones will play in and
out, backing one another up, and, as it were, passing the ball backward
and forward into one another’s hands; acting in such exact relation to
one another, that their efforts result in a perfect harmony of effect.
But so far we have been thinking only of one team, working out its
scheme of attack and defense in practice play. There is a more
complicated play, namely, when the team is pitted against a rival team.
So in color. An artist will introduce rivalry, or competition into his
color scheme; namely, two crack notes of color that, seen by themselves,
would produce a disagreeable sensation. Why does he do so? Because he
knows the value of contrast and discord; just as you know it is more fun
to watch a game of football between two well-matched rival teams than
the merely practice play of one of them. For now the artist is pitting
one set of colors against another set; the crack players on both sides
and their backers-up--the colors of different but closely related hue;
and the game between them is fast and furious--an interplay of likes and
unlikes, of repetitions and of contrasts. The excitement of the game
results from the even balance of the two rival sets of colors, swaying
backward and forward over the gridiron--I mean the canvas--massing here
and there, then scattering in a burst of animation--the two teams so
evenly matched that their rivalry only makes the give and take of the
game more brilliantly harmonious.
Such, in a way, is the harmony of color, as it appears in the pictures
of a true colorist. It has a focal point of intensity where the effect
is massed, but all about it, scattered over the canvas, is the
interplay of related similarities and contrasts, all of which combine
into a harmonious whole.
It may help you, as it has helped me, to understand the combination of
these numberless repetitions and contrasts of color, if I tell you of an
experience of sound that I remember. I was one of a party walking in the
Swiss mountains, and at a turn in the path we came upon a man, sitting
with a gun across his knees. For a small amount this mountaineer was
prepared to let off his gun. We paid, he fired. There was a sharp
report--a focal point of sound--then a neighboring mountain side sent
back an echo, which was caught by another that sent it back, whence
again it was re-echoed from another mountain peak, and so on, back and
forth, until in a moment or two, the whole mountain world resounded with
a wondrous roar. From a single note of sound, which made a very slight
impression had grown a multiplication of slightly differing sounds. For
the first echo was slightly different to the original note, and then
again the echo of this echo differed slightly, so too the echo that came
next and the one that followed that, and so on through a scale of
slightly varying tones, that finally merged into one huge swell of
throbbing sound, as of some mighty organ music--a harmony of tumult. It
was a wonderful sensation, and has helped me to realise the wonder of
color harmony. For an artist generally founds his color scheme upon one
or two notes of color, and then by representing the echoes of these
colors, as they are reflected at different angles from the various
planes of surface, gradually elaborates or works out a maze of related
colors that merge into a harmony.
On the other hand it is not only by painting the interplay of
reflections that an artist produces a harmony of color. There is a less
complicated way, represented in Japanese prints and paintings, and in
the work done by some of our artists who have adopted their method. In
this case the color is flat; the objects, that is to say, are not
modeled by lights and darks. The form, instead of being actually
represented is only suggested. Consequently there are no reflections and
the colors are laid on flatly and smoothly. But they are most carefully
related to one another; both in quantity and tint. The artist, for
example, may use only rose and lavender and black. But his sense of
color is first shown in his choice of the particular tints of rose and
lavender and black, and then secondly, in his distribution of these on
the white paper. Perhaps he determines to make the black his crack
player. But he wishes to produce a balance of harmony of all his colors,
so he carefully considers how large a space the chief spot of black
shall occupy, and then what quantity of the remaining spaces shall be
occupied by the rose and lavender and the white paper. Having thus
worked out the ground plan of the scheme, he may elaborate it by
repeating some of the black in other parts of the picture, and by
introducing echoes of the rose and lavender in the large spot of black.
The echoes, in this case, you observe, are not reflections, they are
simply repetitions in smaller quantities of the colors of the main
spots. His composition, in fact, is a pattern of main spots, and their
echoes; the whole presenting a unity and harmony because the colors are
in exact relation.
And when this has been done either in a simple harmony or a more
elaborate one, with the true feeling of a colorist, no alteration can be
made in any part of the picture without producing a discord, destroying,
that is to say, the exquisite balance of the whole. I mean, that if, for
instance, you were to cut off a part of the picture in order to make it
fill a frame, you would destroy the harmony of the whole. For now the
relation of the colors will have been disturbed. There is no longer the
same balance in the quantity of each, nor do they occupy the same
related position in the composition.
In a word, as we said above, the secret of color harmony is the relation
of the separate colors to one another and the whole.