The subject of color naturally divides, for the painter, into two branches,—color as a quality, and color as material. Considered in the former class, it divides into an abstract a theoretical and a scientific subject; considered in the latter, it is a material and technical one. The material and technical side has been treated of in the Chapter on "Pigments." In this chapter we will have to do with color considered as an Æsthetic element.

The Abstract.—The quality of color is the third of the great elements or qualities, through the management of which the painter works Æsthetically.

Just as he uses all the material elements of his picture as the means of making concrete and visible those combinations of line and mass which go to the making of the Æsthetic structure, so he uses these in the expression of the ideal in combinations of color. In this relation nothing stands to him for what it is, but for what it may be made to do for the color-scheme of his picture. If he wants a certain red in a certain place, he wants it because it is red, and it makes little difference to him, thinking in color, whether that red note is actually made by a file of red-coated soldiers, by a scarlet ribbon, or by a lobster. The scarlet spot is what he is thinking of, and what object most naturally and rightly gives it to him is a matter to be decided by the demands of the subject of the picture; and its fitness as to that is the only thing which has any influence beyond the main fact that red color is needed at that point. If he were a designer of conventional ornament, the color problem would be the same. At that point a spot of red would be needed, and a spot of paint would do it. The painter thinks in color the same way, but he expresses himself in different materials.

The Ideal.—This is the reason that a still-life painting is as interesting to a painter as a subject which to another finds its great interest in the telling of a story. To the painter the story, or the objects which tell it, are of minor importance. That the picture is beautiful in color is what moves him. As composition and color the thing is an admirable piece of Æsthetic thinking and Æsthetic expression, and so gives him a purely Æsthetic delight; and the technical process is secondary with him, interesting only because he is a technician. The representation of the objects incidental to the subject is as incidental to his interest, as it is to the picture considered as an Æsthetic thought. This is what the layman finds it so impossible to take into his mental consciousness. And it is probable that many painters do not so distinguish their artistic point of view from their human point of view. But consciously or unconsciously the painter does think in these terms of color, line, and mass when he is working out his picture; and whether he admits it to himself or not, these characteristics are the great influencing facts in his judgment of pictures, as well as in the growth and permanency of his own fame. That is why a great popular reputation dies so rapidly in many instances. The Æsthetic qualities of the man's work are the only ones which can insure a permanent reputation for that work; for the art of painting is fundamentally Æsthetic, and nothing external to that can give it an artistic value. Without that its popularity and fame are only matters of accidental coincidence with popular taste.

If a painter is really great in the power of conception and of expression of any of the great Æsthetic elements, his work will be permanently great. It will be acknowledged to be so by the consensus of the world's opinion in the long run; nothing else can make it so, and nothing but obliteration can prevent it.

I am explicit in stating these ideas, not because I expect that you will learn from this book to be a great master of the Æsthetic, but because I am assured that you can never be a painter unless you understand a painter's true problems. You must be able to know a good picture in order to make a good picture, and however little you try for, your work will be the better for having a painter's way of looking at a painter's work. The technical problems are the control of the materials of expression. The painter must have that control. The student's business is to attain that control, and then he has the means to convey his ideas. But those ideas, if he be a true painter, are not ideas of history or of fiction, but ideas of line and mass and color, and of their combinations.

The Color Sense.—Therefore color is a thing to be striven for for its own sake. Good color is a value in itself. You may not have the genius to be a good colorist, but you need not be a bad one; for the color sense can be definitely acquired. I will not say that color initiative can always be acquired; but the power to perceive and to judge good color can be, and it will go far towards the making of a good painter, even of a great one.

I knew one painter who came near to greatness, and near to greatness as a colorist, who in twelve years trained his eye and feeling from a very inferior perception of color to the power which, as I say, came near to greatness. He was an able painter and a well-trained one before that; but in this direction he was deficient, and he deliberately set about it to educate that side of himself, with the result I have stated. How did he do it? Simply by recognizing where he needed training, and working constantly from nature to perceive fine distinctions of tone; and by careful and severe self-criticism. Summer after summer he went out-doors and worked with colors and canvas to study out certain problems. Every year he set himself mainly one problem to solve. This year it might be luminosity; next it might be the domination of a certain color; another year the just discrimination of tones—and he became a most exquisite colorist.

So, as I knew his work before and after this self-training, and as I know personally of the means he took to attain his purpose, I think I can speak positively of the fact that such development of the color sense is possible.

Taste.—It is well to remember that taste in color is not dependent on personal judgment alone; that what is good and what is bad in color does not rest on mere opinion. That a good colorist's idea of color does not agree with your own is not a matter of mere whim or liking, in which you have quite as good a right to your opinion as he has to his. The colorist, it is true, does not produce or judge of color by rule. He works from his feeling of what is right. But there is a law back of his taste and feeling. The laws of color harmony are definite, and have been definitely studied and definitely calculated. Color depends for its existence on waves of vibration of rays of light, just as sound is dependent on sound waves.

Color Waves.—These waves of light give sensations of color which vary with the rapidity or length of the wave, and certain combinations of wave lengths will be harmonious (beautiful), and others will not be. This is a matter of scientific fact; it is not a notion. The mathematical relations of color waves have been calculated as accurately as the relations of sound waves have been. It is possible to make combinations of mathematical figures which shall represent a series of harmonious color waves. And it is possible to measure the waves radiated from a piece of bad coloring and prove them, mathematically, to be bad color.

It is a satisfaction to the artist to know that this is so; because although he will never compose color-schemes by the aid of mathematics, it gives him solid ground to stand on, and it diminishes the assurance of the man who claims the right to assert his opinion on color because "one man's taste is as good as another's." It is also encouraging to the student to know it, because he then knows that there is a definite knowledge, and not a personal idiosyncrasy, on which he can found his attempts to cultivate this side of his artistic life.

Color Composition.—The artist's problem in color composition is analogous to that of line and mass, but is of course governed by conditions peculiar to it. The qualities which derive from line and mass are emphasized or modified by the management of color in relation to them. The painter in this direction uses the three elements together. Contrast and accent are attributes of color. Dignity and weight, as well as certain emotional qualities, such as vivacity and sombreness, may give the key to the picture in accordance with the arrangement of its color-scheme.

The mass may be simplified and strengthened, or broken up and lightened, by the color of the forms in it. By massing groups of objects in the same color, or by introducing different colors in the different forms in the same group, the mass is emphasized or weakened. So in line, the same color in repetition will carry the line through a series of otherwise isolated forms, and effect the emphasis of line. Masses can be strung into line, like beads, on a thread of color. In the great compositions of the old Venetian painters this marshalling of color groups constituted a principal element. The decorative unity of these great canvases could have been possible in no other way.

As I have said, the key of the color-scheme has a direct emotional effect, so adding to the power and dignity or the grace and lightsomeness of the composition. The analogy between color and imagination is marked. Certain temperaments instinctively express their ideals through color. To the painter color may be an all-influencing power; it is the glory of painting.

Drawing appeals to the intellect, but color speaks directly to the emotions, and conveys at a glance the idea which is re-enforced through the slower intellectual perception of the meaning of forms. In some unexplained way it expresses to the observer the temperamental mood; the joyousness, the severity or agitation which was the cause of its conception. In this strange but direct manner the color note aids the expression by line and mass of the Æsthetic emotion which is the meaning of the painter's thought.

Key.—The key, then, is an important part of the picture. The very terms warm and cold applied to colors suggest what may be done by color arrangement. The pitch of the picture places it, in the emotional scale.

Tone.—Tone is harmony; the perfect balance of color in all parts of the picture. Fine color always means the presence, in all the color of the picture, of all the three primaries in greater or less proportion. Leave one color out in some proportion, and you have just so much less of a balance. I do not mean that some touch may not be pure color. On the contrary, the whole picture may be built up of touches of pure color. But the balance of color must be made then by touches of the different colors balancing each other, not only all over the picture, but in each part of it, to avoid crudity or over-proportion of any color. Generally the color scheme is dominated by some one color: which means that every touch of color on the canvas is modified to some extent by the presence of that color, keeping the whole in key. Each color retains its personal quality, but the quality of the dominant color is felt in it.

False Tone.—This is not to be attained by painting the picture regardless of color relations, and then glazing or scumbling some color all over the whole. This is the false tone of some of the older historical painters, particularly of the English school of the earlier part of this century. They "painted" the picture, and then just before exhibiting it "toned" it by glazing it all over with a large brush and some transparent pigment, generally bitumen. This did, in fact, bring the picture in tone after a fashion. But it is not a colorist's method. It is the rule of thumb method of a false technique and a vicious color sense. True tone is not something put onto the picture after it is painted. It is an inherent part of its color conception, and is worked into it while the picture is being painted, and grows to perfection with the growth of the picture. It is of the very essence of the picture. It is the dominant balance of color qualities; the result of a perfect appreciation of the value of every color spot which goes to the expression of the artist's thought.

In one sense it is the same as atmosphere in that the tonality of the picture is the atmosphere which pervades it. It may perhaps be best described by saying that it is that combination of color which gives to the picture the effect of every object and part in it having been seen under the same conditions of atmosphere; having been seen at the same time, with the same modification, and with the same degree and quality of light vibration. Tone is color value as distinguished from value as degree of power as light and shade; and in this is the perfection of subtlety of color feeling.

Tone Painters and Colorists.—Some painters have been called "tone painters," while others have been called "colorists;" not that tone painters are not colorists, but that there is a difference. It is a difference of aim, a difference of desire. Those painters who are usually called colorists, like Titian and Rubens, are in love with the richness and power of the color gamut. They are full of the splendor of color. They paint in full key, however balanced the canvas. Each note of color tells for its full power. Their stop is the open diapason, and their harmony is the harmony of large intervals and full chords. The tone painter deals with close intervals. He is in love with subtle harmonies. What he loves is the essence of the color quality, and not its splendor. With the closest range he can give all possible half-tones and shades and modulations of color, yet never exceed the gray note perhaps; never once go to the full extent of his palette-power.

The utmost delicacy of perception and feeling, and the most perfect command of materials and of values, are necessary to such a painter. Above all, is he the "painter's painter," for the infinite subtlety and the exquisiteness of power are his. And yet this is the thing least appreciated by the lay mind, the most difficult to encompass, and requiring the most knowledge to appreciate.

Scientific Color.—To the scientist color is simply the irritation of the nerves of the retina of the eye by the waves of light. Different wave lengths give different color sensations. It is the generally accepted theory now that there are three primary sensations; that is, that the eye is sensitive to three kinds of color, and that all other shades and varieties of color are the results of mingling or overlapping of the waves which produce those three colors, and irritating more or less the nerves sensitive to each color simultaneously. These three primary colors are now stated to be red, blue, and green. The older idea was that they were red, blue, and yellow; and was based on experiments with pigments. Pigments do give these results; for a mixture of blue and yellow pigment will give green, and a mixture of red and green pigment will not give yellow, while the reverse is the fact with light.

White light is composed of all the colors. And the white light may be broken up (separated by refraction or the turning aside of light rays from their true course) into the colors of the rainbow, which is itself only this same decomposition of light by atmospheric refraction. Black is the absence of light, and consequently of color. This is not the case with pigment, for pure pigment has never been produced. The pigment simply reflects light rays which fall on it; that is, pigments have the power of absorbing, and so rendering invisible, certain of the rays which, combined, make up the white light which illumines them; and of transmitting others to the eye by reflection. We see, that is, our nerves of sight are irritated by, those rays which are not absorbed, but which are reflected.

All pigment is more or less absorbent of color rays, and more or less reflective of them; certain color rays being absorbed by a pigment, and certain other rays being reflected by it. The pigment is named according to those rays which it reflects. As a color-producing substance, then, the pigment is practically a mirror reflecting color rays. But a true mirror would reflect all rays unmodified. If we could paint with mirrors, each of which would reflect its own color unsullied, we could do what the scientist does with light; but the painter deals with an imperfect mirror which gives no color rays back unsullied by rays of another class, and so our results cannot be the same as the scientist's. So that just in accordance with the degree of purity of transmitting power of a pigment will be the purity of the color which we get by its use. But absolute purity of pigment we cannot get, so we cannot deal with it as we do with light, and we deal with a practical fact rather than a scientific fact, as painters.

Primaries and Secondaries.—As all the other shades of color are produced by the combinations (over-lappings) of the waves or vibrations in the light rays from the primary colors, we have a series of colors called secondaries, because they are made up of the rays of any two of the three primaries: as purple, which is a combination of blue and red. When dealing with light the secondaries are: shades of violet and purple from red and blue; shades of orange red, orange, orange yellow, yellow, and yellowish green from red and green; and bluish green and greenish blue from blue and green—the character of the color being decided by the proportions of the primaries in the mixture. These conclusions have been reached mainly through experiments in white light. The primaries so obtained do not hold good with pigment, as I have stated, but the principles do. It will avoid confusion if I speak hereafter of the combinations as they occur with pigment, it being borne in mind that it is a practical fact that we are dealing with rather than a scientific one.

In dealing with pigment the primaries are red, blue, and yellow, not green. Of course the secondaries are also changed; and we have purple and violet shades from red and blue, orange from red and yellow, and green from blue and yellow—all of which vary in shade with the proportion of the mixture of the primaries, as is the case with light.

Tertiaries.—Another class of shades or colors is called tertiary, or third; for they are mixtures of all the three primaries, or of a primary with a secondary which does not result from mixture with that primary. Tertiaries are all grays, and grays are practically always tertiaries. If you keep this in mind as a technical fact, it will help you in management of color. Grays are, to the painter, always combinations of color which include the three primaries. The usual idea is that gray is more or less of a negation of color. This is not so. Gray is the balancing of all color, so that any true harmony of color, however rich it may be, is always quiet in effect as a whole; that is, grayish—good color is never garish. It is very important that the painter should understand this characteristic of color. You cannot be too familiar with the management of grays. If you try to make your grays with negative colors, you will not produce harmonious color, but negative color, and negative color is only a shirking of the true problem. Grays made of mixtures of pure colors, balancings of primaries and secondaries, that is, modifications of the tertiaries, are quite as quiet in effect and quite as beautiful as any, but they are also more luminous; they are live color instead of dead color. Grays made by mixing black with everything are the reverse, and should not be used except when you use black as a color (which it is in pigment), giving a certain color quality to the gray that results from it.

Complementary Colors.—Two colors are said to be complementary to each other when they together contain the three primaries in equal strength. Green, for instance, is the complementary of red, for it contains yellow and blue; orange (yellow and red) is complementary to blue; and purple (red and blue) is complementary to yellow.

The knowledge of complements of colors is very important to the painter, for all the effects of color contrast and color harmony are due to this. Complementary colors, in mass, side by side, contrast. The greatest possible contrast is that of the complementaries.

Complementary colors mixed, or so placed that small portions of them are side by side, as in hatching or stippling, give the tertiaries or grays by the mixing of the rays.

The Law of Color Contrast.—"When two dissimilar colors are placed in contiguity, they are always modified in such a manner as to increase their dissimilarity."

Warm and Cold Colors.—Red and yellow are called warm colors, and blue is called a cold color. This is not that the color is really cold or warm, of course, but that they convey the impression of warmth and coldness. It is mainly due to association probably, for those things which are warm contain a large proportion of yellow or red, and those which are cold contain more blue. There is a predominance of cold color in winter and of the warm colors in summer.

From the primaries various degrees of warmth and coldness characterize the secondaries and tertiaries, as they contain more or less proportionately of the warm or cold primaries.

In contrasting colors these qualities have great effect.

Color Juxtaposition.—In studying the facts of color contrast and color juxtaposition you will find that two pigments, if mixed in the ordinary way, will have one effect; and the same pigments in the same proportions, mixed not by stirring them into one mass, but by laying separate spots or lines of the pigment side by side, produce quite another. The gain in brilliancy by the latter mode of mixing is great, because you have mixed the color rays, which are really light rays, instead of mixing the pigment as in the usual way. You have really mixed the color by mixing light as far as it is possible to do it with pigment. You have taken advantage of all the light reflecting power of the pigment on which the color effect depends. Each pigment, being nearly pure, reflects the rays of color peculiar to it, unaffected by the neutralizing effect of another color mixed with it; while the neutralizing power of the other color being side by side with it, the waves or vibrations of the color rays blend by overlapping as they come side by side to the eye; and so the color, made up of the two waves as they blend, is so much more vibrant and full of life.

"Yellow and Purple."—It is this principle which is the cause of the peculiarity in the technique of certain "Impressionist" painters. The "yellow lights and purple shadows" is only placing by the side of a color that color which will be most effective in forcing its note.

Brilliancy is what these men are after, and they get it by the study of the law of color contrast and color juxtaposition. The effect of complementaries in color contrast is what you must study for this, for the theory of it. For the practice of it, study carefully and faithfully the actual colors in nature, and try to see what are the real notes, what the really component colors, of any color contrast or light contrast which you see. Purple shadows and yellow light re-enforcing each other you will find to exist constantly in nature. Refine your color perception, and you will be able to get the result without the obviousness of the means which has brought down the condemnation on it. Closer study of the relations is the way to find the art of concealing art.

But yellow and purple are not the only complementaries. All through the range of color, the secondaries and tertiaries as well as the primaries, this principle of complement plays a part. There is no color effect you can use in painting which does not have to do, more or less, with the placing of the complementary color in mass, to emphasize; or mixed through to neutralize, the force of it. Train your eyes to see what the color is which makes the effect. Analyze it, see the parts in the thing, so that you may get the thing in the same way, if you would get it of the same force as in nature.

Practical Color.—All these theoretical ideas as to color have their relation to the actual handling of pigment, which is the craft of the painter. The facts of contrasting and harmonizing color relation have a practical bearing on the painter's work, both in what he is to express and how he is to do it; as to his conception of a picture and his representation of facts. In his conception he must deal with the possibilities of effect of color on color. The power of one color to strengthen the personal hue of another, or its power to modify that hue, is a fact bearing on whether the color in the picture is the true image of the color he has seen in his mind. In the same degree must this possibility affect his representation of actual objects.

The greatest possibilities of luminosity in sunlight or atmospheric effects come from the power to produce vibration by cool contrasted with warm color. You will find that a red is not so rich in any position as when you place its complementary near it. At times you will find it impossible to get the snap and sparkle to a scarlet—cannot make it carry, cannot make it felt in your picture as you want it without placing a touch of purple, perhaps, just beside it; to place near by a darker note will not have the same effect. It is the contrast of color vibration, not the contrast of light and shade, which gives the life. And at the same time that you enhance the brilliancy of the several notes of color in the picture, you harmonize the whole. For the mosaic of color spots all over the canvas brings about the balance of color in the composition, and harmony is the result.

Study Relations.—You must constantly study the actual relations of color in nature. You will find, if you look for it, that always, just where in art you would need a touch of the complementary for strength or for harmony, nature has put it there. She does it so subtly that only a close observer would suspect it. But the thing is there, and it is your business to be the close observer who sees it, both for your training as a colorist, and your use as an interpreter of nature's beauties. It is your business to see subtly, for nature uses colors subtly. The note sparkles in nature, but you do not notice the complementary color near it. Can you not also place the complementary color so that it is not seen, but its influence on the important color is felt? It is by searching out these finesses of nature that you train your eye. You must actually see these colors. At first you may only know that they must be there because the effect is there. But your eye is capable of actually recognizing them themselves, and you are no painter till it can. The theoretical knowledge is and should be a help to you, but the actual power of sight is most important. A painter may use theoretical knowledge to help his self-training, but power of eye he must have as the result of that training. The instantaneous recognition of facts and relations, the immediate and perfect union of eye and thought, are what make that intuitive perception which is the true feeling of the artist.

Work this out with eye and palette. Study the color and its relation in nature, and study its analogy in the pigment touches on the canvas.

The Palette.—You try to attain nature's effects of light with pigment. Pigment is less pure than light. You cannot have the same scale, the same range, but you must do the best you can, and the arrangement of your palette will help you. As you have not a perfect blue, a perfect red, and a perfect yellow, you must have two colors for one. Your paints will always be more or less impurely primary. No one red will make a pure purple with blue, and an equally pure orange with yellow. Yet pure purple and pure orange you must be able to make. Have, then, both a yellowish or orange red and a bluish or purplish red on your palette. Do the same with blue and yellow. In this way you can not only get approximately pure secondaries when you need them, but the primaries themselves lean somewhat towards the secondaries, so that you can make very delicate combinations with pure colors. A bluish yellow and a yellowish blue, for instance, will make a rather positive green. By using a reddish yellow and a bluish or purplish red, you practically bring in the red note, and make a grayer green while still using only two pigments.

So, too, you get similar control of effects by the use of opaque or transparent pigments, the transparent ones tending to richness, the opaque to dulness of color. Various processes in the manner of laying on paint bring about these different qualities, and will be spoken of in the chapter on "Processes."

Classify your pigments in your mind in accordance with these characteristics. Think of the ochres, for instance, as mainly opaque, and as yellows tending to the reddish. With any blue they make gray greens because of the latter quality, and they make gray oranges with red because of the dulness of their opacity and body. For richer greens think of the lighter chromes and cadmium yellows or citrons; and for the richer oranges, the deeper cadmiums and chromes. With reds, work the same way, scarlet or orange vermilions for one side of the scale, and the Chinese or bluish vermilion on the other side. The deeper and heavier reds fall in line the same way. Indian red is bluish, light red and Venetian red are yellowish.