Eastlake's Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters
Eastlake, Sir Charles Lock [One-time President of the Royal Academy], Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters [Formerly titled: Materials for a History of Oil Painting]. Vol. One. New York; Dover Publications, Inc. 1960 [Originally published by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans in 1847]
These colours are generally found together in nature. Thus when the sky is nearest to blue [for when the clouds are coloured it is no longer a pure blue], the clouds, with their warmish light grey, represent the same harmony which the above experiment gives, and which would be agreeable in a drapery. Green leaves give their negative light in their under colourless parts, and give as they change their tints also the colours that harmonize with green, such as brown, warm and cool, light yellowish brown, &c. A rose gives a cool light like the warm colours above mentioned, being most coloured in its reflexions, where the colour is multiplied into its real strength.
These things are easily arrived at with the more positive colours, but the colourist is shown most in balancing and adjusting with equal nicety those which are the most nameless. Any common colour, [p. 317] such as the tone of the ground or rock, a tree, &c., has its true negative light and its true shade. A picture that is full of exquisite harmonies of this kind, even to the most undefined subdivisions of the colours, is highly finished; and this is one of the highest excellences of oil painting, because it is an excellence peculiar to this art. [pp. 316-318]
Copyright
The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only. The contents of this site may not be reproduced in any form without proper reference to Text, Author, Publisher, and Date of Publication [and page #s when suitable].