The Painter in oil

color harmony are definite, and have been definitely 6tudied 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 diosyncrasy, 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 analagous 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 1\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.