Colors

"[P]ure light, such as that from the sun has no color, but is made colored by its degradation when interacting with objects having specific properties which then produce color."

"[L]ight ...is the colour of the transparent medium contingently determined; for when anything of the nature of fire is found in the transparent medium its presence constitutes light, its absence darkness. ...[T]he transparent element is nothing which is found exclusively ...in any one of the substances ...it ...finds its existence in these bodies and subsists in varying degrees in the rest of material substances. ...[T]he Pythagorean terminology identified the visible superficies with colour. ...[C]olour exists in the boundary, but it by no means is the boundary of the body ...internally there exists the same constitution as externally displays colour. ...Colour ...is the limit of the transparent element in a determinately bounded body ...both in transparent substances ...and in those which appear to have a surface colour of their own. ...[T]hat, which in air causes light, may be present in the transparent medium or it may not ...[W]hite and black may be juxtaposed in such a way that by the minuteness of the division of its parts each is invisible while their product is visible, and thus colour may be produced. This product can appear neither white nor black ...it must be a sort of compound and a fresh kind of tint. ...[C]olours ...may be produced, and ...their multiplicity is due to differences in the proportion of their composition. ...[C]olours may ...be analogous to harmonies. ...[T]hose compounded according to the simplest proportions ...as is the case in harmonies, will appear to be the most pleasant ...e.g. , ...This is one of the ways in which colours may be produced; a second is effected by the shining of one colour through another. This we may illustrate by the practice ...by painters when they give a wash of colour over another more vivid tint, when, for example, they wish to make a thing look as though it were in the water or in the air. ...[W]e may illustrate by the sun, which in itself appears white, but looks red when seen through mist and smoke. ...[W]e should have to suppose there was some ratio between the superficial and the underlying tints in ...some colours, while in others there would be ...lack of commensurate proportion. ...[Thus ...it is absurd to maintain, with the early philosophers, that colours are effluxes and that vision is effected by a cause of the efflux type. It was in every way binding on them to account for sensation by means of contact, and therefore it was obviously better to say that sensation was due to a movement set up by the sense object in the medium of sensation, and thus account for it by contact without the instrumentality of effluxes.] According to the theory of juxtaposition, just as we must assume that there are invisible spatial quanta, so must we postulate an imperceptible time to account for the imperceptibility of the diverse stimuli transmitted to the sense organ... But on the other theory there is no such necessity; the surface colour causes different motions in the medium when acted on and when not acted on by an underlying tint. Thus it appears to be something different, and neither black nor white. ...But let us premise that substances are mixed not merely in the way some people think by a juxtaposition of their ultimate minute parts ...imperceptible to sense but that they entirely interpenetrate each other in every part throughout ...The former theory accounts for the mixture only of those things which can be resolved into ultimate least parts ...On the other hand, things which cannot be resolved into least parts, cannot be mingled in this way; they must entirely interpenetrate each other; and these are the things which most naturally mix. ...[W]hen substances are mixed their colours too must be commingled, and that this is the supreme reason why there is a plurality of colours; neither superposition nor juxtaposition is the cause. In such mixtures the colour does not appear single when you are at a distance and diverse when you come near; it is a single tint from all points of view. The reason for the multiplicity of colours will be the fact that things which mix can be mixed in many different proportions ...[T]he same account will apply to the juxtaposition or superposition of colours as to their mixture. [T]hey, and likewise tastes and sounds, have definite species limited in number..."

"Colour has a logic as exact as that of form. One must not give up before capturing that first impression."

"There, for the price of just two sous, I found crépons and rice papers in astonishing colours. I covered the walls of my room with these naïve and gaudy pictures. ...It was not until much later that I became aware of the beauty of the great Japanese masters, more subdued by far, yet less elucidating in terms of pure colour."

"[Color effects] are never absolute but are relative to the total situation..."

"The colors of my life Are bountiful and bold, The purple glow of indigo, The gleam of green and gold. The splendor of the sunrise, The dazzle of a flame, The glory of a rainbow, I'd put 'em all to shame."

"When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale, As angels can; next like Italian twilight, He turned all colours—as a peacock's tail, Or sunset streaming through a Gothic Skylight In some old abbey, or a trout not stale, Or distant lightning on the horizon by night Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue."

"From the mingled strength of shade and light A new creation rises to my sight, Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow, So warm with light his blended colors glow."

"Once a pallid vestal doubted truth in blue; Listed red as ruin, Harried every hue;Barracaded vision, garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birth marks Of the butterfliesDormant and disdainful, Never could she see Why the golden powder Decorates the bee;Why a summer pasture Lends itself to paint; Why love unappareled Still remains the saint.Finally she faltered; Saw at last forsooth, Every gaudy color Is a bit of truth."

"Just as when painters are elaborating temple-offerings, men whom wisdom hath well taught their art,—they, when they have taken pigments of many colours with their hands, mix them in due proportion, more of some and less of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all things, making trees and men and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and gods, that live long lives, and are exalted in honour,—so let not the error prevail over thy mind, that there is any other source of all the perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers. Know this for sure, for thou hast heard the tale from a goddess."

"Every one of the Impressionists examines the exact shade that is before his eyes and then matches it with the color on his palette and applies it to his canvas. But who can say that this color is the true color of that one minute? Even the artist himself has forgotten. All that mass of exact colors is lifeless, frozen. He lies stupidly..."

"...I am always between two currents of thought, first the material difficulties, turning round and round to make a living; and second, study of color. I am always in hope of making a discovery there, to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a sombre background. To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is nothing in that of stereoscopic realism, but is it not some thing that actually exists?"

"[S]timuli above adaptation reflectance are tinged with the hue of the illuminant, stimuli below adaptation levels are tinged with the afterimage complementary to the hue of the illuminant, and stimuli at or near adaptation reflectance are either achromatic or weakly saturated color of uncertain hue."

"when the sun falls and we are all one color"

"In nature, light creates the color; in the picture, color creates light. Every color shade emanates a very characteristic light — no substitute is possible."

"Color is that aspect of the appearance of objects and lights which depends upon the spectral composition of the reaching the of the eye and upon its temporal and spatial distribution thereon."

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

"When you go out to paint try to forget what object you have before you—a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think, here is a little streak of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it emerges as your own naive impression of the scene before you. I would like to paint the way a bird sings."

"I'm chasing the merest sliver of color. It's my own fault, I want to grasp the intangible. It's terrible how the light runs out, taking color with it. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes three of four minutes at the most."

"I mix them with my brains, sir."

"Loudness depends on the quantity of the sound. Of the harmony of sounds I will hereafter speak. Colors are a flame which emanates from all bodies having particles corresponding to the sense of sight. Some of the particles are less and some greater, and some are equal to the parts of the sight. The equal particles are transparent, the larger contract, and the lesser dilate the sight; is produced by the dilatation, black by the contraction, of the particles of sight. There is also a swifter motion of another sort of fire which forces a way into the passages of the eyes, and elicits from them a union of fire and water which we call tears. The fires from without and within meet and are extinguished in the tear-drop, and all sorts of colors are generated in the mixture. This affection is termed by us dazzling, and is produced by a flash. There is yet another sort of fire which mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing, and produces a color like blood—to this we give the name of red. Again, the bright element mingling with the red and white produces a color which we call auburn. The law of proportion, however, in which the several colors are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or even probably. Red, when mingled with black and white, gives a hue, which becomes when the colors are burnt and a greater portion of black is added. Flame-color is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun of white and black; pale of white and auburn. White and light meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark ; dark blue mingling with white becomes a light blue; the union of flame-color and black makes leek-. There is no difficulty in seeing how other colors are probably composed. But he who should attempt to test the truth of this in fact, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. God only is able to compound and resolve substances; such experiments are impossible to man."

"The fellow mixes blood with his colors."

"Transport these Mornings on the Seine, Wheatstacks, and Cathedrals around the world and no matter where these paintings will be, the spectator will admire and envy a country where the hand of man built such monuments in the middle of such beautiful sites. Glory thus to the artist, who with the aid of a few lines and some dashes of color can so grandly synthesize the land where he lives."

"I've fought the good fight. And now it’s all over, there's an indescribable peace. ...I believe in Michelangelo, Velásquez and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by beauty everlasting and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen."

"In regard to the life of every one, whether man, spirit, or angel... it flows in from the Lord alone, who is life itself... But the life which flows in is received by every one according to his character; good and truth are received as good and truth by the good; while by the evil good and truth are received as evil and falsity, and are even changed into evil and falsity in them. It is comparatively as the light of the sun; which diffuses itself into all objects on the earth, but is received according to the quality of each object, and becomes of a beautiful colour in beautiful forms, and of an ugly colour in ugly forms. ...But I know the fallacy will prevail with many that they will of themselves, and think of themselves, and so of themselves have life, when yet nothing is less true."

"If you mean that the proximity of one color should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colors of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every color of the bow."

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it."

"The terms relative to colour, occurring in the Bible, may be arranged in two classes, the first including those descriptive of natural objects, the second the artificial mixtures employed in dyeing and painting. ...[A]n exact terminology of colours is of modern growth. Ancient peoples, even so artistic a nation as the Greeks, used the names of colours very vaguely. The had not the artistic faculty at all strongly developed, and their names for colours, especially those of the first class, cannot be interpreted in any hard and fast manner. (1) The natural colours noticed in the Bible are , black, red, and . ...green is apparently applied more to the freshness and beauty of vegetation than to... colour; while yellow (used very seldom) is difficult to discriminate from some shade of green. White is prominent, especially as representing light, which deeply impressed the Heb. mind... by its divine symbolism, and its profound moral connotation. Black is prominent also as the physical and moral opposite of white... Red was also vividly appreciated by the Hebrew, as the colour of blood (the sacred principle of life), of wine, and of many natural objects, especially perhaps the red soil and red cliffs... (2) Artificial colours. ...there is no evidence ...that the Hebrews of the period of the Exodus were themselves acquainted with the art of dyeing. They were probably indebted ...to the Egyptians and the ns, to the latter for the dyes and to the former for the processes. The principal dyes were purples, light and dark... and crimson... was introduced at a late period. (a) '... well known and valued over the whole ancient world, was obtained from the secretion of a... shell-fish, the Murex trunculus of Linnaeus... probably a lighter shade, in which red predominated over blue; while the darker purple, a violet was produced from another species of shell-fish. ...Robes of purple were the characteristic decoration in antiquity of kings... the highest officers, civil and religious ...the wealthy and luxurious ...(b) ' This dye was procured from a species of shell-fish found on the coast of Phoenicia, and called by modern naturalists Helix lanthina. ...it was emblematic of ...the deep, dark hue of the Eastern sky. (c) Scarlet ('...) [T]he worm or grub whence the dye was procured... was a insect... found in considerable quantities in Armenia, Palestine, and other Eastern countries... ) The tint produced was crimson rather than scarlet. The only natural object to which it is applied in Scripture is the lips... It was the characteristic colour of the soldier's dress, especially in the Roman armies. (d) Vermilion... was a pigment of mineral extraction used in fresco paintings... or for decorating the walls and beams of houses... Vermilion was a favourite colour among the Assyrians... Symbolical and mystical meanings of colours. ...White is associated with moral purity and innocence ...with joy, festival, and victory ...Black is the symbol of evil, misery, and death ...Red and also scarlet are connected ...with war and bloodshed ...A deeper significance, more appropriate to the special divine purpose ...particularly in the three characteristic colours of the tabernacle hangings, the cloths of service, and the vestments of the high-priest. Blue, purple, and scarlet frequently occur; and as purple is produced by the mixing of the other two, it has been remarkably suggested by some writers that, as blue is the colour of the sky, and scarlet of human life or blood (note ...the etymological connexion between ādām, "man," and ādâm, "to be red"), so the combination of the two is intended to suggest the Incarnation. ...[I]n the theophanies of Ezk.8.2, Rev.4.3, two different tints are alluded to (a bright white and a glowing red), which have been thought to suggest the two aspects of God's moral nature, light and fire, mercy and justice; or love in its two aspects of pardon and correction. ...[T]he colours of the Bible convey in many cases more than the literal meaning..."

"This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year:"

"The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather."

"Simple colours are the proper colors of the elements, i.e., of fire, air, water, and earth. Air and water when pure are by nature white, fire (and the sun) yellow, and earth is naturally white. The variety of hues which earth assumes is due to coloration by tincture... Black is the proper colour of elements in process of transmutation. The remaining colours... arise from blending by mixture of these primary colours."

"There are many arguments to prove that darkness is not a colour, but merely privation of light..."

"From these primary colours the rest are derived in all their variety of chromatic effects by blending of them and by their presence in varying strengths. ...[M]ixture of white with black ...gives grey. ...[A] dusky black mixed with light gives crimson. ...[A] vivid bright violet is obtained from a blend of feeble sunlight with a thin dusky white. That is why the air sometimes looks purple at sunrise and sunset... So, too, the sea takes a purple hue when the waves rise so that one side of them is in shadow..."

"[W]e must not proceed in this inquiry by blending pigments as painters do, but rather by comparing the rays reflected from the aforesaid known colours, this being the best way of investigating the true nature of colour-blends."

"[V]ariations of tint occur: 1) Because colours are introcepted by varying and irregular strengths of light and shade. ...(2) because the colours blent vary in fullness and in effectiveness. ...(3) because they are blent in different proportions. ...(4) Difference of hue may also depend on the relative brightness and lustre or dimness and dullness of the blend. Lustre is simply continuity and density of light... (5) some objects change their colour and assume a variety of hues when polished by rubbing or other means, like silver, gold, copper, and iron, when they are polished...(6) In the case of objects burning, dissolving, or melting in the fire, we find that those have the greatest variety which are dark in colour... (7) Apart from these cases, variety of hue is characteristic of all dark smooth objects, such as water, clouds, and birds plumage. ...(8) Lastly, we never see a colour in absolute purity: it is always blent, if not with another colour, then with rays of light or with shadows, and so it assumes a new tint."

"[O]bjects assume different tints ...when seen by firelight or moonlight or torchlight, because the colours of those lights differ somewhat. They vary also in consequence of mixture with other colours, for when coloured light passes through a medium of another colour it takes a new tinge."

"[L]ight when it reaches the eye may be a blend of many colours, though the sensation produced is not of a blend but of some colour, predominant in the blend. This is why objects under water tend to have the colour of water, and why reflections in mirrors resemble the colour of the mirrors, and we must suppose that the same thing happens in the case of air."

"Thus all hues represent a threefold mixture of light, a translucent medium (e.g. water or air), and underlying colours from which the light is reflected."

"Coloration may also be due to a process of tincture or dyeing, when one thing takes its hue from another. Common sources of such coloration are the flowers of plants and their roots, bark, wood, leaves, or fruit, and again, earth, foam, and metallic inks. Sometimes coloration is due to animal juices (e.g. the juice of the purple-fish, with which clothes are dyed violet), in other cases to wine, or smoke, or lye mixture, or to sea-water... In short, anything that has a colour of its own may transfer that colour to other things, and ...colour leaving one object passes with moisture and heat into the pores of another... Furthermore, steeping material to be dyed in different astringent solutions during the dyeing produces a great variety of hues and mixtures, and these are also affected by the condition of the material itself..."

"[I]n hair and feathers of every kind, changes always occur either... when the nutriment in them fails, or when, on the contrary, it is too abundant. Therefore the age at which the hair is at its whitest or blackest varies in different cases... But hair is never crimson or violet or green or any other colour of that kind, because all such colours arise only by mixture with the rays of the sun, and further because in all hairs which contain moisture the changes take place beneath the skin, and so they admit of no admixture. ...Thus in birds, as in plants, the maturation of the colours takes place outside the body. So, too, the other forms of animal life aquatic creatures, reptiles, and shell-fish have all sorts and manners of colouring, because in them too the process of maturation is violent. From what has been set forth in this treatise one may best understand the scientific theory of colours."

"[T]hings seen through the mist are similar in colour to those which are at a distance..."

"[T]he blue which is seen in the atmosphere is not its own colour, but is caused by the heated moisture having evaporated into the most minute imperceptible particles, which the beams of the solar rays attract and cause to seem luminous against the deep intense darkness of the region of fire that forms a covering above them. ...As a further example of the colour of the atmosphere, we may take the case of the smoke produced by old dry wood, for as it comes out of the chimneys it seems to be a pronounced blue when seen between the eye and a dark space, but as it rises higher and comes between the eye and the luminous atmosphere, it turns immediately to an ashen grey hue, and this comes to pass because it no longer has darkness beyond it... But if this smoke comes from new green wood, then it will not assume a blue colour, because... it is not transparent... [I]f the atmosphere had this transparent blue as its natural colour, it would follow that wherever a greater quantity of atmosphere came between the eye and the fiery element, it would appear of a deeper shade of blue, as is seen with blue glass and with sapphires, which appear darker in proportion as they are thicker. ...We may also observe the difference between the atoms of dust and those of the smoke seen in the sun’s rays as they pass through the chinks of the walls in dark rooms, that the one seems the colour of ashes, and the other—the thin smoke—seems of a most beautiful blue. We may see also, in the dark shadows of mountains, far from the eye, that the atmosphere which is between the eye and these shadows will appear very blue, and in the portion of these mountains which is in light, it will not vary much from its first colour."

"But whoever would see a final proof, should stain a board with various different colours, among which he should include a very strong black, and then over them all he should lay a thin, transparent white, and he will then perceive that the lustre of the white will nowhere display a more beautiful blue than over the black,—but it must be very thin and finely ground."

"So the atmosphere appears blue because of the darkness which is beyond it; and if you look towards the horizon of the sky, you will see that the atmosphere is not blue, and this is due to its density; and so at every stage as you raise your eye up from this horizon to the sky which is above you, you will find that the atmosphere will seem darker, and this is because a lesser quantity of air interposes between your eye and this darkness. And if you are on the top of a high mountain the atmosphere will seem darker above you just in proportion as it becomes rarer between you and the said darkness; and this will be intensified at every successive stage of its height, so that at the last it will remain dark."

"The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which always takes the colour of the thing that it reflects and which is filled by as many images as there are things placed before it. ...And do not after the manner of some painters who when tired by imaginative work, lay aside their task... keeping... such weariness of mind as prevents them either seeing or being conscious of different objects; so that often when meeting friends or relatives, and being saluted by them, although they may see and hear them they know them no more than if they had met only so much air."

"When such is the condition of night, if you wish to re¬present a scene therein, you must arrange to introduce a great fire there, and then the things which are nearest to the fire will be more deeply tinged with its colour, for whatever is nearest to the object partakes most fully of its nature; and making the fire of a reddish colour you should represent all the things illuminated by it as being also of a ruddy hue, while those which are farther away from the fire should be dyed more deeply with the black colour of the night."

"There is another kind of perspective which I call aerial, because by the difference in the atmosphere one is able to distinguish the various distances... and if in painting you wish to make one seem further away than another you must make the atmosphere somewhat heavy. ...[I]n an atmosphere of uniform density the most distant things seen through it, such as the mountains, in consequence of the great quantity of atmosphere which is between your eye and them, will appear blue... Therefore you should make the building which is nearest... of its natural colour, and that which is more distant make less defined and bluer; and one which you wish should seem as far away again make of double the depth of blue, and one you desire should seem five times as far away make five times as blue."

"An object of uniform thickness and colour seen against a background of various colours will appear not to be of uniform thickness. And if an object of uniform thickness and of various colours is seen against a background of uniform colour the object will seem of a varying thickness. And in proportion as the colours of the background, or of the object seen against the background, have more variety, the more will their thickness seem to vary..."

"A dark object seen against a light background will seem smaller than it is. A light object will appear greater in size when it is seen against a background that is darker in colour."

"The first requisite of painting is that the bodies which it represents should appear in relief, and that the scenes which surround them with effects of distance should seem to enter into the plane in which the picture is produced by means of the three parts of perspective, namely the diminution in the distinctness of the form of bodies, the diminution in their size, and the diminution in their colour. Of these three divisions of perspective the first has its origin in the eye, the two others are derived from the atmosphere that is interposed between the eye and the objects which the eye beholds."