It Appeared That, Experimenting With Physical Colour, Tangible
Paint, They Had Found Out That Red, Yellow, And Blue Were The
Three
primary colours; and then, experimenting with light itself, with colours
not tangible, they found out that red, green, and
Violet were the three
primary colours; but neither of these would do for the dandelion. Once
upon a time I had taken an interest in spectrum analysis, and the theory
of the polarisation of light was fairly familiar; any number of books,
but not what I wanted to know. Next the idea occurred to me of buying all
the colours used in painting, and tinting as many pieces of paper a
separate hue, and so comparing these with petals, and wings, and grass,
and trifolium. This did not answer at all; my unskilful hands made a very
poor wash, and the yellow paper set by a yellow petal did not agree, the
scientific reason of which I cannot enter into now. Secondly, the names
attached to many of these paints are unfamiliar to general readers; it is
doubtful if bistre, Leitch's blue, oxide of chromium, and so on, would
convey an idea. They might as well be Greek symbols: no use to attempt to
describe hues of heath or hill in that way. These, too, are only distinct
colours. What was to be done with all the shades and tones? Still there
remained the language of the studio; without doubt a master of painting
could be found who would quickly supply the technical term of anything I
liked to show him; but again no use, because it would be technical.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 27 of 394
Words from 7121 to 7390
of 105669
