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CHAP. XIX.

OF MARRONE.

WE have adopted the term MARRONE for our second and middle semineutral, as univocal of a class of impure colours composed of black and red, black and purple, or black and russet pigments, or with black and any other denomination of pigments in which red predominates. It is a mean between the warm, broken, semi-neutral class of colours called brown, and the cold semi-neutral class of grey, or ashen. Marrone is practically to shade, what red is to light; and its relations to other colours are those of red, &c., when we invert or degradate the scale from black to white. It is therefore a following, or shading, colour of red and its derivatives; and hence its accordances, contrasts, and expressions agree with those of red degraded; hence red added to brown converts it into marrone if in sufficient quantity to predominate. In smaller proportions red gives to browns the denominations of bay, chestnut, sorrel, &c.

Owing to the instability and confusion of the nomenclature of colours, most of the colours and pigments of this class have been assigned to other denominations, as reds, browns, and purples-puce, pavonazzo, murrey, morello, chocolate, &c. (and the seasons of London bring us annually new names for broken colours from the dyer, few of which survive the ephemeral fashions which introduce them): hence pigments which belong properly to the present and other classes, have been arranged according to their names under other heads; such in the present instance are the ochres called purple-brown, mineral purple, dark cassius purple, dark Indian red, &c., which see. It is owing to this vagueness of nomenclature that the present and other denominations of broken colours have been unknown to or little used by the poet.

Marrone is a colour easily compounded in all its hues and shades by the mixture variously of red, black, and brown; but the following is the only pigment which bears the denomination :

I. MARRONE LAKE is a preparation of madder of great depth, transparency, and durability of colour. It works well in water, glazes and dries in oil, and is in all respects a good pigment: as, however, its hues are easily given with other pigments, it has not been much used. There is a deeper kind, which has been called purple-black.

II. CARUCRU, or Chica, is a new pigment, of a soft powdery texture, and rich marrone colour, brought by Lieutenant Mawe from South America; for a portion of which we have been indebted to the kindness of Mr. Brockedon. It is said to be procured from a species of bignonia in the manner of indigo by the Indians of the interior of Guiana, and employed by their chiefs and higher orders as a fucus for the face, and as a sovereign remedy, topically applied, for the erysipelas.* Comparatively as a pigment, it resembles marrone lake in colour, and is equal in body and transparency to the carmine of cochineal, though by no means approaching it in beauty, or even in durability, fugitive as the latter pigment is. Exposed to the light of a window, even without sun, the colour of carucru is soon changed and destroyed, which defects alone render it unfit for fine art, whatever value it may be found to possess in dyeing or in medicine.

In its chemical affinities it very much resembles the best anotta, although it is redder in colour; and, if we may venture an opinion, it is but a finer species of that drug, and may be substituted for it in tinging lackers and varnishes, as it forms a rich orange tincture with spirit of wine. Its use as a rouge evinces a good eye in the Carib, with whose complexion it is better suited to harmonize, than the gaudy rouge prepared from carthamus or safflower, very injudiciously employed by the fairer beauties of Europe.

• See an article on this production by Dr. Hancock, Edin. N. Phil. Journ., No. XIV.

CHAP. XX.

OF GRAY.

Down sunk the sun, the closing hour of day
Came onward, mantled o'er with dusky gray.

PARNELL.

Or the tribe of semi-neutral colours, GRAY is the third and last, being nearest in relation of colour to black. In its common acceptation, and that in which we here use it, gray denotes a class of cool cinereous colours, faint of hue; whence we have blue grays, olive grays, green grays, purple grays, and grays of all hues, in which blue predominates; but no yellow or red grays, the predominance of such hues carrying the compounds into the classes of brown and marrone, of which gray is the natural opposite. In this sense the semi-neutral GRAY is distinguished from the neutral GREY, which springs in an infinite series from the mixture of the neutral black and white-between grays and greys, however, there is no intermediate, since where colour ends in the one, neutrality commences in the other, and vice versa;-hence the natural alliance of the semi-neutral gray with black or shade; an alliance which is strengthened by the latent predominance of blue in the synthesis of black, so that in the tints resulting from the mixture of black and white so much of that hue is developed as to give apparent colour to the tints. This affords the reason why the tints of black and dark pigments are colder than their originals, so much so as in some instances to answer the purposes of positive colours; and it accounts in some measure for the natural blueness of the sky, though this is partly dependent, by contrast, upon the warm colour of sunshine to which it is opposed; for, if by any accident the light of nature should be rendered red, the colour of the sky would not appear purple in consequence, but green; or if the sun shone green the sky would not be green, but red inclined to purple; and so on of all colours, not according to the laws of composition in colours, but of contrast, since, if it were otherwise, the golden rays of the sun would render a blue sky green.

The grays are the natural cold correlatives, or contrasts, of the warm semi-neutral browns; and they are degradations of blue and its allies;hence blue added to brown throws it into or toward the class of grays, and hence grays are equally abundant in nature and necessary in art; for the grays comprehend in nature and painting a widely diffused and beautiful play of retiring colours in skies, distances, carnations,' and the shadowings and reflections of pure light, &c. Gray is indeed the colour of space, and hence has the property of diffusing breadth in a picture, while it furnishes at the same time good connecting tints, or media, for harmonizing the general colouring: the grays are therefore among the most essential hues. of the art, which yet must not be suffered injudiciously to predominate in cases where the subject or sentiment does not require it, so as to cast over the work the gloom or leaden dulness reprobated by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; * although in solemn subjects they are wonderfully effective and proper ruling

colours.

As blue is the archeus of all the colours which enter into the composition of grays, the latter partake of the relations and affections of blue, both with the painter and the poet. Grave sounds, like gray colours, are deep and dull, and there is a similarity of these terms in sound, signification, and sentiment, if even they are not of the same etymology: be this as it may, gray is almost as common with the poet, and in its colloquial use, as it is in nature and painting. The grays, like the other semi-neutrals, are sober, modest colours, contributing to the expression of gloom, sadness, frigidity, and fear,—the grave, the obscure, the spectral,-age, decrepitude, and death; bordering in these respects upon the powers of black, but aiding the livelier and more cheering expressions of other colours by diversity, connexion, and contrast, and partaking of the more tender and delicate influence belonging to white, as they approach it in their lighter tints. Upon the whole, it may be inferred as a general rule, that half of a picture ought to be of a neutral hue, to insure the harmony of the colouring, or at least that a balance of colour and neutrality is quite as essential to the best effect of a picture as a like balance of light and shade is, so universal is the reference of gray; and hence the frequent allusions to this colour by the poets thus variously :

Put your torches out-the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

SHAKSPEARE.

* Reynolds's Works by Farrington, Notes, vol. III. p. 162.

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