The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1877-06-20
Our Color.

ally, find myself utterly at fault. I
could tell you the color like myself. I
could perhaps even 20 further, and say,
with little fear Of contradiction, that
green and crimson and gold form beau
tiful chord of color, or that black and
amber or blue and grayish green 20 we'll
together, and still should tell you moth
ing, or at least nothing worth the telling;
for the fact is that every really fine com
bination of color is dependent upon sub
tie gradations of tint and arrangement
which can only be felt, not expressed in
words, and the only way have ever dis
covered of gaining a notion Of good color
is to seek it in lands, where it is under
stood. 1t will perhaps seem strange
thing to many Of my readers that should
talk about color being understood, as if
it were some branch of knowledge, and
they would perhaps answer &, me with,
"Have we not good artists, as good as any
in the world at present? and can they not
tell us all about color, and show us how
to manage it," Well, this is exactly what
they can't do. 1t is with color as it is
with any other form of art-it can only
be produced by people who delight in it.
Now, Tor some years we have taken
most of our combinations Of colors from
France, and slavishly followed whatever
was the prevailing fashion there, and 1.-The
result has been that the majority of
dresses andfashions have been made in
neutral hues, and people have cried out,
what an improvement! No more nasty
emerald-green or sky-blue, but soft shades
of grey and brown and dull green" But
as matter of fact, we are really further
off good color than we were before, and
VIC shall have to retrace our steps before
there is chance of our obtaining it.
Formerly, England had, at all events,
firmly grasped one idea about color, and
that was that bright colors were the pref
test, the best, and somehow, and so it
tried to have as many of them as possible.
After all, in the main, this was true
idea-the error was only in the deduction
made from it. Bright, pure colors are the
best, really, and all real nagni6cence of
hue must be based upon them. @!*,:a." .
I could show, had / time. that the
French have really no no idea Of the true
beauty of color; what they understand is
the relative arrangement Of tint and all
that can be done by such arrangement
their exquisite taste enables them to do
easily. But a taste for fine color could
not spring from people as light and ar
tiicial as are the French at heart, and
consequently, in spite Of their many re-
nowned artists, they have produced hard
ly one colorist. Color in its utmost hight
can only spring from the deepest feeling,
and it can be general in no nation till it
has entered into the hearts of the people,
and they have "basked in it as if it were
sunshine; danced with the delight of it,
quarreled for it, fought for it, starved for
it-done, in fact, the opposite of what we
want to do with it-made it to keep and
not to SELL" But it is possible to learn
to know good color when you see it,
though scarcely in England, for here
there are few days in the year when we
really see the sun as the Italians, for in
stance, see it. .s' e.. ~,r
Never, till l saw dark expresses against
an Italian sky, did I gain an idea Of the
exquisite harmony Of green and blue, nor
did 1 know what crimson and gold really
were till l saw them blazing under an In
dian sun in the bazaars of Bombay. Be-
fore then had never understood in the
least the difference between French pref
tiness of color and real nobility, and I
think unless each of my readers has
passed through one such experience, he
will hardly understand what I mean. To
see good color in dress,as understand it,
you must go, at least, as far as Italy, and
look, not at the imported French robes
which you will see trailing by the Amos
side or lettering in the Corso, but at the
scarf of the Venetian gondolier, and the
handkerchief on the contadina's head.
And if you turn your eyes from these to
the mountain sides, dark with expresses
or hoary with olive, to the white houses
amid the orange groves and the blue sky,
you will understand how, in such cOun-
try, the love of color spring s up in the
hearts Of the people, by daily, hourly as
ISOLATION, still it becomes part of their
lives.
And so, after all, I can tell no more
about color than to show the conditions
under which alone we can hope to obtain
it, and these are constant sight and fervent
love. How then, in this gray country of
ours, can we hope to reproduce the hue
of an Italian summer? But it will be no
mean victory if we can bring home to
ourselves this truth-that far beyond all
neutral shades of gray and brown and
green, beyond all beautiful things in this
world, rises supereminently the beauty of
true color; and if this truth once glad
dens our hearts, once makes us rejoice in
the emerald fields and the sunset sky,
we may be very sure that whatever color
we spread upon our floor, or paint our
walls with, will be right, for it will spring,
not from the elaborateness of mans rules
but from the beauty of Gods creation.