Second Division — Imitation of Coloured Objects by Materials of a Definite Size, as Threads, &c.
344. The tapestries of Gobelins and of Beauvais, and also the carpets of Savonnerie, and certain very elaborate mosaics, may all be considered as works which resemble the method of painting in chiaro-’scuro; while the windows of Gothic churches correspond more or less exactly to painting in flat tints; so also with tapestries for furniture and carpets, which, instead of being fabricated with scales of at least sixteen or eighteen tones, as they are in the royal manufactories, are composed with scales consisting of three or four tones only, and, far from imitating the effects of chiaro-’scuro, the coloured objects produced present to the eye only small monochromous bands of a single tone.
345. There are also some works whose coloured designs are upon a kind of mixed system, being the result of the juxtaposition of monochromous single tinted parts, of a visible size, but in which the effects of chiaro-’scuro are sought by using gradations of scale or a mixture of hues; such are ordinary mosaics, carpets, embroidered tapestries, &c.
346. In the patterns of tapestries and carpets, when the principal effects to be aimed at have been determined, it may be seen what points of ordinary painting may be sacrificed to obtain them, and what must be done for perfecting the special portion of their imitation. Beginning with the physical condition of the coloured elements the weaver employs, and the texture of the tapestry, we see the necessity of representing in this kind of work only large, well-defined objects, and especially such as are remarkable for the brilliancy of their colours. The patterns for hangings must recommend themselves more by the opposition of their colours than by the minute finish of their details. To pretend to rival painting in these manufactures is to establish a confusion most detrimental to the progress of arts, absolutely distinct from painting, both in their purpose and their means of execution.
347. The principles truly essential to these arts of imitation being once deduced from the peculiarities of each, it becomes easy to point out by what efforts we may hope to obtain true perfection.
Chapter I — On the Elements of Gobelins Tapestry
348. To make mixtures of coloured threads intelligently, we must be guided by the three following rules:—The first two resulting directly from observation of facts; the third being the natural deduction from the facts comprised in the two former.
Rule I — The Binary Mixture of Primary Colours
When we unite Red with Yellow, Red with Blue, Yellow with Blue, the threads must not reflect a perceptible quantity of the third primary colour, if we would have Orange, Violet, and Green as brilliant as it is possible, by this method, to obtain.
Example A.—Red and Yellow.
Plate 11.
| 3 | Red | threads with | 1 | Yellow | thread, |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 1 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 3 | Yellow | ″ | 1 | Red | ″ |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
yield mixtures which appear to the eye in proportion to the two colours mixed. There is no appearance of grey in any of these mixtures, when we employ a red more inclining to orange than to crimson, and a yellow more inclining to orange than to green.
| 3 | Red | threads with | 1 | Blue | thread, |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 1 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 3 | Blue | threads with | 1 | Red | thread, |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
yield mixtures which appear to the eye in proportion to the two colours mixed. If we use a red and a blue inclining to violet, the mixture will contain no grey.
C.—Yellow and Blue.
| 4 | Blue | threads with | 1 | Yellow | thread, |
| 3 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
| 1 | ″ | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ |
give mixtures which appear to the eye in the proportions of the two colours mixed. If we use yellow and a blue inclining to green more than to red, the mixture will contain little or no grey.
Experiment on all the preceding mixtures demonstrates the rule above; or rather, this rule is but the expression of a generalization of facts.
Rule II — The Mixture of Complementary Colours
349. When we mix Red with Green, Orange with Blue, Yellow with Violet, the colours are more or less completely neutralized, according as they are more or less perfectly complementary to each other, and as they are mixed in proper proportions. The result is a grey, the tone of which is generally higher than that of the colours mixed, if the latter are of a suitably high tone.
Examples.—Red and Green.
Plate 12.
3 Red threads with 1 Green thread give a dull Red.
2 Red threads with 1 Green thread give a duller and a deeper Red.
1 Red thread with 1 Green thread give a Reddish-grey.
The tone a little higher than the preceding.
3 Green threads with 1 Red thread give a Green Grey, the tone higher than the Green or the Red.
2 Green threads with 1 Red thread give a Grey, less
Green, and of a higher tone than the two colours.
In repeating the same mixtures with higher tones of the same scales of Green and Red, the tone of the mixture of 2 Green with 1 Red is higher relatively to that of the colours mixed, than it is in the mixtures above.
1 Red thread and 1 Yellowish-green thread give a Carmelite-brown or an Orange-grey, the tone of which is equal to that of the colours mixed.
1 Red thread and 1 Bluish-green thread give a copper-coloured mixture or catechu-brown of a higher tone than that of the colours mixed.
Hence we may conclude that red and green threads, properly assorted, and in suitable proportions, yield Grey.
Orange and Blue.
| 3 | Orange | threads with | 1 | Blue | thread give | a dull Orange. |
| 2 | Orange | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ | a duller Orange. |
| 1 | Orange | ″ | 1 | ″ | ″ | Chocolate-grey. |
| 3 | Blue | ″ | 1 | Orange | ″ | Violet-grey. |
| 2 | Blue | ″ | 1 | Orange | ″ | Violet-grey. |
| Redder than the preceding. | ||||||
The results are the same with deeper tones than the preceding, except that the corresponding mixtures are browner.
3 orange threads with 3 blue threads present a remarkable phenomenon, according to the intensity of the light and the position from which it is observed. The tapestry being placed in a vertical plane before the incident light when the warp is horizontal, we perceive blue and orange stripes; but if the warp is vertical, we may then see the upper part of each blue stripe violet, and its under part, as well as the upper part of each orange stripe green, while the rest of each of the latter will appear red, bordered on the lower part with yellow. We may also see the upper part of each blue stripe, violet, and its under part, as well as the upper part of each orange stripe, green, and the rest of each of these stripes red, bordered on the lower part with green, and in the upper part with yellow. We say that they may be seen in this manner, because if the light were strong enough for distinct vision, we should not see the horizontal blue and orange stripes.
Yellow and Violet.
| 3 | Yellow | threads with | 1 | Violet | give | a Greyish-yellow. |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | Violet | ″ | Yellow-grey. |
| 1 | ″ | ″ | 1 | Violet | ″ | Grey, |
| much nearer normal grey than the preceding. | ||||||
| 3 | Violet | threads and | 1 | Yellow | give | a Greyish-violet. |
| 2 | ″ | ″ | 1 | Yellow | ″ | dull Violet, |
| greyer than the preceding. | ||||||
It is remarkable that in the mixture of a yellow with a violet thread, seen from a greater distance than that at which they appear neutralized, the yellow is so much weakened in proportion to the violet, that the mixture appears of a dull violet.
Yellow and blue afford an analogous result.
One or the Other of Them Is in Excess
Rule III.— THE MIXTURE OF THE THREE PRIMARY COLOURS IN SUCH
PROPORTIONS THAT THEY DO NOT BECOME NEUTRALIZED,
BECAUSE ONE OR THE OTHER OF THEM IS IN EXCESS.
350. When Blue, Red, and Yellow are combined in such proportions that they do not neutralize each other, the result is a colour much greyer or more broken than if the proportion of complementary colour were more equal.
As Red mixed with a Greenish-yellow gives a Carmelite mixture, I shall add the following:—
1. Crimson-red and greenish-yellow give mixtures so much duller as these colours more nearly neutralize each other. A mixture of one crimson-red with one greenish-yellow thread produces a brick or copper-orange, the tone of which is higher than that of the colours mixed.
2. Scarlet-red and greenish-blue give mixtures which are without vigour or purity, relatively to the corresponding mixtures made with crimson-red and violet-blue.
3. Red and blue-grey give violet mixtures, which are not so dull as the preceding, because the colours contain no yellow.
4. The red of the mixture 3, worked with a green-grey, gives mixtures much duller than the preceding, as might have been expected, on account of the yellow contained in the green-grey.
5. Orange and blue-violet give very dull mixtures.
6. Orange and red-violet give dull mixtures, but redder or less blue than the preceding.
ON THE PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST IN CONNEXION
WITH THE PRODUCTION OF TAPESTRY.
351. The tapestry-weaver should therefore thoroughly understand the effects of contrast, to know the influence which the part of the copy he proposes to imitate receives from the colours surrounding it, and so judge what coloured threads to choose. The following examples will explain better than the most profound reasoning the necessity for the tapestry-worker to possess a knowledge of the law of contrast.
First Example.
352. If there be two coloured stripes in a picture, one red the other blue, touching each other, the phenomenon of contrast between two contiguous colours would have arisen, had not the painter sustained the red by blue, and the blue stripe by making it red or violet next to the red stripe (320).
353. Suppose a weaver wishing to imitate these two stripes, but ignorant of the law of contrast of colours, after choosing the wools or silks, he is sure to make two stripes, which will produce the phenomenon of contrast; for he will select his wools or silks of only one blue or one red, to imitate two stripes of different colours, each of which appears homogeneous throughout, but which the painter has only succeeded in making so by neutralizing the phenomenon of contrast, which would undoubtedly have resulted had each been painted of a uniform colour.
354. Suppose the painter has painted the stripes with uniform colours, then contrast will arise, so that the red contiguous to the blue will appear orange, and the blue contiguous to the red will appear greenish.
If the weaver be ignorant of the law of contrast, in attempting to imitate his model he will be sure to mix yellow or orange with his red, and yellow or green with his blue, in those parts of the stripes which come in contact. Hence the contrast will be more exaggerated than if he had worked the two stripes with homogeneous colours.
355. Suppose a weaver has to copy the series of ten grey stripes in flat tints (fig. 3, Plate 1) described (11), it is evident that if he is ignorant of such effects he will exaggerate it in the imitation; for instead of working ten tints of the same scale so as to produce ten bands in flat tints, he will make ten bands, each graduated conformably to what he sees; he will probably also have recourse to lighter and darker tones than those which correspond exactly to the model, and thus he will require a greater number of tones than would have been necessary had he been aware of contrast, rendering the copy an exaggeration of the model.
When we attentively observe the rosy flesh tints of many pictures, we perceive in the shadows a more or less apparent green tint, resulting from the contrast of rose with grey. (I presume that the painter has made his shadows without using green, and that he has not corrected the effect of contrast by using red.) Now a weaver, ignorant of the effect of rose upon grey, in imitating the shaded part will have recourse to a green-grey, which will exaggerate an effect that would have been produced naturally by employing a scale of pure, not of greenish grey.
QUALITIES WHICH PATTERNS FOR
GOBELINS TAPESTRY MUST POSSESS.
356. To determine the qualities which model pictures for tapestry must possess, we must decide what are specific qualities peculiar to this kind of imitation.
The weaver imitates objects with coloured threads of a certain diameter. These threads are applied round the threads of the warp. Their surface is not uniform but furrowed, those which are parallel to the threads of the warp being lower than those which are perpendicular to it; the effect of these furrows being such as would be produced upon a picture, by a series of dark parallel lines, cut at right angles by another series of finer parallel lines, less dark than the preceding.
357. There are these differences then between tapestry and painting:—
1. Tapestry never presents those blended colours which the painter obtains so easily by indefinitely mixing or dividing his pigments.
2. The symmetry and uniformity of the furrows of tapestry prevent the lights being as vivid, and the shadows as vigorous, as in a painting; for though the furrows obscure the lights, the salient parts of the threads which are in the shades, have the ill effect of enfeebling the latter by the light they reflect.
3. The lines surrounding the different objects in a painting, although straight or curved in every direction, may be of extreme fineness without ceasing to be perfectly distinct, while the threads of the weft and the warp, always crossing at right angles, interfere with such a result whenever the lines of the pattern do not exactly coincide with these threads.
4. The painter has other resources, which are denied to the weaver, for increasing the brilliancy of the lights and the vigour of the shadows. For instance: he opposes opaque body-colours to glaring colours, he modifies an object of a single colour by varying the thickness of the layer of paint which he places on the canvas; and within certain limits he can produce modifications, by changing the direction of the strokes of his pencil.
358. Hence, to raise the effects of tapestry as nearly as possible to those of painting, it is requisite:—
1. That the objects be represented of such a size that the position of the spectator does not permit of his distinguishing either the coloured elements from each other, or the furrows which separate them; so that threads of two mixed scales (377), and the hatchings of different scales, more or less distant, interwoven together (378), may be mingled into a homogeneous colour, and that the cavities and salient parts may appear as a uniform surface.
2. That the colours be as vivid and strongly contrasted as possible, so that the lines which surround the different objects be more distinct, and the lights and shadows be as different as possible.
359. Thus patterns for tapestry must not only recommend themselves by correct outline and elegant forms, but must also represent larger objects: figures draped rather than nude, vestments decorated with ornaments, rather than simple and uniform. Consequently, every thing allied to miniature, by minuteness or by finish in details, is foreign to its special object.
360. The elements of Beauvais tapestry for furniture are essentially the same as those of Gobelins tapestry; but with this difference, that the light and the middle tones are of silk, while in the Gobelins tapestry these tones are almost always of wool. The scales of Beauvais are less varied in colour than those of the Gobelins, and their tones are less numerous. But the working of the threads is the same in both kinds of tapestry; so that as to the employment of coloured threads, depending in like manner on the knowledge and observance of the principles of mixture and contrast of colours, I need not add to what I have already said on this subject in the preceding section.
361. The furrows caused by the weft and the warp have not the inconvenience they present in the Gobelins tapestry. In fact, the regular grain of the tapestry for furniture is so far from producing a bad effect in the image represented on it, that we are obliged to give the appearance of this grain to many paper-hangings by means of parallel lines cutting it, or by points symmetrically placed.
COLOURED GLASS WINDOWS IN
LARGE GOTHIC CHURCHES.
362. I am about to examine, according to the preceding views, the coloured glass windows which concur so powerfully with architecture, in giving to vast gothic churches that harmony which we cannot fail to recognise whenever we enter them. These structures rank with those works of art which are most impressive by their size, the subordination of their various parts, and by their complete fitness for the purposes to which they are applied. The stained glass of gothic churches has always a most appropriate effect, intercepting the white light, which, by giving too vivid a glare, is less conducive to meditation than the coloured light which this glass transmits. We shall find its splendid effect to arise, not only from the contrast of colours, but also from the contrast of its transparency with the opacity of the surrounding walls, and of the lead which binds its parts together. The impression produced on the eye by this twofold cause becomes more vivid the more frequently it is repeated and the longer it is sustained, when yellow, blue, violet, orange, red, and green stained glass appears like most precious jewels.
363. The upright windows usually represent, within a border or a ground analogous to the rose windows, the figure of a saint in harmony with those which stand in relief about the portals of the edifice; and to be fully appreciated they must be judged of as parts of a whole, and not as a Greek statue which is intended to be seen isolated on all sides.
The glass is of two kinds, the one painted on its surface by pigments afterwards vitrified (glass painting); the other, melted with the material that colours it (glass staining); the first is generally used in the composition of the nude parts of the human figure, and the second in that of the drapery. All the pieces of glass are united by strips of lead. What has struck me as being most effective in windows with human figures, is the exact observance of the relations of size of the figures and of the intensity of the light which renders them visible, with the distance at which the spectator is placed; a distance at which the strips of lead surrounding each piece of glass appear only as lines or as small black bands.
364. It is not necessary, for an effective whole, that the painted glass, when viewed closely, should exhibit fine hatchings, careful stippling, or blended tints; for, with the coloured stained glass for draperies, they should compose a system which compares with painting in flat tints, and certainly we cannot doubt that a painting on glass, executed entirely according to the system of chiaro-scuro, not to speak of the cost of its execution, will have the disadvantage of the finish in its details entirely disappearing at the distance at which it must be viewed as a whole.
365. The first condition, which must be fulfilled by every work of art, is, that it be presented without confusion and as distinctly as possible. Let us add that paintings on glass, executed on the method of chiaro-’scuro, cannot receive the borders and grounds of rose windows which have such fine effects of colour, as they have less brilliancy and transparency than the glass in which the colouring material has been incorporated; they are also less capable of resisting the injuries of time.
Variety of colours in these windows is so necessary to attain the best possible effect, that those which represent figures entirely nude, edifices, or large objects of a single colour, or slightly tinted, whatever may be the perfection of their execution with regard to finish or truth of imitation, will have an inferior effect to windows composed of pieces of varied colours suitably contrasted; but a bad effect results from the mixture of coloured glass with transparent colourless glass, when the latter has a certain extent of surface in a window; yet a good effect is obtainable by mixing ground glass with coloured glass, and also of small pieces of colourless transparent glass, framed in lead, so that at the distance at which they must be viewed they produce the effect of a symmetrical juxtaposition of white parts with black parts.
366. I conclude that we must refer the causes of the beautiful effects of coloured glass of great churches—
1. To their presenting a very simple design, whose different well-defined parts may be seen without confusion at a great distance.
2. To their offering a union of coloured parts which are distributed with a kind of symmetry, but which are also vividly contrasted, not only among themselves, but also with the opaque parts which surround them.
367. Coloured windows appear to me to produce their utmost effect only in the vast edifices where the different-coloured rays reach the eye of the spectator on the floor of the church so much scattered that they impinge upon each other, whence results an harmonious mixture, not found in a small structure lighted by coloured windows. It is this intimate mixture of the coloured rays, transmitted into a vast edifice, which permits of tapestries placed on the ground floor. But when the lower walls have not colourless glass windows, it is evident that, if tapestries be placed too near coloured windows, the harmony of their colours must be lost, as when blue rays fall upon red draperies, yellow rays upon blue draperies, &c.
Thus, when coloured glass is to be put in a window, it is necessary to take into consideration, not only its beauty, but also the effect which the coloured light it transmits will have upon the objects illuminated by it.
368. The coloured windows of a large church may be regarded as real, transparent tapestries, intended to transmit light, and to ally themselves harmoniously with the sculptures on the exterior, which destroy the monotony of the high walls of the edifice, and with the different monuments of the interior, among which tapestries must be taken into account.
369. My ideas on the employment of stained glass for windows may be summed up in the following terms:—
1. They produce their utmost effect only in the rose windows, bay windows, or pointed windows of large Gothic churches.
2. Only when they present the strongest harmonies of contrast, not of colourless transparent glass with the black produced by the opacity of the walls, iron bars, and strips of lead, but of this black with the intense tones of red, blue, orange, violet, and yellow.
3. Their designs must always be as simple as possible, and admit of the harmonies of contrast.
4. While admiring painted windows, of which a large number consist of paintings of undoubted merit, especially in regard to the difficulties overcome, I confess that it is a kind of painting which should not be much encouraged, because it never has the merit of a picture properly so called, it is more costly, and will produce less effect in a large church than a stained window of much lower price.
5. Windows of a pale grey ground, with light arabesques, have a very poor effect wherever they are placed.
See the relations of the law of contrast with the decoration of the interiors of churches.