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CHAP. XVI.

OF RUSSET.

'Tis sweet and sad the latest notes to hear

Of distant music dying on the ear;

'Tis sweet to hear expiring summer's sigh,

Thro' forests tinged with RUSSET, wail and die.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

THE second or middle tertiary colour, Russet, like citrine, is constituted ultimately of the three primaries, red, yellow, and blue; but with this difference, that instead of yellow as in citrine, red is the archeus or predominating colour in russet, to which yellow and blue are subordinates; for orange and purple being the immediate constituents of russet, and red being a component part of each of those colours, it enters doubly into their compound in russet, while yellow and blue enter it only singly; the proportions of its middle hue being eight blue, ten red, and three yellow, of equal intensities. It follows that russet takes the relations and powers of a subdued red; and many pigments and dyes of the latter denomination are in strictness of the class of russet colours: in fact, nominal distinction of colours is properly only relative; the gradation from hue to hue, as from shade to shade, constituting an unlimited series, in which it is literally impossible to pronounce absolutely where any shade or colour ends and another begins; but which is capable nevertheless of being arbitrarily divided to infinity.

The harmonizing, neutralizing, or contrasting colour of russet, is a deep green;-when the russet inclines to orange, it is a gray, or subdued blue, These are often beautifully opposed in nature, being medial accordances, or in equal relation to light, shade, and other colours, and among the most agreeable to sense.

Russet, we have said, partakes of the relations of red, but moderated in every respect, and qualified for greater breadth of display in the colouring of nature and art; less so, perhaps, than its fellow-tertiaries in proportion as

it is individually more beautiful, the powers of beauty being ever most effective when least obtrusive; and its presence in colour should be principally evident to the eye that seeks it,-not so much courting as courted.

Of the tertiary colours, it is that which has supplied most of the ornament of epithet and sentiment to the poet; and his application of it is remarkably analogous to its just uses in painting when applied for the purposes of expression, which in this colour is warm, complacent, solid, frank, and cheering; of which and of its accordances and contrasts, &c., the following may serve as illustrations from the poets, who often, according to a common acceptation, substitute the term brown for russet:

The Doric dialect has a sweetness in its clownishness; like a fair shepherdess in her country russet.

DRYDEN.

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Of the tertiary colours, russet is the most important to the artist; and there are many pigments under the denominations of red, purple, &c., which are of russet hues; but there are few true russets, and one only which bears the name of these are the following:

I. MIXED RUSSET. What has been remarked in the preceding chapter upon the production of mixed citrine colours, is equally applicable in general to the mixed russets: we need not therefore repeat it. By the immediate method of producing it materially from its secondaries, orange vermilion and madder purple afford a compound russet pigment of a good and durable colour. Chrome orange and purple lake yield a similar but less permanent mixture.

Many other less eligible duple and triple compounds of russet are obvious upon principle, and it may be produced by adding red in due predominance to some browns; but all these are inferior to the following original pigments :

II. RUSSET RUBIATE, Madder Brown, or Field's Russet, is, as its names indicate, prepared from the rubia tinctoria, or madder-root. It is of a pure, rich, transparent, and deep russet; of a true middle hue between orange and purple; not subject to change by the action of light, impure air, time, nor mixture of other pigments. It has supplied a great desideratum, and is indispensable in water-colour painting, both as a local and auxiliary colour, in compounding and producing with yellow the glowing hues of autumnal foliage, &c., and with blue the beautiful and endless variety of grays in skies, flesh, &c. There are three kinds of this pigment, distinguished by variety of hue, russet, or madder brown, orange russet, and purple russet, or intense madder brown; which differ not essentially in their qualities as pigments, but as warm or cool russets, and are all good glazing colours. The last dries best in oil, the others but indifferently. The russet of the definitive scale, Pl. 1. fig. 3. is of the second kind.

III. PRUSSIATE OF COPPER differs chemically from Prussian blue only in having copper instead of iron for its basis. It varies in colour from russet to brown, is transparent and deep, but, being very liable to change in colour by the action of light and by other pigments, has been very little employed by the artist.

There are several other pigments which enter imperfectly into, or verge upon, the class of russet, which, having obtained the names of other classes to which they are allied, will be found under other heads; such are some of the ochres and Indian red. Burnt carmine and Cassius's precipitate are often of the russet hue, or convertible to it by due additions of yellow or orange; as burnt Sienna earth and various browns are, by like additions of lake or other reds.

CHAP. XVII.

OF OLIVE.

The water-nymphs that wont to sing and dance,
And for her garland olive branches bear,

Now baleful boughs of cypress do advance :

The Muses that were wont green bays to wear

Now bringen bitter elder branches sere:

The fatal sisters eke repent

Her vital thread so soon was spent:

O heavy hearse,

Mourn now, my muse, now mourn with heavy cheare;

O careful verse.

SPENSER, SHEPHERD'S CALLENDER.

OLIVE is the third and last of the tertiary colours, and nearest in relation to shade. It is constituted, like its co-tertiaries, citrine and russet, of the three primaries blue, red, and yellow, so subordinated, that blue prevails therein; but it is formed more immediately of the secondaries purple and green; and, since blue enters as a component principle into each of these secondaries, it occurs twice in the latter mode of forming olive, while red and yellow occur therein singly and subordinately. Blue is therefore, in every instance, the archeus or predominating colour of olive; its perfect or middle hue comprehending SIXTEEN of blue to FIVE of red, and THREE of yellow; and it participates in a proportionate measure of the powers, properties, and relations of its archeus: accordingly, the antagonist, or harmonizing contrast of olive, is a deep orange; and, like blue also, it is a retiring colour, the most so of all the colours, being the penultimate of the scale, or nearest of all in relation to black, and last, theoretically, of the regular distinctions of colours. Hence its importance in nature and painting is almost as great as that of black: it divides the office of clothing and decorating the general face of nature with green and blue; with both which, as

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