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TURNER:
AN EARLY EXPERIMENT
COLOUR THEORY1
WITH
By Gerald E. Finley
Few investigations
xvi, p. 259.
6 It was not until the
early
century
that distinctions between the 19th
qualities of
light and those of pigments were generally
realized and accepted.
357
358
GERALD
E. FINLEY
influence on the vision of the poet, who saw a new world of colour opening
before him.6 The traveller in search of the Picturesque also became very much
aware of the iridescent hues of landscape.7 Therefore, it is not surprisingthat
this new realm of colour should affect ideas applicable to the painter's art.
While Newton's Opticksacted as a stimulant to theories of colour, especially
as Newton had attempted to equate coloured light with pigment, there was
often disagreement with his choice of seven generative hues constitutive of the
light of nature.8 Moses Harris, an artist-naturalist, was one art theorist who
disagreed. In his treatise, Natural Systemof Colours,9first published about
Harris purported to 'display the principles on which are produced,
177o,10
materially, or by the painter's art, all the varieties of colour which can be
formed from Red, Blue and rellow; which three GRAND or PRINCIPAL
COLOURS contain all the hues and teints to be found in the different
objects of nature'.11 Harris, 'having taken nature for his guide' found that two
colour harmonies could be distinguished; first that of 'prismatic' colours,
'admitting no other colour but those shewn in the PRISM', and second that
of 'compound' hues representing 'all the other colours to be found in Nature's
works'.12 These harmonies are illustrated in two colour wheels. The six
major hues of the 'prismatic' wheel are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and
purple, those of the 'compound' wheel, orange, 'olave', green, slate, purple
and brown.
For this investigation, Harris's 'prismatic' wheel (P1. 41a) is of greater
importance. The author observed that the three generative colours, red, yellow
and blue, produce the mediate or secondary hues which lie between the
generative colours, 'for if red and yellow be mixed together they will compose
an orange; and therefore it is placed between the red and yellow: if yellow
and blue are mixed together, green is produced, and accordingly takes its
place between those two colours; and, in like manner, blue and red producing
a purple, the purple must be placed between them'.13 Harris's 'prismatic'
wheel, then, contains six major colours, the three generative, red, yellow and
6 See Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Newton
Demands the Muse, Princeton 1946. This study
has shown the considerable extent to which
Newtonian optics affected the vision of the
poet in the I8th century.
' William
Bingley, travelling in Wales,
noted a scene in which 'the evening clouds
appeared across the end of the lake tinged
with various hues of red and orange from the
refracted rays of the departing sun. These
were reflected in full splendour along the
water.' (Excursions in North Wales, A Tour in
i8oo, 3rd ed., London 1839, p. 124.) John
Stoddart spoke of the hills in Scotland
'brilliantly tinted by the sun-showers, with
the prismatic colours of the rainbow; and
their rugged features, thus softened, appeared
like fairy visions, gleaming through the
.' (Remarks on Local Scenery and
mist
... in Scotland during the Years 1799 and
Manners
I8oo, i, London 180I, p. 286.)
8 See F.
Schmid, 'The Color Circles of
Moses Harris', Art Bulletin (hereafter Art
Bull.), xxx, I948, pp. 227-30.
* Natural
system of colours exhibiting in a
regular, simple and beautiful arrangement the
varieties of teints arising from the Three primitive
colours red, blue and yellow. The manner in
which each is Formed, its Composition. Their
dependenceon each other and Harmonious Connections...
(hereafter Natural System), Ed.
Thomas Martyn, London 1811.
10 Schmid notes that a first edition of this
work 'was published about 1770 (1766 or
1776)' (Art Bull., xxx, 227 n. 14). Thomas
Martyn, in the preface to the I8 I edition,
remarked that the dedication of the first
edition was accepted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
11
Harris, Natural System, p. I.
12
Ibid., p. 2.
13
Ibid., pp. 4-5.
TURNER:
COLOUR
THEORY
359
blue, and the three mediate or secondary hues, orange, green and purple,
lacking Newton's seventh colour, indigo.
Harris's 'prismatic' colour wheel had been foreshadowed already by
Newton. By including indigo between blue and violet, Newton had constructed a wheel of seven colours which he felt was proportional to the seven
musical tones. He did this even though the spectrum itself is actually in linear
progression, being neither cyclic nor circular. In Newton's wheel, colours do
not actually oppose each other and, therefore, diagrammatic relationships of
opposing colours beyond their sequential order is not clear.14 In Harris's
colour wheels, hues directly oppose one another, and his diagrams were to
establish the basic form for all subsequent colour wheels.15 Harris was able
to achieve a diagrammatic relationship since his 'prismatic' circle contains
six rather than Newton's seven hues.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, two new theoretical
approaches to colour harmony can be distinguished, establishing relationships between optics and painting. The first dealt with establishing a harmony
through the prismatic sequences of colour, the second with creating a harmony
by juxtaposing hues that lay opposite one another on the 'prismatic' colour
wheel, as devised by Harris.
The first system was considered in Edward Dayes's treatise on painting.
The author-artist recommended that a sunset should follow the same sequence
of colours that is found in the spectrum.16 In M. Gartside's An Essayon a New
Theoryof Colours,the writer also stated that the 'prismatic order of colours
must in some degree, guide their arrangement in a group, this order must be
In 1817, Benjamin
deranged to suit the order of them in point of
West spoke at the Royal Academy, and the illumination'.17
'Principal point he attempted to
prove was That The Orderof Coloursin a Rainbowis the true arrangement of an
Historical picture'.s8
The second and more important way of producing harmony in painting
was effected by juxtaposing hues which oppose one another as they appear on
Harris's 'prismatic' colour wheel. These are complementary or 'contrasting'
colours as Harris called them; green is opposite red, orange opposes blue, and
purple is opposite yellow. Harris was aware that these complementary hues
could be useful in painting, but was not specific about their value.19
The practical application of complementaries, in so far as the artist was
concerned, is founded on optical theory. Normal mechanical mixture of two
14
360
GERALD
E. FINLEY
colours diminishes the chromatic strength of the resulting compound. However, the same two colours applied in small daubs, side by side, and viewed
at sufficient distance can produce a more brilliant colour effect. The small
daubs reflect rays of the respective hues which mix or coalesce on the retina
to produce what is termed an 'optical mixture'. The brilliance of colour so
attained is especially marked when complementaries are employed, for while
these colours do not actually combine to produce a new hue, they enhance
each other to create a vibrancy unequalled by optical fusion of noncomplementaries.
The physiological power of complementaries was explored in optical
experiments by Count Rumford. In 1794, Rumford read a paper before the
Royal Society concerning experiments which revealed the power of what
he called 'complements' or 'harmonizing colours'. He described an experiment in which a beam of coloured light and a beam of white or colourless
light of equal intensity arrived 'in different directions, and at equal angles of
incidence at a plane white surface'. Rumford then noted that if a 'solid
opaque body of any kind be placed, in each of these beams of light.., in such
a manner that the two shadows cast on the plane by these opaque bodies,
may be near each other, the intensity of these shadows will be equal, and...
will both appear to be coloured, but of very different hues'.20 He further
noted that 'that which is illuminated by the colouredlight will be of the colour
of that light. . . but that which is illuminated by the colourless
light. . . instead
of appearing colourless, will appearto be as deeply coloured as the other, but
of a different hue'.2' Rumford stated that the 'two colours exhibited by the
two shadows appear in all cases to harmonize in the most perfect manner; or,
in other words to afford the most pleasing contrast to the view' and that 'the
of
colour of the one shadow may with propriety be said to be the complement
the other'.22 He felt this relationship between colours could be of value to the
painter, although the brilliance and 'magic appearances' of shadow might be
difficult for the painter to achieve because of his 'imperfect colours'. However,
Rumford believed that the knowledge gained by these experiments would
doubtless enable artists
on sound philosophical principles, to contrast their colours in such a
manner, as to give their pictures, or rather, to what they chuse [sic] to
make the prominent parts of them, a great degree of force and brilliancy.
For, if any, and every simple and compound colour has such a power on
objects near it as to cause a neighbouring colourlessshadowto assume the
appearance of a colour, there can be no doubt but that, if, instead of the
shadow, a realcolour,nearly of the same tint and shade, as that so calledup,
be substituted in its place, this colourwill appearto great advantage,or will
assume an uncommon degree of strength and brightness.23
Other scientists began to speak of the physiological effects that complementaries had on the eye. In France, M. C. A. Prieur had made similar physiological experiments as Rumford and likewise discovered the power of the
2o
a -'Prismatic'
colour wheel. Moses
Natural
Harris,
System, opp. p. 4
(p. 358)
?~e~a
d-J.
TURNER:
COLOUR
THEORY
361
24
362
GERALD
E. FINLEY
your hands, and a green spectrum will be seen in your eyes, resembling in
form the piece of red silk.
...'30
made reference to complementary colours in
Art theorists occasionally
In
their treatises.
1807, Clark, in his PracticalEssay,31 referred to a treatise
of
colours
on the theory
by a Dr. Milner in which the use of complementaries
an
is cited as
important aspect of the work.32 Dr. Milner, according to the
author of the PracticalEssay, asserted that when complementaries are physically mixed they approach 'greyness or dullness', but 'when kept distinct they
are found to make each other look more brilliant, by being brought close
together'.33 Clark realized, perhaps intuitively, that unlike lights, pigments
when mixed mechanically are sullied, reduced in strength, but when optically
mixed, their intensity is increased.
When Newton discovered that white light was composed of coloured
rays and implied an essential harmony in the seven hues he chose to form the
spectrum, he created a new awareness of colour as a pervasive element in
nature. Moreover, he stimulated the scientist and art theorist alike to delve
into the problem of nature's harmony of colour. Before 1805, it was possible
for some writers on art to assert that shadows in nature were not colourless
or black but full of light and colour.34 In stating this, there was an implicit
rejection of the conceptual idea that had directed painters in the representation of objects, 'the classical convention derived from Claude and
Poussin...
3o The Repositoryof Arts, Literature,Commerce, 'it is true, in a general sense, that all colour
Manufacturers, Fashions and Politics, 1809, p. is a modification of light and all shadow is a
privation of light: but as the rays of light, in
287.
31John Heaviside Clark, A Practical Essay passing through, or merely by the side of
on the Art of Colouring and Painting Landscapes bodies, undergo various degrees of inflection;
in Water Colours (hereafter Practical Essay), and above all, as the atmosphere and surfaces
London 1807.
surrounding bodies reflect very strongly the
32 Ibid., p. 15. The work referred to is rays of light falling upon them, such a total
entitled Theory of Colours and Shadows by the privation of light, or absolute shadow, does
'Reverend Dr. Milner, Dean of Carlisle and not exist; nor if it did exist, can the painter
President of Queen's College, Cambridge'.
hope to succeed in representing it, because
This treatise is found in Humphry Repton's no painting substances, nor compounds of
The Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, substances, can be found, which will totally
London 1803, pp. 214-19. Milner mentioned
absorb, and not in any degree reflect the
Rumford's experiments (ibid., p. 217) and lights falling on them: neither would shadows,
constructed a colour circle of the type formu- produced by such substances, were they to be
lated by Harris (ibid., p. 219).
found, be discernible by the eye, which
33 Clark, Practical Essay, p. 15. Concerning sees only through the medium of light' (p.
complementaries or 'contrasts', Milner ex- 247). Edward Dayes following tradition
advised the use of dark-brown shadows in
plained that 'their apparent brilliancy,
when they are placed contiguous to each painting. In his directions for the finishing
other is promoted in a remarkable manner, of a water-colour, Dayes cautioned the
but they cannot be mixed together without student 'not to disturb the shadows with
mutual destruction of their natural proper- color, otherwise the harmony of the whole
ties and an approach to a white or a grey will be destroyed'. Yet at the same time
colour' ( Theoryof Coloursand Shadows, p. 216.) Dayes was aware of light penetrating shadows,
34 T. Hodson and I. Dougall, The Cabinet and therefore allowed that the aspiring artist
of the Arts being a New and Universal Drawing might 'gently color the reflections' of
Book containing the whole Theory and Practice shadow, since 'all reflected rays of light will
of the Fine Arts in General (hereafter Cabinet of be tinged with the color of the reflecting
the Arts), London 18o5. The authors asserted, object' (Dayes, 'Instructions', p. 302).
TURNER:
COLOUR
THEORY
363
'make himself acquainted with that part of optics in particular which treats
of light and colours: otherwise he will never be able to account for the many
phoenomena of colours which he will observe when he comes to examine
the properties and effects of different tints'.36
mixture of coloured rays and pigments. He observed that while light rays
(red, yellow and blue) when mixed produced white, a mixture of the same
three colours in pigments resulted in a destruction of the colour, tending
towards 'minotony, [sic] discord and mud'.40 He implied that this should be
avoided in painting for colour properly employed 'aids, exalts, and in true
union with lights and shadows makes a whole'.41
In the early I820'S, Turner's paintings appear much brighter in colour.
35 C. F. Bell, 'Fresh Light on Some WaterColour Painters of the Old British School
from the Collection and Papers of James
Moore, F.S.A.', Walpole Society, v, 1915-17,
p. 56.
36 Hodson and Dougall, Cabinet of the Arts,
p. I72. Dayes also observed that a student
of landscape painting should have 'a knowledge of that part of chemistry that relates to
colors [which] will be of great service; and
also, that part of optics called chromatics,
which explains the colors of light and of
natural bodies' ('Instructions', p. 288).
37 A. J. Finberg, The
Life of J. M. W.
Turner, R.A., 2nd ed., Oxford 1961, p. 138.
Turner's lectures were delivered in I8II,
I812, I814, I815, I8I6, I8I8, I819, I821,
1824, 1825, 1827 and 1828. See W. T.
Whitley, 'Turner as a Lecturer', Burlington
Magazine, xxii, 205.
38 Colour diagrams, which are now in the
British Museum, were prepared for the
lecture. Diagram CXCV-I78, 'No. I' has
the water-mark 'I822', Diagram CXCV-179,
'No. 2' has the water-mark '1824'. See A. J.
Finberg, A CompleteInventoryof the Drawings of
the TurnerBequest (hereafter TurnerBequest), i,
364
GERALD E. FINLEY
365
Indicated..
.', The Pamphleteer,xvii, London
1820, pp. 200, 215).
46 A New Elucidation of Colours, Original,
Prismatic and Material, showing Their Concordance in Three Primitives, rellow, Red, and Blue,
and the Means of Producing, Measuring and
Mixing them . . (hereafter New Elucidation),
London 1809.
" The section of the
diagram (P1. 41b)
designated (i) contains horizontal bands of
yellow which in the centre alternate with
bands of red, (2) to produce an optical
366
GERALD
E. FINLEY
diagrams of fine bands of colour, the author observed that 'we see . . . that
independent coloured rays may become so placed as to give the sense of a
perfect mixture, which would have been the case with these if the lines [the
engraved lines separating the colour bands] had not been made visible. . . .'48
But what is most interesting about Sowerby's discussion of optical blending
is that he suggested an alternative to the bands: 'fine dots of primaries among
each other would produce binaries. . . with a similar effect'.49 Both Shields
and NorhamCastlereveal a system of fine lines as well as small dots of colour.
It is quite possible that Turner may have read this treatise in search of material
for his Royal Academy lecture.5?
Both Shieldsand NorhamCastlewere executed in 1823. No other watercolours of 'River Scenery' or 'Ports of England' painted before or after 1823
appear to be so elaborate in colour technique. Therefore, it would seem that
1823 may mark one of the crucial periods in Turner's colour development,
especially since the lecture on colour was still of concern to the artist after
1824.51 It would perhaps be reasonable to conclude that the Shields and
NorhamCastlewere colour experiments, the products of deep reflection which
were intimately connected with the development of ideas for this lecture.52
Turner seems to have been one of the first painters to give concrete
expression to popular ideas concerning colour and light sifted from the strong
current of British scientific empiricism of the later eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. Through a study of recent developments in optics and
popular ideas concerning optics, possibly undertaken for his lecture at the
Royal Academy, he appears to have created a new pictorial equivalent of
the light and colour of nature. Turner's acceptance of a broader spectrum of
pigment, his possible comprehension of complements and apparent knowledge
of optical mixing helped him to produce a manifestly sophisticated colour
technique. His use of colour in water-colours for 'River Scenery' and 'Ports
of England' was a passing experiment, but does suggest the artist's awarenessof
the fresh world of colour revealed by optics which, moreover, may have helped
form a substantial base for his later more intuitive use of colour. The technique
he employed in the Shieldsand NorhamCastleantedates considerably and is to
a certain extent more intricate than that found in the works of Delacroix and
seems to anticipate the elaborate colour systems of Seurat. In this respect,
Turner must be considered an important precursor of the modern movement.