CHAP. XV.

OF THE TERTIARY COLOURS.

OF CITRINE.

His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin.

CHAUCER'S KNIGHT'S TALE.

CITRINE or citron is the first of the tertiary class of colours, or ultimate compounds of the primary triad, yellow, red, and blue; in which yellow is the archeus or predominating colour, and blue the extreme subordinate; for citrine being an immediate compound of the secondaries, orange and green, of both which yellow is a constituent, the latter colour is of double occurrence therein, while the other two primaries enter singly into the composition of citrine, its mean or middle hue comprehending eight blue, five red, and six yellow, of equal intensities.

Hence citrine, according to its name, which is the name of a class of colours, and is used commonly for a dark yellow, partakes in a subdued degree of all the powers of its archeus yellow; and, in estimating its properties and effects in painting, it is to be regarded as participating of all the relations of yellow. By some this colour is called brown, as almost all broken colours are. The harmonizing contrast of citrine is a deep purple ; and it is the most advancing of the tertiary colours, or nearest in its relation to light. It is variously of a tepid, tender, modest, cheering character, and alike expressive of these qualities in pictorial and poetic art. In nature, citrine begins to prevail in landscape before the other tertiaries, as the green of summer declines; and as autumn advances it tends toward its orange hues, including the colours called aurora, chamoise, and others before enumerated under the head of Yellow.

To understand and relish the harmonious relations and expressive powers of the tertiary colours, requires a cultivation of perception and a refinement of taste to which study and practice are requisite. They are at once less definite and less generally evident, but more delightful,—more frequent in nature, but rarer in common art, than the like relations of the secondaries and primaries; and hence the painter and the poet afford us fewer illustrations of effects less commonly appreciated or understood. To this a want of right distinctions, and consequently also of proper appellations, may have contributed; nevertheless, the tertiaries have not escaped the eye of the poet, though his allusions to them are mostly ambiguous, metonymous, or periphrastical, as in the following examples of citrine :

In accordance with light and shade, &c.

Unmuffle, ye faint stars, and thou, fair moon,
That wont'st to love the traveller's benison;
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here
In double night of darkness and of shades.

The grete Emetrius, the king of Inde,
Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,
Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,
Came riding like the god of arms.

His crispe here like ringes was yronne,

MILTON.

And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne;
His nose was high; his eyen bright citrin;
His lippes round; his coloure was sanguin.

CHAUCER'S KNIGHT'S TALE, v. 2158.

Original citrine-coloured pigments are not numerous, unless we include several imperfect yellows, which might not improperly be called citrines : the following are, however, the pigments best entitled to this appellation, though we know of no one that bears it :

I. MIXED CITRINE. What has been before remarked of the mixed secondary colours is more particularly applicable to the tertiary, it being more difficult to select three homogeneous substances, of equal powers as pigments, than two, that may unite and work together cordially. Hence the mixed tertiaries are still less perfect and pure than the secondaries; and as their hues are of extensive use in painting, original pigments of these colours are proportionately estimable to the artist. Nevertheless there are two evident principles of combination, of which the artist may avail himself in producing these colours in the various ways of working; the one being that of combining two original secondaries,-e. g. green and orange in producing a citrine; the other, the uniting the three primaries in such a manner that

yellow predominate in the case of citrine, and blue and red be subordinate in the compound.

These colours are, however, in many cases produced with best and most permanent effect, not by the intimate combination of pigments upon the palette, but by intermingling them, in the manner of nature, on the canvas, so as to produce the effect at a proper distance of a uniform colour. Such is the citrine colour of fruit and foliage; on inspecting the individuals of which we distinctly trace the stipplings of orange and green, or yellow, red, and green. Similar beautiful consonances are observable in the russet hues of foliage in the autumn, in which purple and orange have broken or superseded the uniform green of leaves; and also in the olive foliage of the rosetree, produced in the individual leaf by the ramification of purple in green. Yet mixed citrines may be compounded safely and simply by slight additions, to an original brown pigment, of that primary or secondary colour which is requisite to give it the required hue.

II. BROWN PINK is a vegetal lake precipitated from the decoction of French berries, and dyeing woods, and is sometimes the residuum of the dyer's vat. It is of a fine rich transparent colour, rarely of a true brown; but being in general of an orange broken by green, it falls into the class of citrine colours, sometimes inclining to greenness, and sometimes toward the warmth of orange. It works well both in water and oil, in the latter of which it is of great depth and transparency, but dries badly. Its tints with white lead are very fugitive, and in thin glazing it does not stand. Upon the whole, it is more beautiful than eligible.

III. CITRINE LAKE is a more durable and better drying species of brown pink, prepared from the quercitron bark. The citrine of the definitive scale, Pl. 1. fig. 3., is of this pigment.

IV. CASSIA FISTULA is a native vegetal pigment, though it is more commonly used as a medicinal drug. It is brought from the East and West Indies in a sort of cane, in which it is naturally produced. As a pigment it is deep, transparent, and of an imperfect citrine colour, inclining to dark green-diffusible in water, without grinding, like gamboge and sap-green : it is, however, little used as a pigment, and that only in water, as a sort of substitute for bistre; which see.

V. UMBER, commonly called Raw Umber, is a natural ochre, abounding with oxide of manganese, said to have been first obtained from antient Ombria, now Spoleto, in Italy;-it is found also in England, and in most parts of the world; but that which is brought from Cyprus, under the name of Turkish umber, is the best. It is of a brown-citrine colour, semi-opaque, has all the properties of a good ochre, is perfectly durable both in water and oil, and one of the best drying colours we possess. Although not so much employed as formerly, it is perfectly eligible according to its colour and uses.

Several browns, and other ochrous earths, approach also to the character of citrines; such are the terre de Cassel, &c. But in the mixed confusion of names, infinity of tones and tints, and variations of individual pigments, it is impossible to attain an unexceptionable or universally satisfactory arrangement ;—we have therefore followed a middle and general course in distributing pigments under their proper heads.