f colour being in his own hands,
and the difficulty of dealing with it laid as a burden upon his own
shoulders, as he combines, modifies, mixes, and dilutes them.

He perhaps has eight or ten spots of pure colour, ranged round his
palette; and all the rest depends upon himself.

This gives him, indeed, one side of the practice of his art; and if he
walks warily, yet daringly, step by step, learning day by day something
more of the powers that lie in each single kind of paint, and as he
learns it applying his knowledge, bravely and industriously, to add
strength to strength, brightness to brightness, richness to richness,
depth to depth, in ever clearer, fuller, and more gorgeous harmony, he
may indeed become a great painter.

But a more timid or indolent man gets tired or afraid of putting the
clear, sharp tints side by side to make new combinations of pure and
vivid colour.

And even a man industrious, alert, and determined may lose his way and
get confused amongst the infinity of choice, through being badly taught,
and especially through being allowed at first too great a range, too
wide a choice, too lavish riches.

A man so trained, so situated, so tempted, stands in danger of being
contented to repeat old receipts and formulas over and over, as soon as
he has acquired the knowledge of a few.

Or, bewildered with the lavishness of his means and confused in his
choice, tends to fall into indecision, and to smear and dilute and
weaken.

I cannot help thinking that it is to this want of a system of gradual
teaching of the elementary stages of colour in painting that we owe, on
the one side, the fashion of calling irresolute and undecided tints
"art" colours; and, on the other hand, the garishness of our modern
exhibitions compared with galleries of old paintings. For Titian's
burning scarlet and crimson and palpitating blue; and Veronese's gold
and green and white and rose are certainly not "art colours"; and I
think we must feel the justice and truth of Ruskin's words spoken
regarding a picture of Linnell's:--

"And what a relief it is for any wholesome human sight, after sickening
itself among the blank horror of dirt, ditchwater, and malaria, which
the imitators of the French schools have begrimed our various Exhibition
walls with, to find once more a bit of blue in the sky and a glow of
brown in the coppice, and to see that Hoppers in Kent can enjoy their
scarlet and purple--like Empresses and Emperors."