Ground smalts, blue verditer, and other pigments, have passed under the name of bice, which has therefore become a very equivocal pigment, and its name nearly obsolete; nor is it at present to be found in the shops.

VIII. BLUE OCHRE is a mineral colour of rare occurrence, found in Cornwall, and also in North America, and is a sub-phosphate of iron. What Indian red is to the colour red, and Oxford ochre to yellow, this pigment is to the colour blue; they class in likeness of character;-hence it is admirable rather for the modesty and solidity than for the brilliancy of its colour. It has the body of other ochres, more transparency, and is of considerable depth. It works well both in water and oil, dries readily, and does not suffer in tint with white lead, nor change when exposed to the action of strong light, damp or impure air: it is therefore, as far as its powers extend, an eligible pigment, though it is not in general use, nor easily procurable. It answers to the same acid tests as ultramarine, and is distinguishable from it by changing from a blue phosphate to an olive-brown ochrous oxide of iron when exposed to a red heat. It has been improperly called native Prussian blue.

IX. BLUE CARMINE is a blue oxide of molybdena, of which little is known as a substance or as a pigment. It is said to be of a beautiful blue colour, and durable in a strong light, but is subject to be changed in hue by other substances, and blackened by foul air : we may conjecture, therefore, that it is not of much value in painting.

CHAP. XII.

OF THE SECONDARY COLOURS.

OF ORANGE.

Bear me to the citron groves—

To where the lemon and the piercing lime,

With the deep orange glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend.

THOMSON.

ORANGE is the first of the secondary colours in relation to light, being in all the variety of its hues composed of yellow and red. A true or perfect orange is such a compound of red and yellow as will neutralize a perfect blue in equal quantity either of surface or intensity, and the proportions of such compound are five of perfect red to three of perfect yellow. When orange inclines to red, it takes the names of scarlet, poppy, coquilicot, &c. In gold colour, &c. it leans toward yellow. It enters into combination with green in forming the tertiary citrine, and with purple it constitutes the tertiary russet:-it forms also a series of warm semineutral colours with black, and harmonizes in contact and variety of tints with white.

Orange is an advancing colour in painting :-in nature it is effective at a great distance, acting powerfully on the eye,-diminishing its sensibility in proportion to the strength of the light in which it is viewed; and it is of the hue and partakes of the vividness of sunshine, as it does also of all the powers of its components, red and yellow.

This secondary is pre-eminently a warm colour, being the equal contrast or antagonist in this respect, as it is also in colour, to blue, to which the attribute of coolness peculiarly belongs:-hence it is discordant when standing alone with yellow or with red, unresolved by their proper contrasts, or harmonizing colours, purple and green.

As an archeus, or ruling colour, orange corresponds to the key of F in music, and it is one of the most agreeable keys or archeï in toning a picture, from the richness and warmth of its effect;-accordingly its influence on feeling and the mind is gay and cheerful, and opposed to the soothing and sedate.

In the well-known fruit of the aurantium, called orange from its golden hue, from which fruit this colour borrows its well-adapted name, nature has associated two primary colours with two primary tastes which seem to be analogous, a red and yellow compound colour, with a sweet and acid compound flavour.

The poets confound orange with its ruling colour yellow, and, by a metonymy, use in its place the terms golden, gilding, orient, &c., to express the signification of this colour in constructing of tropes; and it appears to be hardly less effective and necessary to warmth of description with the poet than with the painter, of which our preceding quotations afford instances; and some of the following illustrations of the poetic employment of this colour are in point. As according with light, &c.—

As harmonizing with its co-secondaries:

Culls the delicious fruit that hangs in air,
The purple plum, green fig, or golden pear.

ROGERS.

As contrasted with blue :

From golden cups or hare-bells blue.

MRS. PICKERSGILL.

Of this relation we have given a number of examples in the preceding chapter;-in the following description, by Sir Humphrey Davy, we have an instance from nature of the various relations of this colour associated :From the summit of Vesuvius "we see the rich fields covered with flax, maize, or millet, and intersected by rows of trees, which support the green and graceful festoons of the vine; the orange and lemon trees covered with golden fruit appear in the sheltered glens; the olive trees cover the lower hills; islands, purple in the beams of the setting sun, are scattered over the sea in the west; and the sky is tinted with red, softening into the brightest and purest azure."-LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER.

And Shakspeare thus employs this colour in accordance with black:The ousel-cock, so black of hue,

With orange-tawny bill.

Butler also uses the same compound epithet:

At that an egg, let fly,

Hit him directly o'er the eye,

And running down his cheek, besmear'd
With orange-tawny slime his beard.

HUDIBRAS, Part I. Canto II.

The list of original orange pigments is so deficient, that in some treatises on the subject of colours, orange is not even named as a colour. This may have arisen partly from the unsettled signification of the term; partly from improperly calling these pigments reds, yellows, &c.; and partly also from their orginal paucity. The following are accordingly all the pigments in general use which can properly be classed under the name of orange, though most of them are called reds or yellows:

I. MIXED ORANGE. Orange being a colour compounded of red and yellow, the place of original orange pigments may be supplied by mixture of the two latter colours; by glazing one over the other; by stippling, or other modes of breaking and intermixing them in working, according to the nature of the work and the effect required. For reasons before given, mixed pigments are inferior to the simple or homogeneous in colour, work

ing, and other properties: yet some pigments mix and combine more cordially and with better results than others; this is the case with the liquid rubiate and gamboge, and they form the best and most durable mixed orange of all hues for painting in water. In oil the compounding of colours is more easily effected.

II. ORANGE VERMILION is a sulphuret of quicksilver or vermilion of an orange colour, newly introduced: it resembles red lead in appearance, but is not subject to its changes, being a perfectly durable pigment under every circumstance of oil or water painting. Its tints are much warmer than those of red or orange lead; and it is a most powerful tinger of white, yielding purer and more delicate warm carnation tints than any known pigment, and much resembling those of Titian and Rubens. It is the best and only unexceptionable orange we possess, drying in simple linseed oil, and having the powerful body and properties of the other vermilions, and may be tested in the same manner. It works with best effect in water with a considerable portion of gum. The orange of the definitive scale, Plate 1. fig. 3. is of this pigment.

III. 1. CHROME ORANGE is a beautiful orange pigment, and is one of the most durable and least exceptionable chromates of lead, and not of iron, as it is commonly called, being truly a subchromate of lead.

It is, when well prepared, of a brighter colour than red, or orange vermilion, but is inferior in durability and body to the latter pigment, being liable to the changes and affinities of the chrome yellows in a somewhat less degree, but less liable to change than the orange oxide of lead (v.) following.

2. LAQUE MINERAL is a French pigment, a species of chromic orange, similar to the above. This name is also given to orange oxide of iron.

3. CHROMATE OF MERCURY is improperly classed as a red with vermilion, for though it is of a bright ochrous red colour in powder, it is, when ground, of a bright orange ochre colour, and affords with white very pure orange-coloured tints. Nevertheless it is a bad pigment, since light soon changes it to a deep russet colour, and foul air reduces it to extreme blackness.