CHAPTER XI.

ON THE SECONDARY, ORANGE.

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_, &c.: in gold colour, &c., it leans towards yellow. Combined with green it forms the tertiary _citrine_, and with purple the tertiary _russet_: it also furnishes a series of warm semi-neutral 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 accordance with the strength of the light in which it is viewed. It is of the hue, and partakes of the vividness of sunshine, as it likewise does of all the powers of its components, red and yellow. Pre-eminently a _warm_ colour, being the equal contrast of or antagonist to blue, to which the attribute of _coolness_ peculiarly belongs, 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 is one of the most agreeable keys in toning a picture, from the richness and warmth of its effects. If it predominate therein, for the colouring to be true, the violet and purple should be more or less red, the red more or less scarlet, the yellow more or less intense and orange, and the orange itself be intense and