ying
Nature and degrading art which ever was put into an artist's hand.[71]
For the thing required is not to darken pale yellow by mixing gray with
it, but to deepen the pure yellow; not to darken crimson by mixing black
with it, but by making it deeper and richer crimson: and thus the
required effect could only be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass
of the color of every object in your landscape, and of every minor hue
that made up those colors, and then could see the real landscape through
this deep gorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do this with
glass, but you can do it for yourself as you work; that is to say, you
can put deep blue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and so on, in
the proportion you need; and then you may paint as forcibly as you
choose, but your work will still be in the manner of Titian, not of
Caravaggio or Spagnoletto, or any other of the black slaves of
painting.[72]

237. Supposing those scales of color, which I told you to prepare in
order to show you the relations of color to gray, were quite accurately
made, and numerous enough, you would have nothing more to do, in order
to obtain a deeper tone in any given mass of color, than to substitute
for each of its hues the hue as many degrees deeper in the scale as you
wanted, that is to say, if you wanted to deepen the whole two degrees,
substituting for the yellow No. 5 the yellow No. 7, and for the red No.
9 the red No. 11, and so on: but the hues of any object in Nature are
far too numerous, and their degrees too subtle, to admit of so
mechanical a process. Still, you may see the principle of the whole
matter clearly by taking a group of colors out of your scale, arranging
them prettily, and then washing them all over with gray: that represents
the treatment of Nature by the black mirror. Then arrange the same group
of colors, with the tints five or six degrees deeper in the scale; and
that will represent the treatment of Nature by Titian.

238. You can only, however, feel your way fully to the right of the
thing by working from Nature.

The best subject on which to begin a piece of study of this kind is a
good thick tree trunk, seen against blue sky with some white clouds in
it. Paint the clouds in true and tenderly gradated white; then give the
sky a bold full blue, bringing them well out; then paint the trunk and
leaves grandly dark against all, but in such glowing dark green and
brown as you see they will bear. Afte