Colour as a Means of Art Being an Adaption of the Experience of Professors to the Practice of Amateurs — Background and Themes

Pictorial Appearance vs. Everyday Perception

Howard grounds his instruction in a fundamental discrepancy: objects we know to be uniformly colored appear, to the educated eye, as a range of tints. He illustrates this with a meadow, which 'we know the grass to be generally of the same colour throughout,' yet pictorially it exhibits 'an infinite variety of tints' due to atmospheric interference. Similarly, a white ceiling seen in a well-lit room seems uniform, but its representation demands gradation. Howard attributes the common failure to perceive these modifications to 'Association,' which he says 'conceals the modification occasioned by the interposition of the atmosphere.' This concept is central to his method: the amateur must learn to override ingrained assumptions and observe the actual pictorial effect.

A Catalogue of Master Principles

The book's second chapter presents a systematic survey of compositional color arrangements, each named after a painter or school: Cuyp's principle, Both's principle, Hobbima and Ruysdael's principles, Teniers and Ostade's principles, and others from Titian, Ludovico Caracci, Rubens, and Turner. Howard does not merely list these; he treats them as transferable 'rules for producing pictures in colour.' The inclusion of two distinct principles for Titian and two for Turner suggests a nuanced view that even a single master's approach can be broken into multiple schemas. The chapter culminates in 'abstract principles to which these arrangements may be referred,' indicating an effort to derive general laws from specific examples.

The Role of Atmosphere and Light Conditions

Howard devotes separate sections to sunshine, sunset, moonlight, and grey daylight, each with its own plate. He emphasizes that the atmosphere is not merely 'air' but a medium that modifies color proportionally to its density. In a fog, he notes, colors can be 'entirely concealed.' The discussion of aerial perspective is tied to the earlier tension between actual and pictorial color: distant objects appear altered not because they change, but because the intervening atmosphere tints them. Howard's treatment of these conditions is practical, aimed at enabling the amateur to replicate specific lighting effects by understanding the underlying optical principles.

Howard's manual is best approached as a series of concrete demonstrations rather than a theoretical treatise. Readers will benefit from studying the plates referenced in each section and comparing the described principles with their own observations of natural light. The recurring emphasis on association as a barrier to accurate perception invites self-examination: what do you think you see, and what is actually there? By foregrounding this question, Howard equips the amateur with a critical habit of mind that extends beyond the palette.