Turner and Mulready : the effect of certain faults of vision on painting, with especial reference to their works. The real and ideal in portraiture. The deterioration of oil paintings : three lectures / by R. Liebreich.

  • Liebreich, Richard, 1830-1917.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Turner and Mulready : the effect of certain faults of vision on painting, with especial reference to their works. The real and ideal in portraiture. The deterioration of oil paintings : three lectures / by R. Liebreich. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    red, green, and blue, according to Maxwell. When, as may easily happen, to this defect is joined a decided talent for painting, drawing alone ought to be attempted, because so absolute a defect will soon assert itself. But we meet with slighter degrees of colour-blindness, where the perception of red is not entirely wanting, but only consider- ably diminished ; so that, for instance, an intense or strongly illumi- nated red can be perceived as such, while a less intense red appears green. This moderate degree of colour-blindness does not always deter people from painting. A proof of this I saw at the last year's Exhibition, in a picture which represented a cattle-market. The roofs of the surrounding houses were all painted red on the sunny side, green in the shadow; but—what particularly struck me—the oxen also were red in the sun, green in the shadow. The slighter degrees of this anomaly, in the form of an insufficient perception of colours, have probably been the real cause why several great artists, who have become famous on account of the beauty of their drawing and the richness of their compositions, have failed to attain an equal degree of perfection in colouring. In opposition to these isolated cases, I have to draw your attention to other cases which happen more frequently, and in advanced age, in consequence of a change in the perception of colours. They do not arise from a deficient function of the nervous apparatus of the eye, but in consequence of a change in the colour of the lens. The lens always gets rather yellow at an advanced age, and with many people the intensity of the discoloration is considerable. This, however, does not essentially diminish the power of vision. In order to get a distinct idea of the effect of this discoloration, it is best to make experiments with yellow glasses of the corresponding shade. Only the experiment must be continued for some time, because at first everything looks yellow to us. But the eye gets soon accustomed to the colour, or rather it becomes dulled with regard to it, and then things appear again in their true light and colour. This is at least the case with all objects of a somewhat bright and deep colour. A careful examination, however, shows that a pale blue, or rather a certain small quantity of blue, cannot be perceived even after a very pro- longed experiment, and after the eye has long got accustomed to the yellow colour, because the yellow glass really excludes it. This must of course exercise a considerable influence when looking at pictures, on account of the great difference which necessarily exists between real objects and their representation in pictures. These differences are many and great, as has been so thoroughly explained by Helmholtz. Let us for a moment waive the considera- tion of the difference produced by transmitting an object seen as a body on to a simple flat surface, and consider only the intensity of light and colour. The intensity of light proceeding from the sun and reflected by objects, is so infinitely greater than the strongest light reflected from a picture, that the proportion expressed in num- bers is far beyond our comprehension. There is also so great a