Faldoni, parts 2740 - 2743

 2740. Now back to Faldoni, and his accidental use of color. Do you remember how he perfected his flesh color by the addition of a little earth green pigment that got into his flesh color because he had not cleaned his work table very carefully. Faldoni was quick to notice that the trace amount of green made his simple mixture of red and white flesh color more convincing.

  2741. The green was the complement of the red he was using. So, by the addition of green to the red, his flesh color contained all of the primaries. Yes, Faldoni started to make his flesh color according to the silent directions given to him by his own eyes. How do the eyes direct the painter of pictures to improve their colors?

 2742. It is simple, the artist mixes up a color, and when it gets to a certain tint a little voice seems to whisper in his ear, and it says, “That’s nice.” Later, when the artist puts the color onto his picture the very same little voice seems to say, “It looked good on the mixing table, but on the painting it looks too dark, better add some white or something.”

2743.  The optic nerve is constantly sending out these directions to the painter, and the eyes have only one goal in mind, the eyes want to arrive at a state where the painter can sit back in an easy chair, across the room from his painting, and think to himself, “This is nice, this is very very nice.”