COLORE. – The term c. denotes both the sensation produced by matter permeated by a light that determines a “quality” in it, and the light itself that defines this quality. In art, c. is one of the elements of figurative language and, as such, it helps constitute the very essence of the work of art, participating in it in various ways with the other elements, according to the stylistic requirements that informed the artist’s creation.
The pictorial properties of c. are quality, intensity, and tone. Quality is the distinction of matter within the luminous spectrum (e.g., red, yellow, blue, etc.); intensity is determined by the greater or lesser distance of the quality from the neutrals; tone is the fusion of matter and light, or again the value that a given c. acquires according to the quantity of light it absorbs and reflects.
Neutrals are understood as those gradations of gray, from white to black, which, lacking light, implicitly contain the negation of c.
The course of art history is founded on these properties, through the varied alternation of expressive means capable of producing luminous or chromatic sensations.
Properly speaking, tone, which was a recent achievement in modern painting (it is well known how the name of Giorgione [1480-1510] is associated with “tone”), chiaroscuro (v.), which has an older tradition (it was Masaccio who first fully understood its capacities); it is based on gradations of neutrals superimposed on pure colors to create shadow effects, contrasting with the effects of light suggested by the latter. Tone, by contrast, is obtained through the succession of qualities of c. functioning as light and functioning as shadow (a light yellow and a dark violet, for example, joined together to create respectively the light division and the adjacent shadow division).
Leonardo da Vinci’s stylistic vision was quite different: he opposed the use of tones of c. with that of gradations of neutrals, softened within their chiaroscuro (v. chiaroscuro). Thus the shadows predominant in his pictorial ideal, moving away from the richness of c., delineated one of the most evocative and poetic attitudes of Western painting.