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Prismatic Colours.
 
"If we could obtain Red, yellow and Blue as luminous as those Reflections thrown off by those brilliant bodies [Prisms?] we should be enabled to compose a white, that is vividness would quite surpass the most brilliant whites of our Palettes."
Merimee.
 
This theoretic & fanciful idea is an useless dream to the Painter. However bright might be the yellow, however vivid the Red - these combined with an intense Blue, - would produce a positive Black or dark neutral gray, if thrown on a white surface; & never could become luminous by annihilating each other. Black, composed of the three primaries is therefore as much a colour, as orange, green or purple, each composed of two primaries: and white, as a substitute for light, is effectively a colour in the hands of the Painter, either to represent light, to lessen the force of other colours, or to combine with Black in the production of grays.