Thoughts on:

The Four Great Colours;

and the Three essentials
Notes on Elemental
Manifestation
As long as magic itself, one of the most fundamental abilities of the painter has been
to attempt to capture the four raw powers of the elemental system through paint.
The four refer to Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. The ability to feel these energies, to
understand them, and to move with them is through the study of their Elemental
Manifestations in pigments from naturally occurring minerals:
Burnt Sienna, White, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, and Grey in the works of
Rembrandt control light in an Alchemical way turning base earth materials into a
golden light upon a ground of Armenian Bole.
Alternatively, a more literal interpretation might be through the colours: Red, White,
Yellow and Blue. JMW Turners palette consisted of Burnt Sienna (Red), many
Whites (Lead, Zinc, Chalk), Yellow (Yellow Ochre), Black, and Prussian Blue, on a
White ground.
Throughout their practice different artists will experience different degrees of success
no matter which art is practiced, but capturing their Elemental magic is often
considered one of the most difficult arts to progress in and thus there are few true
practitioners at one with their materials.
Focussing only on the physical manifestations of the four elements, each has unique
uses and capabilities when properly applied:
"Heat" energy, as we know it, is not perfectly synonymous with Fire magic, but the
perception of Red can be expressed more fundamentally through the use of Burnt
Sienna, a red claylike mineral, and can burn the eye of the beholder.
Air is another of the elemental manifestations, and is usually the first element an
Elemental Mage finds control of. Due to its already volatile nature and tendency to
change the painter can express meteorological phenomena utilising differing whites
from Zinc to Lead.
Earth, however, is the difficult counterbalance to Air. It is firm and resists all kinds of
change hence the use of Umbers Raw and Burnt or the control of Red through
Blacks such as Lamp, Bone and Mars Black, a form of clay; all the product of
burning.
Lastly, there is the practice of controlling the waters. Water can be used in much the
same way as Earth in that the tremors or resonances it carries can be interpreted by
the Elemental Mage to extend their range of sensation and know things they would
normally be oblivious to. Water abides in many of the things that we see daily. The

air contains some, the ground contains some, and various materials or substances
(including human flesh) have quantities in them.
Of the three essentials:
Salt is White in its appearance as distilled from sea water and the basis of light in
painting, lightening Yellow Ochre into a golden tone depending upon the body of the
White pigment; from the weakness and transparency of Zinc White to the almost
total opacity of Cremnitz White containing 3 times the amount of Lead than Flake
White and therefore highly poisonous although used consistently by Lucien Freud
since the 1970s to no ill effect!
Sulphur has the appearance of Yellow in its natural state and is usually found
around areas of volcanic activity. A Yellow base material such as Yellow Ochre
might be lightened with white to generate the appearance of Gold as in the works of
Velazquez, or later in the light of Rembrandt
Mercury or Quicksilver occurs in deposits throughout the world mostly
as Cinnabar (Mercuric Sulphide) and the red pigment Vermilion is obtained by
grinding natural cinnabar or synthetic mercuric sulphide. Its appearance as a metallic
liquid has the painter utilise it as a sense of Blue as in Grey on a Terra Rosa or
Vermilion ground that is an Elemental Blue optically.
Vaughan Warren (Royal Academy Schools) 5/11/15