Literary notes about cadmium yellow (AI summary)
Cadmium yellow has been celebrated in literary descriptions for its vibrant and enduring hue—a color both admired by painters and evoked by poets. In technical discussions of artistic palettes, it is listed among the essential pigments that provide a range of warm, luminous effects; for example, one text notes that combining cadmium yellow with tones like orange vermilion creates a "powerful palette" of remarkable permanency [1]. In narrative passages, cadmium yellow is employed to capture fleeting moments of light, as when a character casually remarks on a painter who "dipped his brush into cadmium yellow" to define a scene [2]. Meanwhile, poetic imagery uses the shade to enhance natural settings, describing a landscape where hues of "cadmium yellow and red gold" evoke the warmth of a May day with primroses and corn [3, 4]. These examples underscore the pigment’s dual role as both a technical resource for artists and a rich, evocative symbol in literature.
- Add orange vermilion and cadmium yellow and orange cadmium, and you have a powerful palette of great range and absolute permanency.
— from The Painter in Oil A complete treatise on the principles and technique necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst - "I say, Marshall, just look at this wheel; he dipped his brush into cadmium yellow and whisked it round, that's all."
— from Confessions of a Young Man by George Moore - Olive with primroses and corn, May with a cadmium yellow and red gold.
— from Muslin by George Moore - nd magenta, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, gold, a multi-coloured mass spread their extended bellies to a sky blue as the blouses.
— from Mike Fletcher: A Novel by George Moore
