Quotations about the Color Brown
Welcome to my page of quotations about brown. For most, perhaps not the most exciting color, but it's a pleasant, comforting earth tone and the color of some of my favorite things — soil, tree trunks, chocolate, and coffee!
—tg
SEE ALSO:
COLOR,
RED,
ORANGE,
YELLOW,
GREEN,
BLUE,
PURPLE,
PINK,
GRAY,
CRAYONS & COLORING,
AUTUMN
Brown is a sober and sedate colour, grave and solemn, but not dismal, and contributes to the expression of strength, stability, and solidity, — vigour, warmth, and rusticity, — and in minor degree to the serious, the sombre, and the sad; not with the painter only, but also with the rhetorician and poet, with whom, nevertheless, many of the broken colours are yet "airy nothings" and "without a name." ~George Field, "Of Brown," Chromatography, 1835
The first of the semi-neutral... is BROWN... the rather indefinite appellation of a very extensive class of colours of warm or tawny hues... yellow brown, red brown, orange brown, purple brown, &c... The term brown... denotes a warm broken colour, of which yellow is a principal constituent: hence brown is in some measure to shade what yellow is to light... ~George Field
The brown pigments are: earth brown, burnt umber, burnt ochre, burnt sienna; all earths cooked to red hot. Cooking is present in brown. The names of brown dyes are sweet and edible; you can buy a coat in caramel, toffee, almond, coffee, chocolate or curry. There was once a color called toast. Sepia is the odd one out — the ink of the cuttlefish... ~Derek Jarman (1942–1994), "How Now Brown Cow," Chroma: A Book of Colour —June '93 , 1994 [a little altered —tg]
...Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
~William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, c.1593[II, 1, Petruchio]
ANGELA: Am I pure?
AUTHOR: Purity would be as violent as the color white. Angela is the color of hazelnut.
~Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), A Breath of Life: Pulsations, written 1974–1977, published posthumously 1978, edited by Olga Borelli and Benjamin Moser, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz, 2012
I never use colors. Black and white are all I need. Most of my clothes are black and white, too. I suppose the most flamboyant color in my wardrobe is dark brown. ~Leonard Baskin, 1964
I must say I like bright colours... I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns. ~Winston Churchill, "Painting as a Pastime," 1921
Highway 93... hurdles the rocky hills, revealing to the traveler a strange, rococo mountain plateau, rocky ranges in all shades of brown and moods of shadow... ~Raymond Carlson, "Mohave County's 'Little Ocean,'" Arizona Highways, April 1938, arizonahighways.com
...the last of all the colours I would wish to see there is chocolate-brown. The one drawback to chocolate is its colour. Charming to the taste, it is dull to the eye. One would never eat it if one did not know from experience that it tastes better than it looks. ~Robert Lynd, "The Chocolate Bus," Solomon in All His Glory, 1923
From the trees came the polished woods to make the violin and bass, which snuggled up to the golden brass. In the arms of yellow, brown is at home. ~Derek Jarman (1942–1994), "How Now Brown Cow," Chroma: A Book of Colour —June '93 , 1994
Broccoli-brown is brown with much blue and a small portion of green and red; zircon. ~James Nicol, Manual of Mineralogy, or the Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom, 1849
Spanish brown is a dark, dull red, of a horse flesh colour. It is an earth, and is dug out of the ground; but a colour pleasant enough to the eye, considering the deepness of it. It is of great use among painters, being generally us'd as the first and priming colour, for the seasoning of the wood in order to lay other colours on. Tho' this is a dirty brown colour, yet of great use to shadow vermilion, or yellow berries, &c. It is the best and brightest colour when it is burnt in the fire till it be red hot, for colouring wood, bodies of trees, or any thing else of wood, or any dark ground. For distinction or variety's sake, you may use it unburnt, or for a sadder colour, put in more copperas. If you would have a variety of brown dye, you may use: iron rust colour, London brown, clove brown, purple brown, barley straw brown, and walnut tree brown. ~John Barrow, Dictionarium Polygraphicum: Or, the Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested, 1735[a little altered –tg]
The first of the semi-neutral... is BROWN... the rather indefinite appellation of a very extensive class of colours of warm or tawny hues... yellow brown, red brown, orange brown, purple brown, &c... The term brown... denotes a warm broken colour, of which yellow is a principal constituent: hence brown is in some measure to shade what yellow is to light... ~George Field
The brown pigments are: earth brown, burnt umber, burnt ochre, burnt sienna; all earths cooked to red hot. Cooking is present in brown. The names of brown dyes are sweet and edible; you can buy a coat in caramel, toffee, almond, coffee, chocolate or curry. There was once a color called toast. Sepia is the odd one out — the ink of the cuttlefish... ~Derek Jarman (1942–1994), "How Now Brown Cow," Chroma: A Book of Colour —
...Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
~William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, c.1593
ANGELA: Am I pure?
AUTHOR: Purity would be as violent as the color white. Angela is the color of hazelnut.
~Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), A Breath of Life: Pulsations, written 1974–1977, published posthumously 1978, edited by Olga Borelli and Benjamin Moser, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz, 2012
I never use colors. Black and white are all I need. Most of my clothes are black and white, too. I suppose the most flamboyant color in my wardrobe is dark brown. ~Leonard Baskin, 1964
I must say I like bright colours... I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns. ~Winston Churchill, "Painting as a Pastime," 1921
Highway 93... hurdles the rocky hills, revealing to the traveler a strange, rococo mountain plateau, rocky ranges in all shades of brown and moods of shadow... ~Raymond Carlson, "Mohave County's 'Little Ocean,'" Arizona Highways, April 1938, arizonahighways.com
...the last of all the colours I would wish to see there is chocolate-brown. The one drawback to chocolate is its colour. Charming to the taste, it is dull to the eye. One would never eat it if one did not know from experience that it tastes better than it looks. ~Robert Lynd, "The Chocolate Bus," Solomon in All His Glory, 1923
From the trees came the polished woods to make the violin and bass, which snuggled up to the golden brass. In the arms of yellow, brown is at home. ~Derek Jarman (1942–1994), "How Now Brown Cow," Chroma: A Book of Colour —
Broccoli-brown is brown with much blue and a small portion of green and red; zircon. ~James Nicol, Manual of Mineralogy, or the Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom, 1849
Spanish brown is a dark, dull red, of a horse flesh colour. It is an earth, and is dug out of the ground; but a colour pleasant enough to the eye, considering the deepness of it. It is of great use among painters, being generally us'd as the first and priming colour, for the seasoning of the wood in order to lay other colours on. Tho' this is a dirty brown colour, yet of great use to shadow vermilion, or yellow berries, &c. It is the best and brightest colour when it is burnt in the fire till it be red hot, for colouring wood, bodies of trees, or any thing else of wood, or any dark ground. For distinction or variety's sake, you may use it unburnt, or for a sadder colour, put in more copperas. If you would have a variety of brown dye, you may use: iron rust colour, London brown, clove brown, purple brown, barley straw brown, and walnut tree brown. ~John Barrow, Dictionarium Polygraphicum: Or, the Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested, 1735