bistre colors - OneLook

Literary analysis:

In literature, the term bistre is often deployed to evoke a warm, muted brown tone that enriches both the physical descriptions of characters and the tonal quality of artistic works. Writers use it to detail subtle gradations in skin and eye color—as in accounts of warm, bistre-tinted complexions or the encircling shadows of a face ([1], [2], [3])—while also highlighting its importance as a medium for sketching and engraving in visual art discussions ([4], [5], [6]). Its application ranges from describing the delicate warmth in a portrait’s background to the atmospheric gradations in landscape renderings, suggesting an aesthetic that is both nostalgic and evocative of a time when chiaroscuro played a central role in artistic representation ([7], [8]).

But who can describe the grace and the soft languor of these daughters of Syria, their large black eyes, the warm bistre tints of their skin?
— from The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence by John E. (John Eleazer) Remsburg
She was white as her cream cashmere dressing-gown, and there were deep bistre circles round her more than usually brilliant eyes.
— from A Woman Martyr by Alice M. (Alice Mangold) Diehl
The eyes were unduly large, and, surrounded with bistre circles, glistened with feverish lustre.
— from The Curse of Koshiu: A Chronicle of Old Japan by Lewis Wingfield
Various brown inks, principally solutions of bistre and sepia, were adopted in sketching by Claude, Rembrandt, and many of the old masters.
— from Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by George Field
No. 159 of one hundred and sixty copies printed on Japanese vellum, with full-page illustrations in two colours, black and bistre.
— from A Catalogue of Books in English Later than 1700, Vol. 2 Forming a portion of the library of Robert Hoe
The ground-colour is grey, with a tinge of green, and it is thickly covered with small spots of bistre."
— from The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 by Allan Octavian Hume
Her face, with intent eyes just touched with bistre, had in the moonlight a most strange, otherworld look.
— from Tatterdemalion by John Galsworthy
Rome is painted in purple, gold, olive, and bistre—its shadows all in the latter pigment.
— from From the Oak to the Olive: A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey by Julia Ward Howe

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