Chapter III: Part 3

The theory of the harmonies of colors is a subject which awaits very careful investigation and a general discussion by artists and expert colorists. Such investigations must include many experiments based on common standards and uniform methods of measurements and records.

Harmonies naturally seem to fall into a few general classes which are convenient for comparison and discussion as well as for elementary instruction, but no one person can set himself or herself up to decide which are the _best_ harmonies. The practices and recommendations of noted artists who have appeared to be gifted with intuitive perceptions regarding color combinations have frequently included those for which there seemed to be no recognized authority, and yet their beauty could not be questioned. As the rules of grammar are but the correlation of the practices of the best scholars, so the rules governing color combinations must be the summary of the practices and recommendations of the best artists, if they are to be generally accepted as final, and hence we must patiently await the growth of similarly established laws by the comparison of the opinions of critics of acknowledged ability in various departments of the world of art. This has not been possible in the past and can never occur until there is a language of color through which color facts can be somewhat accurately expressed in verbal and written language, and this language cannot exist until there is an accepted alphabet of color on which it can be based. This alphabet is now in part furnished by the spectrum standards and completed by the pigmentary standards and the rotating disks made like them. Together they form the basis for a nomenclature by the use of which the questions involved in harmonies can be discussed and the results expressed in written language.

In the investigation of any subject with a view to elementary instruction, classification is an important factor, but one which heretofore has been almost ignored as regards color education. Consequently at present the more definite division of harmonies into classes is very much a matter of personal opinion, but Mr. Henry T. Bailey, State Supervisor of Drawing in Massachusetts, has suggested a very useful classification in which he arranges all harmonies under these five heads: Contrasted, Dominant, Complementary, Analogous and Perfected.

_Contrasted._--The contrasted harmonies are those in which color is contrasted with non-color, or more accurately in which an active color, that is a tone from the spectrum circuit, is contrasted with a passive color, white, black, gray or silver and gold; for example, a blue green tint with white, or green blue with warm gray No. 1.

_Dominant._--By dominant harmonies we mean those in which are combined different tones from one color scale. For example, red tint No. 1, and red shade No. 1, or a green blue tint, green blue, and a green blue shade. A dominant harmony composed of grays, or white, gray and black, is sometimes called a neutral harmony.

_Complementary._--This term refers to those harmonies in which are combined opposite or complementary colors in the spectrum circuit. The best of them show not only opposition in color but also opposition in tone. Thus, tints of one color with shades of its complementary produce a more pleasing effect than do complementaries of equal value. The best complementary harmonies contain one or more passive colors.

_Analogous._--This name is applied to those harmonies in which are combined tones from scales of neighboring colors in the spectrum circuit.

For example, in a composition of colors from that part of the spectrum containing yellow, green yellow and yellow green the following simple combination may be made: Yellow tint No. 1, green yellow and yellow green shade No. 2.

_Perfected._--By perfected harmonies we mean those in which the general effect of one analogous harmony is complementary to that of another.

The above classification of harmonies is very valuable for fixing in the mind the various effects of color combinations, and yet they may seem to somewhat merge into each other in their application, until the underlying principles which govern them are understood. It is unwise to suppose that because the above classification of harmonies is based on the science of color we can infer that it furnishes definite rules for producing best effects.

The Work of Chevreul Reviewed.

The good or bad effect of two or more colors in combination in decorative designs or fine art depends very largely upon phenomena which are elaborately explained in a book entitled "The principles of Harmony and Contrasts of Colours" by M. Chevreul.[A] The first edition of this book was prepared in 1835 and published in 1838. The author had at that time been employed for a number of years as superintendent of the manufactory of Gobelin Tapestries in Paris under the control of the French government.

[A] The Principles of Harmony and Contrasts of Colours and their Application to the Arts. By M. E. Chevreul. Translated from the French by Charles Martel. Third Edition. London. George Bell and Sons. 1890.

In this book are described in detail the results of a great number of experiments which were instigated by complaints regarding certain colors produced in the dyeing department of the manufactory, and which afford the most elaborate exposition of the subject ever published.

One of the first things which led Chevreul to make his investigation was the complaint that certain black yarns used as shades in blue draperies were not a full black but more or less gray.

The author says in his preface, "The work I now publish is the result of my researches on Simultaneous Contrasts of Colours; researches which have been greatly extended since the lectures I gave on this subject at the institute on the 7th April, 1828. In reflecting on the relations these facts have together, in seeking the principle of which they are the consequence, I have been led to the discovery of the one which I have named the _Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colours_."

The closing sentence of the preface to the first edition and dated 1835 is as follows:--

"I beg the reader never to forget when it is asserted of the phenomena of simultaneous contrast, _that one colour placed beside another receives such a modification from it_, that this manner of speaking does not mean that two colours, or rather the two material objects that present them to us, have a mutual action, either physical or chemical; it is really only applied to the modification that takes place before us when we perceive the simultaneous impression of these two colours."

It was not till three years later that a publisher could be found for this book, which is still a standard.

The English translation comprises over five hundred closely printed pages with many engraved and colored plates, and yet, it has been of comparatively little value in _popular instruction_ because of the lack of a generally accepted color nomenclature or list of well defined color terms, by which the readers might have understood and repeated for themselves the experiments described.

Unfortunately Chevreul was fully impressed with the Newton-Brewster idea of three primaries, red, yellow and blue, and therefore some of his deductions from his experiments seem to have been more or less influenced by the attempt to make them harmonize with this theory, and yet the subject which he has treated so exhaustively and intelligently is one of the most important in the æsthetic study and use of colors. In all expressions of colors in combination with each other, whether in nature, fine arts or the decorative and industrial arts, every color is affected by its surrounding colors, a fact which is exhaustively treated in this book.

While with our present knowledge of the subject it does not seem that the material use of color can be reduced to an exact science, this should not prevent us from accepting all the natural and scientific aids which have been or may be discovered toward this desirable result. Because of this lack of scientific knowledge in Chevreul's time much of the worth of his experiments is lost to us, yet there is very much of value in his work, suggesting as it does experiments which may be tried with present standards and modern methods.

If the use of Maxwell disks had been known to Chevreul his deductions from his experiments would have been quite different in their details. For example, in accepting the proposition that there are three primaries, red, yellow and blue, which may be combined in pairs to make the secondaries, orange, green and violet, he states that owing to the impurities of the pigments the secondaries are not as pure as the primaries. Consequently he believes that this may account for many of the shortcomings which he was too observing to overlook; but notwithstanding such an error in theory this wonderful investigator made many practical experiments and established very valuable facts regarding color contrasts.

The term Simultaneous Contrast seems rather restricted for a title covering such a range of effects, and the author subdivides the subject into simultaneous contrasts, successive contrasts and mixed contrasts, which he defines as follows:--

Simultaneous Contrast.

"In the Simultaneous Contrast of Colors is included all the phenomena of modification which differently colored objects appear to undergo in their physical composition and in the height of tone of their respective colors, when seen simultaneously."

Successive Contrast.

"The Successive Contrast of Colors includes all the phenomena which are observed when the eyes, having looked at one or more colored objects for a certain length of time, perceive, upon turning them away, images of these objects having a color complementary to that which belongs to each of them."

Mixed Contrast.

"The distinction of Simultaneous and Successive Contrast renders it easy to comprehend a phenomenon which we may call the mixed contrast; because it results from the fact that the eye, having seen for a time a certain color, acquires an aptitude to see for another period the complementary of that color, and also a new color, presented to it by an exterior object; the sensation then perceived is that which results from this new color and the complementary of the first." These last two effects may be shown very clearly in simple experiments.

There are various phenomena which may be classed as successive contrasts sometimes called "after images." The phenomena which Chevreul groups under the term "Simultaneous Contrast of Colors" belong to a class of physio-psychological effects termed after images, and more definitely to the subdivision called negative images. The positive after images are not important in the consideration of the theories of color and therefore are not described here. The specific effect most directly involved in the subject of harmonies may be observed if the eyes are fixed upon a small disk of red paper on a white wall for a few seconds and then the paper is suddenly removed, as there will appear on the wall in place of the full red disk a faint tint of a blue green. This is called an after image, and is nearly or exactly a tint of the color complementary to red.

For making this experiment mount a circle of red paper, say three inches in diameter on a square white card, four or five inches across, and grasping the card by one corner hold it in front of a white wall or a sheet of white paper pinned on any support. Tell the observer to look intently at the red disk for a half minute, and then without giving any notice suddenly remove it and ask what color is seen in place of it. At the first trial the result may not be entirely successful, because the eyes of the observer may naturally follow the red spot when it is removed instead of remaining fixed in the original position, but a second trial will bring the expected result. To illustrate mixed contrast, fasten on the wall a piece of red tint No. 2 paper four or five inches square. This may be very conveniently done by using a bit of beeswax on each corner of the paper, which will not soil the wall. Then having the three-inch circle of standard red paper mounted on a white card somewhat larger than five inches square hold the card in front of the red tint on the wall and repeat the experiment as before. The effect now should be a three-inch disk of very light gray in the center of the pink square, which is a "mixed contrast" according to Chevreul. The reason is simple. The after-image or successive contrast of light blue-green is projected on the red tint and being complementary the resulting effect is a gray. If the red tint could be exactly graded to the complementary effect in the eye the resulting gray circle would be a true neutral gray. Another illustration of the same physical effect by which the complementary is induced may be shown by substituting for the tint of red a light tint of the blue-green paper retaining the full red disk as before. The same blue-green after image is now projected on to the light blue-green paper and hence a circle of more intense blue-green is produced. Thus it is seen that Chevreul's successive and mixed contrasts are both due to the same physiological effect, the only difference being in the ground on to which the after image is projected.

It probably is unnecessary to state that these experiments may be made with any color and its complementary and that red and blue-green are used here merely as an example.

Another phase of the same physical effect is seen under other conditions which may at first seem to be quite different from those described, but which on examination appear somewhat similar.

It is a well established fact that when two surfaces approximating each other in color, as red and orange for example, are placed side by side, both are rendered less brilliant, an effect which might be reasonably expected because in order to see both the eye is naturally directed first to one and then to the other, and in each case the after image induced is a green-blue or blue-green, which being approximately complementary to both, dulls both. Or in other words, it is as though one examines for a long time a line of goods of similar colors so that the eye becomes fatigued and the color dulled. It is said that a good salesman of colored materials will endeavor to occasionally attract a customer's attention for a few moments to some other colors approximating a complementary, so that when the attention is again directed to the goods under consideration the full effect of the color may be secured. If it is true that the phenomenon of the after image is the cause of the peculiar effects expressed by the terms simultaneous, successive and mixed contrasts, and that by these effects all harmonies in color are governed, it is certainly profitable to understand them while using color material with the children, for their good as well as our own pleasure.

Contrasted Harmony.

Returning to our classification of harmonies, already stated, we find the first to be Contrasted Harmony, which covers those combinations in which a positive color, as a spectrum color for example, is combined with white, black or gray, leaving out for the present silver and gold, which may be confusing, and can at best be used only as outlines.

The simplest combinations of colors are found in this class, all of which are not equally harmonious, and some may not perhaps be entitled to be classed as harmonies, although not positively inharmonious. In this class, as in all others, there is involved contrast of tone and contrast of color, which may best be considered in several divisions.

Color with White.

According to the results of Chevreul's elaborate experiments the effect of a combination of an active color with white is to render the color more brilliant and to give to the white the effect of the complementary of the active color. He admits that the modification of white is very indefinite, but claims that, knowing what to expect, a complementary effect may be seen which otherwise would not be noticed. There is also a contrast of tone which in all cases tends to strengthen a color when used with white.

Black with White.

White and black are both intensified by combination with each other, and this is the type of "contrast of tone." Contrast of tone is very clearly shown when two or more grays of different tones are placed contiguous to each other. This experiment is easily tried by mounting side by side several strips of gray papers of different tones. If more than two are used they should be arranged in order from lightest to darkest. In this case each band will appear to be graded in tone from one edge to the other, each being lighter at the edge next to the darker paper.

This effect is plainly shown on the color wheel by producing several rings of grays with white and black disks of several sizes graduated from light at the center to darker at the circumference.

Color with Black.

In consequence of this law of contrast of tone the contrast of black with active colors generally tends to intensify the black and lower the tone of the color, i.e., to weaken it as though white or light gray was mixed with it, but this effect is modified by contrast of color. Contrast of color is perceptible in black when combined with color simply because the black is not perfectly black but a very dark gray, and hence there is the same complementary effect which shows in white and the lighter grays, but in a smaller degree. This effect is most clearly seen when the color used in combination is blue or blue-green, which induces in the black, yellow or red complementaries and gives the black a "rusty" appearance.

On the other hand, for example, red with black adds the complementary green-blue to the black, which improves it. The orange and yellow have a similar effect by their blue complementaries to relieve the black from any rusty appearance and a green yellow induces a violet effect in the black.

Colors with Gray.

When a color is contrasted with white the light from the pure white surface is so intense as to very largely obscure the complementary effect on the white, while on the other hand the feeble light from the black is not favorable for the exhibition of a complementary. So it might naturally be inferred that some tone between the white and black would be much more favorable than either for the observance of this effect, which is proved by experiment to be the case. This fact is illustrated in the familiar experiment of placing a white tissue paper over black letters on a colored ground, by which the black is practically rendered a neutral gray and the color a light broken color, and in appearance the gray letters receive a color complementary to the color of the page on which they are printed. Each color has its own tone of gray most susceptible to this complementary effect. The truth of this proposition can be perfectly shown on the color wheel by forming with three different sizes of disks a gray ring on a colored surface. For example, select small disks of orange and white of equal size, then a black and a white disk of the second size and an orange and a white disk of the third size. First place the large orange and white disks on the spindle, then join the two medium-sized white and black disks and put them in front of it, and lastly add the small orange and white disks. By rotation the result is the required neutral gray ring on a light orange surface. By the joining of the white disk with each of the orange disks the orange surface may be changed to a variety of tints for trial with the different grays which may be made from the black and white disks, so that the best tones of both orange and gray may be secured. When the best proportions are obtained the effect will be surprising, because when such disks are properly adjusted the complementary effect is so strong in the gray that it appears as a very definite color, a broken green-blue. It is said that the tone of gray should have the same relation to the tone of the color that its complementary would have in order to get best results.

For the same reason if a circle of lightest neutral gray paper, say four inches in diameter, is placed on a piece of yellow paper about six inches square, and another circle just like it is put on a piece of blue paper of similar size, it will be quite difficult to convince any one who has not previously seen the experiment that both gray circles are from the same sheet of paper. The results observed in this experiment are produced by a contrast of tone which causes one to look lighter than the other, and a contrast of hue which gives one a blue and to the other a yellow hue, in contrast to the color on which it is mounted.

Contrast of Colors.

If two colors contiguous in the spectrum circuit are placed in juxtaposition the effect of the contrast of hue is to throw them away from each other. For example, if orange red and the red orange papers are put side by side the former will seem more red and the latter more orange. Therefore, when colored papers are pasted up or laid in order to form a spectrum, for example, the colors not only fail to blend together but each line of contact is very disagreeably prominent.

If two colors are separated by a narrow strip of light gray, gold, black or white, the effect is greatly improved. For this reason a design in analogous colors is often improved by separating certain colors by a fine line of black, gold or gray.

If two colors not closely related to each other in the spectrum circuit are placed in juxtaposition, each is modified by an effect which is the complementary of the other. For example, if red and yellow are placed side by side, in contact, the red is rendered more violet by the added effect of blue, which is the complementary of yellow, and the yellow is modified by the blue-green complementary of the red, which tends to dull the yellow and change it slightly toward green.

If blue and yellow are joined both are improved, as the two are so nearly complementary to each other that each is intensified by simultaneous contrast, blue being added to blue and yellow to yellow.

Dominant Harmonies.

In the use of colored papers those combinations classified as dominant harmonies are the most simple to make because they are all in one family, as the little children like to consider the relationship. The red family consists of the standard red and its tints and shades, or in other words the red scale. With the several papers ready made this harmony becomes very simple, but in the use of pigments the production of a true color scale is not a thing to be confidently undertaken by a novice.

In a very elaborate color chart for Primary education prepared with great care by Dr. Hugo Magnus and Prof. B. Joy Jeffries, and published at large expense about ten years ago with hand-painted samples in oil colors, this lack of classification of hues is very noticeable, although at that time it was by far the best publication of the kind and was not criticised on this point.

For example in a scale of five tones of red the following are the analyses, beginning at the lightest tint:--

Tint No. 2, O.45, Y.20, W.18, N.17.
Tint No. 1, O.69, Y.3, W.7, N.21.
Standard, R.75, O.25.
Shade No. 1, R.85, O.15.
Shade No. 2, R.75, N.25.

In this scale according to the Bradley nomenclature the standard or full color is a very fine vermilion expressed by R.75, O.25, i.e. an orange red, and therefore in order to form a perfect scale both tints and shades should be in the orange reds, but in fact the tints are both broken colors, the lightest a very broken yellow-orange and the deeper tint very nearly a light broken orange. The lightest shade is a pure orange-red but with a larger proportion of red to the orange than the standard, while the darkest tone is a pure shade of red. Thus in the five tones we have the following arrangement, beginning at the lightest tint:--

Broken yellow-orange, broken orange, orange-red; another pure orange-red but more red, and lastly red shade, thus embracing in one orange-red scale parts of four scales from yellow-orange to red. In these defects in the best chart of its kind in the market only ten years ago is seen the best possible evidence of the advance made since that time in color perception, largely due to the use of the color disks in determining scales. While in the use of colored papers the dominant harmony may be the simplest and the one in which there is least danger of really bad work, some of the combinations are much better than others, and superiority is perhaps secured as much by the relative quantities of each tone used in a composition as in the selecting of the tones. In the entire range of the spectrum even this class of harmonies involves problems too complex to be solved by a few rules, but it is a very interesting field in which the children may safely be allowed to roam and experiment.

Complementary Harmonies.

Complementary Harmonies may perhaps be classified next to dominant because they are more easily described and more definitely limited than those effects termed Analogous Harmonies. A pure Complementary Harmony consists of the combination of tones from two scales which are complementary to each other. For example, the red scale is complementary to the blue-green scale, as also the green to the violet-red, and so on throughout the entire range of the spectrum scales.

As explained on Page 50, the complementary of any color can be determined by means of the color wheel, or nearly enough for æsthetic purposes with the color top. But even though the colors complementary to each other may be determined scientifically there will always remain ample opportunity for the exhibition of color sense and artistic feeling in the choice of colors because the difference between a very beautiful composition in complementary harmony and an indifferently good one may be found in the choice of tones, or in the proportions of each and their arrangement with relation to each other. This harmony certainly contains great possibilities with comparatively few limitations.

While it is perhaps approximately true that complementaries are harmonious in combination, yet best authorities do not seem to fully sustain this opinion and it is quite evident that pure tones of some complementary pairs when combined are very hard in their effects, if not positively unpleasant. This can be relieved very decidedly and oftentimes very pleasing results secured by modifying the colors to tints and shades or various broken tones.

But as has before been stated, and must be constantly reiterated, all fine questions of harmonies can only be determined by a general agreement of experts in color based on accepted standards.

Analogous Harmonies may seem to be more closely related to the dominant than the complementary and hence, logically, should perhaps be considered before the complementary, but there may be greater difficulties involved in the analogous than in the complementary because they are not so definitely limited.

Analogous Harmonies.

In an Analogous Harmony we may use tones from a number of scales more or less closely related in the spectrum circuit. In some parts of the spectrum it is possible to include a much wider range than in others. It is comparatively easy to produce safe compositions through that part bounded by the orange-yellow and the green scales, while from the green to the violet experiments are much less safe.

In almost any section of the spectrum a range of three scales is safe if the tones are properly selected and proportioned, and in some sections as many as five or six may possibly be included, by an artist, with striking and pleasing effect.

Perfected Harmonies.

The compositions which have been classified as Perfected Harmonies may be defined as the combination of two Analogous Harmonies which as a whole are approximately complementary to each other, or in which the key tones of the Analogous Harmonies are complementary to each other. Such compositions may be entirely composed of analogous colors with the addition of but one complementary color, and this is in fact a very safe harmony, especially if that one color is used as a border line or an outline here and there in the design, in which case it may sometimes be strong in color and tone.

The chart of spectrum scales as made from colored papers cut in squares is of great value in explaining the classification of harmonies. Fig. 15 is a reduced copy of the chart of pure spectrum scales shown on page 41, and which is here placed horizontally for convenience.

The black zig-zag lines are designed as graphic illustrations of the various classes of harmonies.

Contrasted Harmonies as defined are limited to designs in one active color mounted on a background of one of the passive colors and thus need no further explanation, although experience will prove that some combinations are very much more pleasing than others.

The Dominant Harmonies which are defined as combinations of tones from one scale cannot be made more clear by a diagram, which would be simply a straight vertical line through any one of the eighteen scales, indicating that the five tones in that scale or any selection from them may be used in a Dominant Harmony.

The Analogous Harmony has given students the most trouble and the diagram is principally prepared to illustrate the great variety in harmonies of this class.

Commencing at the left, the first line indicates a harmony in three scales beginning with red-violet shade No. 2 and passing to shade No. 1, then to standard violet and thence to blue-violet tints No. 1 and No. 2.

The next is in two scales, beginning at violet-blue shade No. 2, thence to blue shade No. 1; back to normal violet-blue; again into the blue scale at tint No. 1 and back to violet-blue tint No. 2.

The next begins at green-blue shade No. 2 and ends in green tint No. 2. Theoretically the line beginning in G. B. S. 2. and leading to G. T. 1. and thence to Y. S. 2. may represent an Analogous Harmony, but it may be doubtful whether a range of such an extent in that part of the spectrum could be made very harmonious. This may be divided into two harmonies at G. T. 1. and each part may be extended to G. T. 2.

The straight line from G. S. 2. to O. Y. T. 2., embracing five scales, might be extended to include the joining broken line running into the Y. O. scale and finishing at O. Y. S. 2.

The remaining lines at the red end of the chart may be considered as indicating one harmony in six tones, or two harmonies in three tones each.

If the two ends of the Chart of Spectrum Scales are joined so as to form an endless band or a cylinder, bringing the violet-red scale adjoining the red-violet, as in the spectrum circuit, the same graphic illustration could be given of harmonies extending from violet to red.

The complementary harmonies require no diagrams, because they are limited to the combination of two scales complementary to each other and would be represented by two parallel vertical lines through any two complementary colors, as for example vertical lines through the red and green-blue scales.

The compositions termed Perfected Harmonies may be fairly well illustrated in the diagram by the combination of the line in V. B. and B. with the broken line commencing in G. Y. S. 2. and ending in G. Y. T. 2.; or again by the line in R. V. to B. V. combined with the straight line from G. T. 1. to Y. S. 2.; or the broken line G. to Y. S. 2. Or again, the entire range of the double combination O. S. 2., O. R. T. 2., V. R. and O. R. S. 2. with the broken line from G. B. S. 2. to G. T. 2. Another sample of Perfected Harmony is found in the union of line O. R. S. 2., V. R., O. R. T. 2., with line G. B. S. 2. to G. T. 2. These diagrams are designed to show the range or extent which a single composition may cover under its special definition and do not imply a necessity for using at one time all the colors through which the line passes, or that they are specially good harmonies.

A striking illustration in nature of a Perfected Harmony was seen one bright autumn morning in a species of woodbine covering the side of a red brick building, in which could be discovered an infinite variety of colors in greens and violet-reds whose tones were increased in number and intensified in effect by the reflections of the sunlight and the corresponding shadows, producing very light tints and very dark shades of various hues of the complementary colors, and forming a complicated and wonderfully beautiful effect very definitely classified as a Perfected Harmony.

Field's Chromatic Equivalents.

So much has been said and written about Field's Equivalents that there is a very general impression among artists and others that they constitute an important element in harmonious compositions of color. This proposition as given in Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament is as follows:--

"The primaries of equal intensities will harmonize or neutralize each other, in the proportions of 3 yellow, 5 red and 8 blue--integrally as 16.

The secondaries in the proportions of 8 orange, 13 purple, 11 green--integrally as 32.

The tertiaries, citrine (compound of orange and green), 19; russet (orange and purple), 21; olive (green and purple), 24--integrally as 64."

In commenting on this in "The Theory of Color" Dr. Von Bezold says: "It is often maintained that the individual colors in a colored ornament should be so chosen, both as regards hues and the areas assigned to them, that the resulting mixture, as well as the total impression produced when such ornaments are looked at from a considerable distance, should be a neutral gray. Starting from this idea, the attempt has been made to fix the proportional size of the areas, which would have to be assigned to the various colors usually employed in the arts, for the purpose of arriving at the result indicated. This idea was especially elaborated by Field, an Englishman, who gave the name of 'chromatic equivalents' to the numbers of the proportions obtained, a designation which has since been very generally adopted. In reality, however, these 'chromatic equivalents' have no value whatever."

The same writer also says: "It will always remain incomprehensible that even a man like Owen Jones in the text accompanying his beautiful "Grammar of Ornament" should have adopted this proposition in the form given to it by Field, since among all the ornaments reproduced in the work just mentioned there are scarcely any which will really show the distribution of colors demanded by the proposition in question."[B]

[B] The Theory of Color in its relation to Art and Art Industry. By Dr. William Von Bezold. Translated from the German by S. K. Koehler with introduction and notes by Edward C. Pickering. Boston; L. Prang & Company, 1876.

In accordance with this eminent authority any one familiar with disk combinations will know by experiment that no combinations of red, yellow and blue approaching the proportion named by Field can produce a neutral gray effect in the eye.

Colored Papers.

For practical study of color some economic material is absolutely necessary and nothing so well combines manual work with æsthetic cultivation as colored papers, if specially prepared in standard colors and with a dead plated surface.

In the manufacture of the colored papers adopted in the Bradley scheme of color instruction, the effort has constantly been to produce the closest possible imitations of natural colors consistent with the material.

With this aim in view we have secured the brightest possible red, orange, yellow, green and blue and have chosen a violet which has the same relation to the other pigmentary colors that the soft beauty of the spectrum violet bears to the other parts of the spectrum.

It however happens that in the pure aniline colors discovered in recent years a line of purples and violets has been found so much purer than the other pigments that we cannot with our red and violet make a perfect imitation of the brightest aniline purples used in some of the goods now in the market. Purple is a general name for the several modifications of violet, red-violet and violet-red as Peacock Blue is a name given to the beautiful hues of blue-green and green-blue. These aniline purples are but another indication that we may expect such advance in the science of pigment manufacture in the comparatively near future that a much purer line of standards may be secured than is now possible in papers. But it does not materially affect the value of the present standards as long as they are accepted as indicating the kind of color, i.e., its location in the spectrum, and the _artists_ certainly should not object to this lack of purity, because their only present criticism is that the standards are too "raw," which is but another term for pure.

In the glazed colored papers in the market we may find some of these purples, especially in the tints or "pinks" which when placed beside the unglazed surfaces of the standard papers render the latter quite subdued. But in primary color education there is no place for these purest purple papers, until chemistry discovers other colors correspondingly brilliant to complete a purer chart of spectrum colors than is now possible.

Color Teaching in The Schoolroom.

In the preceding sections of this book the author has aimed to so guide the teacher who is looking for aids in elementary color teaching that she can by actual experiment determine for herself the truths regarding color, and hence be able to choose such facts as are suited to the needs of her pupils from time to time, and to present them in such a logical order as to render them of the greatest value in practical results.

It should be possible to interest the children in color more easily than in any other subject. Examples are always around them at home, in the street, in the garden and the field, if perchance they are fortunate enough to see the field, and those who see no attractive colors elsewhere certainly should find them in the schoolroom. To a teacher who is in love with the subject the world will be full of examples, every day. The beautiful yellows and greens of the spring leaves, the flowers, birds and butterflies of the summer, the autumn foliage, the sunsets and blue and purple mountains of winter, are but hints of the multitude of object lessons in color all around us; and if none of these are available the more commonplace subjects found in the latest seasonable colors of dress goods and house furnishings will be almost equally valuable. When the children are once interested they will discover, through their own observation, examples of such value as to surprise one who has had experience with only the old methods of trying to teach color, or rather the utter lack of all methods heretofore in vogue.

The value of kindergarten training has been so thoroughly demonstrated as to be beyond controversy, and all progressive school boards must soon recognize the necessity of adopting kindergarten methods in the lower primary grades, until such time as it may be possible to introduce the complete kindergarten for all the children, to precede the school proper. The conditions prevailing in the kindergarten are peculiarly favorable to the study of color, because of the opportunities afforded for introducing it in connection with the manual exercises of the gifts and occupations.

The first gift of the kindergarten, as originally introduced by Froebel, consists of six soft worsted balls in six colors, which he seems to have selected as standards without care or knowledge regarding the theory of "three primaries and three secondaries," although no doubt he may have indifferently accepted it, because it was the only one in his day suggesting any logical scheme of color combinations.

The use of colored papers educationally in a systematic way originated in the kindergarten, and comprised folding, cutting, pasting and weaving, from which some color instruction was incidentally derived by the children. But with the papers formerly in the market little special training in the selecting, matching and naming of colors, such as is of so great value at the present time, was possible. The call for better colors in papers came first from the kindergartners, and the diversity of ideas expressed by them caused the writer to institute a series of investigations which have resulted in the system to which this book is devoted. The occupations of paper folding, cutting and pasting have been adopted into the primary school from the kindergarten, and there is no question but the occupation of paper mat weaving as practiced in the kindergarten should also be introduced in the lowest primary grades for those who have not had kindergarten training, because of its value in simple manual work and in designing symmetrical patterns and harmonious color combinations.

By general consent colored papers have been chosen as the most available material for this work, because while relatively cheap, the purest colors possible in pigments are secured, and the material is adapted to the most elementary manual training and education in form as well as color. It is not the author's aim to here provide a definite course of lessons to be given in a perfunctory way or in a fixed order, but rather to furnish suggestions based on practical work in the schoolroom that may be of value to those who have carefully examined the preceding pages of this book and become familiar with the experiments described. The suggestions are based on the experience of teachers who have been using the system here advocated for several years and testing it in various ways, and therefore it is hoped that they may be of value to any earnest worker who is not fully satisfied with her efforts in teaching color up to date. Consequently a brief outline of work is suggested for the earliest years, according to a definite order, and then further suggestions and experiments are introduced, somewhat in the order in which they may naturally present themselves.

The time has passed when it is necessary to offer any argument for the study of color in the schoolroom. Every child begins his school life with many color impressions which he has been acquiring since the day when his baby fingers first stretched toward some bit of color, and his development demands a clear presentation to him during the earliest school years of the fundamental facts concerning color upon which all later work must be based.

The Glass Prism.

A glass prism is one of the first requisites in the appliances for teaching color, and a prism which may be bought for a few cents will work wonders in the hands of an interested teacher, although a more perfect instrument, such as is sold with physical apparatus, will give colors which are better defined.

Experience in many schoolrooms has proved that a spectrum can be shown somewhere in the average room at some hour in every sunny day, especially in the longer days of spring and summer, and it is well to have the prism when not in use so fixed as to project the spectrum into the room much of the time, so that it may become familiar to the younger children. Observation of the spectrum enthuses the children with a feeling for color which can be developed in no other way, and they never tire with watching the wonderful vibrating effects of the liquid colors; and by studying it the mental image of each of the six colors becomes as distinct as that of the cube after it has been handled and modeled. If the schoolroom is provided with shutters or dark curtains a much better spectrum can be produced by closing them, as even a slight change from a bright sunny daylight has a very perceptible effect in bringing out the colors. A person who has never seen a carefully prepared spectrum in a room almost perfectly dark can have no realizing sense of the purest possible expressions of color.

Accident once disclosed a simple means by which one teacher secured a very good spectrum. There was a deep, dark closet opening from the schoolroom and one bright day when the prism was being used the spectrum was accidentally thrown into this closet, and the sudden and enthusiastic expression of approval by those pupils who were in position to discover it was certainly interesting to the teacher of that country school, with a dark coal closet.

In a spectrum such as can be produced in a dark room with the most perfect form of prism, all the various colors can be separated and carefully examined and by special appliances compared with pigmentary colors. Experiments of this kind are exceedingly interesting and instructive, and demonstrate the wonderful intensity and purity of the spectrum colors as compared with the purest pigmentary colors that can be produced. Such experiments were carried to a great degree of perfection when the six standard colors for the Bradley Colored Papers were selected.

How the Bradley Color Standards Were Chosen.

After many months of labor in securing samples of material colors, and many days spent with the spectrum, a committee of artists, scientists, teachers, and artizans unanimously decided that æsthetically and psychologically the colors adopted were the best possible material expression of the six localities in the spectrum corresponding to the feeling or psychological perception of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Many subsequent experiments have apparently proved that practically the same six colors best serve the purpose of primaries from which to make all others by combination.

In accordance with these selections the educational colored papers have been made, and since that time an expert scientist has accurately located each of these colors in the spectrum by its wave length. Consequently after the children have come to know the six colors in the sun spectrum the six standard colors of the papers may be shown as the best imitations possible. In studying the six colors from the spectrum in a schoolroom it frequently happens that one color may be best seen on the floor, another on the wall or even the blackboard, and another on the ceiling, and after the order of the colors in the whole spectrum has been observed, it is well to get each color where it can be best secured.

Paper Color Tablets.

When the spectrum has been studied so that the children have some idea of the six colors and their location relative to each other, give each of the children a package of the colored paper tablets, one inch by two inches, containing the eighteen normal spectrum colors, i.e., those in the central vertical column in the Chart of Pure Spectrum Scales, Page 41, and tell them to select from the eighteen the six which they have seen in the spectrum and which may be named to them as red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.[C]

[C] Tablets of paper instead of cardboard are recommended because in primary instruction the standards or types of color presented to the child ought to be the purest possible expressions of the colors represented, and a piece of color material cannot meet this requirement after having been used one year by a child. The necessary expense of cardboard tablets practically precludes a new supply each year. But the papers can finally be used to form, by pasting, some chart or combination which the pupil may be allowed to own as a sample of his work.

If a sheet of neutral gray cardboard can be secured for use on each desk all early color work will be more valuable, because of the undesirable effect of the usual yellow or orange color of the wood of the desk.

If some of the pupils do not make the correct selection of the papers it may be well to let the error pass for that time and have another exhibition of the spectrum before the next trial. Get as many of them as possible to make the selection of the six colors from the eighteen solely by comparison with the spectrum. Later if some are still unable to succeed, a paper spectrum may be shown to them, or what is better, six bits of paper like their own, pasted on a card, with an interval as wide as two papers between each two. When every child can readily select the six standard colors from the eighteen then all of them may with advantage be told to lay the six in a row on the gray cardboard or desk, in their proper order, and sufficiently separated to allow room for two other papers between each two. When all have made the attempt and some have failed to arrange the papers correctly the card having them properly mounted may again be shown and each one in error may make the necessary corrections by comparison.

In a solar spectrum such as is possible in the ordinary schoolroom the intermediate colors between the standards cannot be very distinctly seen but the child can be shown that between the red and orange, with which he is familiar, there are colors different from both and possibly he may be led to see that these colors seem to be a mixture of the two. With this impression in the minds of the children the following experiment may be a very interesting psychological test of the natural color perception of each child, or in other words his "color feeling."

Ask the children to arrange the remaining twelve papers between the six standards in pairs and one outside of the red and violet at the ends. This exercise will serve to bring each of the other colors to the critical attention of the children so that they may not be entirely strangers to them in the succeeding exercises. At this stage the color wheel or color top or both will be most valuable.

Color Wheel or Top.

If the wheel is available let the teacher place on it combined red and orange disks of medium size and in front a small red disk. Before beginning the six papers should be laid on the desk in order, separated by two spaces. Call attention to the fact that the red disks are like the red sample of paper. Explain how the disks are joined and that the two larger ones can be made to show more or less of the orange and the red.