Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/284

 little surprising; it has the rare merit of being written in a style suited to its object. It is clear, simple, direct, and puts the matter before the reader in a straightforward, common-sense way, so as thoroughly to interest him in the subject.

The work is full of fresh illustrations, drawn by the author, and exhibiting new points and relations of the subject, and a chromatic plate is prefixed to the volume, which has something the character of a key, and will be specially useful to those who may desire to color the diagrams in the book. One of the most interesting features of the volume is the large number of instructive and attractive experiments in colors which it describes or indicates.

The work is strictly systematic, and treats the subject of chromatics comprehensively, as will be seen by glancing at the titles of the chapters. We can give no idea of the real scope of the work by any analysis of its contents, or even a conspectus of the new ideas and suggestions contributed by the author; but some of his observations in Chapter XVIII., on "Color in Painting and Decoration," are so suggestive in relation to a subject occupying a good deal of public attention at present, that we quote them:

The aims of painting and decorative art are quite divergent, and as a logical consequence it results that the use made by them of color is essentially different. The object of painting is the production, by the use of color, of more or less perfect representations of natural objects. These attempts are always made in a serious spirit; that is, they are always accompanied by some earnest effort at realization. If the work is done directly from nature, and is at the same time elaborate, it will consist of an attempt to represent, not all the facts presented by the scene, but only certain classes of facts, namely, such as are considered by the artist most important or most pictorial, or to harmonize best with each other. If it is a mere sketch, it will include not nearly so many facts; and finally, if it is merely a rough color-note, it will contain perhaps only a few suggestions belonging to a single class. But in all this apparently careless and rough work the painter really deals with form, light and shade, and color, in a serious spirit, the conventionalisms that are introduced being necessitated by lack of time or by choice of certain classes of facts to the exclusion of others. The same is true of imaginative painting: the form, light and shade, and color are such as might exist or might be imagined to exist; our fundamental notions about these matters are not flatly contradicted. From this it follows that the painter is to a considerable extent restricted in the choice of his tints; he must mainly use the pale unsaturated colors of nature, and must often employ color-combinations that would be rejected by the decorator. Unlike the latter, he makes enormous use of gradation in light and shade and in color; labors to express distance, and strives to carry the eye beneath the surface of his pigments; is delighted to hide as it were his very color, and to leave the observer in doubt as to its nature.

In decorative art, on the other hand, the main object is to beautify a surface by the use of color rather than to give a representation of the facts of nature. Rich and intense colors are often selected, and their effect is heightened by the free use of gold and silver or white and black; combinations are chosen for their beauty and effectiveness, and no serious effort is made to lead the eye under the surface. Accurate representations of natural objects are avoided; conventional substitutes are used; they serve to give variety and furnish an excuse for the introduction of color, which should be beautiful in itself apart from any reference to the object represented. Accurate, realistic representations of natural objects mark the decline and decay of decorative art. A painting is a representation of something which is not present; an ornamented surface is essentially not a representation of a beautiful absent object, but is the beautiful object itself; and we dislike to see it forsaking its childlike independence and attempting at the name time both to be and to represent something beautiful. Again, ornamental color is used for the production of a result which is delightful, while in painting the aim of the artist may be to represent sorrow, or even a tragic effect. From all this it follows that the ornamenter enjoys an amount of freedom in the original construction of his chromatic composition which is denied to the painter, who is compelled by profession to treat nature with at least a fair degree of seeming respect. The general structure of the color-composition, however, being once determined, the fancy and poetic feeling even of the decorator are compelled to play within limits more narrow than would