Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/289

 subject. It was not without some surprise, therefore, that we read in the "Nation," of October 16th, a review of this work, which, though in some respects cordially appreciative, was in important respects at variance with the common verdict. The writer speaks of the scientific character of the book in a very pronounced way as "a work so laden with untiring and skillful observation and so clear and easy to read, that it is plainly destined to remain the classical account of the color-sense for many years to come." But before he gets through he talks in so different a strain as to occasion some perplexity with reference to his real state of mind upon the subject.

The critic in the "Nation" raises the question whether scientific investigation can be of use to artists, and he assumes that Professor Rood believes it may be. That question, however, we do not here propose to consider, but merely to show that the writer in the "Nation" has been both unfair and unfortunate in the examples he cites as proof of the bad consequences flowing from the assumption he attributes to Professor Rood. He says: "As to the question whether scientific investigation is an aid to artistic production or to artistic judgment, the author seems to assume that it may be. In the preface it is asserted that while knowledge of the laws of color 'will not enable people to become artists,' it may help in artistic work. Now, whether this is so or not, there is no chance to discuss in these columns, but a chapter of Professor Rood's book might well have been devoted to the examination of that question, and we regret to find instead of such examination the whole argument of the last two or three chapters resting upon the assumption of what we think ought to have been proved." Again he says: "The last chapter is devoted to the use of color in painting and decoration; and in this the evident knowledge and right feeling of the author are made useless by the false system adopted—the system of arguing from assumed principles to results instead of comparing results together with the view of establishing principles." As an example of this "false system," the fact is then pointed out that four pages are devoted to statements respecting the good, bad, and indifferent combinations of colors in pairs.

The fact is, however, that Professor Rood has taken especial pains, in the very instances selected, to explain that the method complained of is precisely the one he has not followed; and that the information contained in the tables is not derived from scientific experiments, but by observation of the results of artistic experience. Professor Rood has carefully guarded himself here in the very opening paragraph of the chapter "On the Combination of Colors in Pairs and Triads." He there says: "In the previous portion of this work we have dealt with facts that are capable of more or less rigorous demonstration; but we now encounter a great series of problems that can not be solved by the methods of the laboratory or by the aid of a strictly logical process. Why a certain combination of colors pleases us or why we are left cold or even somewhat shocked by another arrangement, are questions for which we can not always frame answers that are satisfactory even to ourselves. There is no doubt that helpful and harmful contrasts have a very great influence on our decision, as will hereafter be pointed out; but, besides this, we are sometimes influenced by obscure and even unknown considerations. Among these may perhaps be found inherited tendencies to like or dislike combinations or even colors; influence of the general color-atmosphere by which we are surrounded: training; and also a more or less delicate susceptibility. The author gives below, in the form of tables, some of the results furnished by experience, and takes pleasure in