Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/290

276 his indebtedness to Brücke and to Chevreul for much of the information contained in them."

These tables, then, are given as embodying the results of artistic experience solely, and contain a comparison of artistic results collected "with a view of establishing principles." The different triads of colors that are mentioned further on in the chapter belong in the same category: we read on page 299 that "the triads that have been most extensively used are spectral, red, yellow, and blue," etc. These are followed by a triad which, it is stated, was much used in the middle ages, and again by one which, it is claimed, was a favorite in the Italian schools. Throughout the whole list of pairs and triads, good and bad, we fail to find a single case which it is not claimed embodies the results of artistic experience. It seems to us, then, that in this chapter the first and main aim has been the collection of "results with the view of establishing principles." Our author, then, having accepted without question these fruits of artistic labor, proceeds to analyze them for the purpose of ascertaining the principles that have been at work in their production. Among these, he finds helpful and harmful contrast, the desire to employ warm rather than cold color, etc. A less cautious writer than Professor Rood would probably have endeavored to construct a theory for practice based on the principles thus more or less established, but he attempts nothing of the kind. The facts and their suggested explanations are simply handed over to the student for his consideration. Thus the method pursued in this chapter by our author is precisely that which the writer in the "Nation" blames him for not following.

A word may here be added respecting the greater or less success with which this correct method has been executed. The critic in the "Nation" is apparently not aware that by far the larger part of the statements contained in the tables is taken not from Chevreul but from Brücke, and now for the first time appears in an English dress. This distinguished scientist states in the preface to his work ("Physiologie der Farben," Leipsic, 1866), that he is the son of a painter, has always been in constant intercourse with painters, and that from his youth he has studied optics in connection with its artistic applications. His statements with reference to the combination of the colors in pairs and triads he asserts embody the results furnished by artistic experience, and he adds that he has been unable to find any general rule which presides over the facts he has collected. These observations of Brücke are alluded to by Von Bezold, in the preface to his "Chromatics" ("Die Farbenlehre," 1874), as a great mass of delicate observations; and, from the fact that they are quoted by Professor Rood, we may also safely conclude that he has taken every pains to verify them as far as possible. As to what value they may ultimately be found to have for the artist and decorator, time alone can show, but for the present it will hardly answer to dismiss them contemptuously without study, particularly when we remember that they are not the fruits of scientific investigation, but of observation on artistic results.

We pass now to the second point made by this critic: Should the artist regard Chevreul's "laws of contrast"? The writer in the "Nation" thinks that our author would say "Ay," but he declares that most artists would say "No." Now, the laws of contrast simply express in a condensed form the effects that colored surfaces experience owing to the presence of other colored surfaces; it seems to us that to this question there can be only one reply, viz., that, consciously or unconsciously, artists always have and always will respect them; a delicate obedience to these laws in their most subtile