ccepts others. Successful pictures and
decorative schemes are due to some sort of balance uniting "light and
shade" (value), "warmth and coolness" (hue), with "brilliancy and
grayness" (chroma); for, when they fail to please, the mind at once
begins to search for the unbalanced quality, and complains that the
color is "too hot," "too dark," or "too crude." This effort to establish
pleasing proportions may be unconscious in one temperament, while it
becomes a matter of definite analysis in another. Emerson claimed that
the unconscious only is complete. We gladly permit those whose color
instinct is unerring--(and how few they are!)--to neglect all rules and
set formulas. But education is concerned with the many who have not this
gift.

(85) Any real progress in color education must come not from a blind
imitation of past successes, but by a study into the laws which they
exemplify. To exactly copy fine Japanese prints or Persian rugs or
Renaissance tapestries, while it cultivates an appreciation of their
refinements, does not give one the power to create things equally
beautiful. The masterpieces of music correctly rendered do not of
necessity make a composer. The musician, besides the study of
masterpieces, absorbs the science of counterpoint, and records by an
unmistakable notation the exact character of any new combination of
musical intervals which he conceives.

(86) So must the art of the colorist be furnished with a scientific
basis and a clear form of color notation. This will record the successes
and failures of the past, and aid in a search, by contrast and analysis,
for the fundamentals of color balance. Without a measured and systematic
notation, attempts to describe color harmony only produce hazy
generalities of little value in describing our sensations, and fail to
express the essential differences between "good" and "bad" color.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.

[Illustration]

FALSE COLOR BALANCE. There is a widely accepted error that red, yellow,
and blue are "primary," although Brewster's theory was long ago dropped
when the elements of color vision proved to be RED, GREEN, and
VIOLET-BLUE. The late Professor Rood called attention to this in
Chapters VIII.-XI. of his book, "Modern Chromatics," which appeared in
1879. Yet we find it very generally taught in school. Nor does the harm
end there, for placing red, yellow, and blue equidistant in a circle,
with orange, green, and purple as intermedi