THE POPULAR ESTHETICS OF COLOR. 361 



THE POPULAR ESTHETICS OF COLOR. 



By JOSEPPI JASTROW, Ph.D., 



professor of psychology in the university of wisconsin. 



THE liuman race, like most large groups in ISTature, presents 

 a considerable variety amid a still more fundamental simi- 

 larity. It is evident that, if only we measure finely enough, no 

 two specimens, however simple, are precisely alike ; and in pro- 

 ceeding from the simple to the complex the opportunity for varia- 

 tion and diversity rapidly increases ; and yet amid all this diver- 

 sity of individuals there is much that is common, typical, and 

 similar. In mental processes, with which we are here primarily 

 concerned, it seems fair to expect that, given the same premises 

 and a fairly simple problem, similar conclusions will be reached 

 by different individuals, owing to the similarity of the logical 

 processes involved. But we know very well that when these pro- 

 cesses are complex, and particularly when the emotions and 

 interests of men are involved under substantially similar circum- 

 stances, very diverse conclusions may be reached, until, in ex- 

 tremely complex questions and in those in which personal interests 

 are dominant, we find tot homines tot sententice. 



Of all varieties of human judgment, the ones generally con- 

 sidered as least subject to rule and most open to caprice are 

 those commonly referred to as questions of taste. These ques- 

 tions of taste refer partly to our individual and peculiar likes and 

 dislikes, and partly to our more strictly aesthetic preferences and 

 aversions. Esthetic judgments, however, are subject to the in- 

 fluences of heredity and environment, of education, of general 

 mental development, and the like. We speak of certain pref- 

 erences as childish, as savage, as Philistine, as uneducated, as 

 national, as local, as a fashion or a fad. In some directions it is 

 possible to gather an aesthetic census and determine in a statisti- 

 cal way the distribution of particular likes and dislikes, and to 

 attempt to gain from such material some suggestions of the un- 

 derlying laws in obedience to which certain sense-perceptions are 

 judged to be more or less pleasure-giving than others. The 

 aesthetic relations and proportions of simple geometrical figures 

 and lines have been studied by this method, and it is very readily 

 applied, as is to be attempted in the present paper, to the study 

 of the nature and distribution of color preferences. 



The material for the present study was collected in connection 

 with the Psychological Laboratory of the World's Columbian 

 Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. The public was invited to 

 record its color preferences by means of a placard, which was 



VOL. L. 28 



