212 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



PAINTING WITH BOTH HANDS. 



The above is the title of a work recently published in England, by John 

 Lone. Its design will appear from the following extract from its pages : 



" It is clear, from the approaches to perfection which ah 1 great artists have 

 made, that they have so managed their lines, as to involve to a certain extent 

 both the lines of binocular pictures. It is possibly connected with this 

 reason, that straight, sharp, and manifestly single lines have no place in 

 works of art ; but breaks, compromises, and indet erm i n ateness, run like a 

 gauze before a picture, and set the imagination free to realize more than the 

 eye has fairly before it. Thus, within certain limits, the least determinate 

 artists, as, for example, Turner, are the nearest to suggesting the verity of 

 natural things, simply because they are the nearest to the double lines of 

 nature. The solution which I have to offer, is comprised in the position, that 

 ambidextrous or two-handed painting will realize in art also, binocular or two- 

 eyed pictures : that pictures painted with both eyes, or what is the same 

 thing, both hands, will at length repose upon the basis of a complete physio- 

 logical truth. Drawings and paintings hitherto, as the productions of man's 

 right hand (and the same remark applies to a large part of the manual arts), 

 have been produced from right to left. But the stereoscope shows that 

 the mode whereby nature imprints her pictures on the brain of two-eyed 

 persons, is by the double or decussating method ; by one picture proceeding 

 from right to left, married to another picture proceeding from left to right. It 

 is, however, perhaps impossible that any artist should follow out this way 

 literally, by painting two pictures of a scene, each true for one of the eyes ; 

 and then uniting them by means of an instrument like the stereoscope. Nor 

 does it seem at all probable that the stereoscopic plan is the only one by 

 which the natural decussation can be produced. At ah 1 events, the ambidex- 

 trous method of producing pictures deserves a trial, as tending to realize 

 artistically the same end." 



EFFECTS OF COLOR ON HEALTH. 



From several years' observation in rooms of various sizes, used as manu- 

 facturing rooms, and occupied by females for twelve hours per day, I found 

 that the workers who occupied those rooms which had large windows with 

 large panes of glass in the four sides of the room, so that the sun's rays pene- 

 trated through the room during the whole day, were much more healthy than 

 the workers who occupied rooms lighted from one side only, or rooms lighted 

 through very small panes of glass. I observed another very singular fact, 

 viz. that the workers who occupied one room were very cheerful and healthy, 

 while the occupiers of another similar room, who were employed on the same 

 kind of work, were all inclined to melancholy and complained of pain in the 

 forehead and eyes, and were often ill and unable to work. Upon examining 

 the rooms in question I found they were both equally well ventilated and 

 lighted. I could not discover anything about the drainage of the premises 

 that could affect the one room more than the other ; but I observed that the 

 room occupied by the cheerful workers was wholly whitewashed, and the 





