LITERARY NOTICES. 



273 



be supposed by the casual observer. It is not 

 artistic or scientific rules that hedge up the 

 path, but his own taste and feeling for color, 

 and the desire to obtain the best result possible 

 under the given conditions. In point of fact, 

 color can only be used successfully by those who 

 love it for its own sake apart from form, and 

 who have a distinctly developed color-talent or 

 -faculty ; training, or the observance of rules, 

 will not supply or conceal the absence of this 

 capacity in any individual case, however much 

 they may do for the gradual color-education of 

 the race. 



From the foregoing it is evident that the 

 positions occupied by color in decoration and 

 in painting are essentially different, color being 

 used in the latter primarily as the means of ac- 

 complishing an end, while in decoration it con- 

 stitutes to a much greater degree the end itself. 

 The links which connect decoration with paint- 

 ing are very numerous, and the mode of employ- 

 ing color varies considerably according as we 

 deal with pure decoration, or with one of the 

 stages where it begins to merge into painting. 



The simplest form of color-decoration is 

 found in those cases where surfaces are en- 

 livened with a uniform layer of color for the 

 purpose of rendering their appearance more at- 

 tractive : thus woven stuffs are dyed with uni- 

 form hues, more or less bright. ; buildings are 

 painted with various sober tints ; articles of 

 furniture and their coverings are treated in a 

 similar manner. 



The use of several colors upon the same sur- 

 face gives rise to a more complicated species of 

 ornamentation. In its very simplest form we 

 have merely bands of color, or geometrical pat- 

 terns made of squares, triangles, or hexagons. 

 Here the artist has the maximum amount of 

 freedom in the choice of color, the surfaces over 

 which it is spread being of the same form and 

 size, and hence of the same degree of impor- 

 tance. In such cases the chromatic composition 

 depends entirely on the taste and fancy of the 

 decorator, who is much less restricted in his se- 

 lection than with surfaces which from the start 

 are unequal in size, and hence vary in impor- 

 tance. After these simplest of all patterns fol- 

 low those that are more complicated, such as 

 arabesques, fanciful arrangements of straight 

 and curved lines, or mere suggestions taken 

 from leaves, flowers, feathers, and other ob- 

 jects. Even in these, the choice of the colors 

 is not necessarily influenced by the actual colors 

 of the objects represented, but is regulated by 

 artistic motives, so that the true colors of ob- 

 jects are often replaced even by silver or gold. 

 Advancing a step, we have natural objects, 

 leaves, flowers, figures of men or animals, used 

 as ornaments, but treated in a conventional 

 manner, some attention, however, being paid 

 to their natural or local colors, as well as to 

 their actual forms. In such compositions the 

 use of gold or silver as backgrounds or as 

 tracery, also the constant employment of con- 

 tours more or less decided, the absence of shad- 

 ows, and the frank disregard of local color where 

 it does not suit the artist, all emphasize the fact 

 vol. xv. 18 



that nothing beyond decoration is intended. Up 

 to this point the artisiis still guided in his choice 

 of hues by the wish of making a chromatic com- 

 position that shall be beautiful in its soft, sub- 

 dued tints, or brilliant and gorgeous with its rich 

 display of colors ; hence iuteuse and saturated 

 hues are often arranged in such a way as to ap- 

 pear by contrast still more brilliant ; gold and 

 silver, black and white, add to the effect ; but no 

 attempt is made to imitate nature in a realistic 

 sense. When, however, we go some steps fur- 

 ther, and undertake to reproduce natural objects 

 in a serious spirit, the whole matter is entirely 

 changed ; when we see groups of flowers accu- 

 rately drawn in their natural colors, correct rep- 

 resentations of animals or of the human form, 

 complete landscapes or views of cities, we can 

 be certain that we have left the region of true 

 ornamentation and entered another which is 

 quite different. A great part of our modern Eu- 

 ropean decoration is really painting misapplied. 



" American Chemical Journal." Edited, 

 with the Aid of Chemists at Home and 

 Abroad, by Ira Remsen, Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity. Vol. I., No. 1. Fifty cents per 

 number. Baltimore : Innes & Co. 



As we gather from the announcement, 

 the first object of this new Journal will be 

 to collect the good original papers written 

 by American chemists. It will aim to be 

 a medium of communication between the 

 chemists of this country by recording their 

 researches. But at the same time it will 

 reprint articles and abstracts of articles 

 from other chemical periodicals, and will 

 also print reports of progress in recent in- 

 vestigations and reviews of chemical publi- 

 cations. The first number opens with an 

 article contributed by Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, 

 on the complex inorganic acids, and closes 

 with a report on applied chemistry, by Pro- 

 fessor J. W. Mallet. The numbers of the 

 Journal will contain from sixty-four to 

 eighty pages. Six will form a volume of 

 from four to five hundred pages, which will 

 probably appear within a year. Subscrip- 

 tion, three dollars per volume in advance. 

 All success to the new enterprise! 



Journal of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety, Vol. I., Nos. 1-3. Committee on 

 Papers and Publications: H. Endemann, 

 Ph". D., Editor ; Arno Behr, Ph. D. ; 

 Gideon H. Moore, Ph. D. New York : 

 Lehmaier & Brother, 162 William Street. 



"The American Chemical Society," 

 though young, is vigorous, and is going on 

 from strength to strength. It has already 



