NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 



If attention is not paid to the arrangement of colors according to the 

 above diagram, instead of their mutually improving- each other, they will, 

 on the contrary, lose in beauty. Thus, if blue and purple are placed side by 

 side, the blue, throwing its complementary color, orange, upon the purple, 

 Avill give it a faded appearance; and the blue, receiving 1 the orange-yellow of 

 the purple, will assume a greenish tinge. The same may be said of yellow 

 and red, if placed in juxtaposition. The red, by throwing its complementary 

 color, green, on the yellow, communicates to it a greenish tinge ; the yellow, 

 by throwing its purple hue, imparts to the red a disagreeable purple appear- 

 ance. The very great importance of these principles to every one who 

 intends to display or arrange colored goods or fabrics, was convincingly 

 shown from a great variety of embroidered silks, calicoes, and paper-hang- 

 ings, which demonstrated that if these laws are neglected, not only will the 

 labor and talent expended by the manufacturer to produce on a given piece 

 of goods the greatest effect possible, be neutralized, but perhaps lost. It was 

 clearly demonstrated that these effects are not only produced by highly-colored 

 surfaces, but also by those whose colors are exceedingly pale, as, for exam- 

 ple, light greens, or light blues with buffs; and that even in gray surfaces, as 

 pencil drawings, the contrast of tone between two shades was distinctly visi- 

 ble. The contrast of tone, or tint, was most marked when two tints of the 

 same color were juxtaposed, and it was therefore the interest of an artist to 

 pay attention to this principle when employing two tints of the same scale 

 of color. From the " mixed contrast," arises the rule that a brilliant color 

 should never be looked at for any length of time, if its true tint or brilliancy 

 is to be appreciated; for if a piece of red cloth is looked at for a few minutes, 

 green, its complementary color, is generated in the eye, and adding itself to 

 a portion of the red, produces black, which tarnishes the beaut}- of the 

 red. This contrast explains, too, why the tone of a color is modified, either 

 favorably or otherwise, according to the color which the eye has previou-ly 

 looked at. Favorably, when, for instance, the eye first looks to a yellow 

 surface, and then to a purple one ; and unfavorably, when it looks at a blue 

 and then at a purple. 



Mr. Calvert also showed that black and white surfaces assume different hues 

 according to the colors placed in juxtaposition with them ; for example, black 

 acquires an orange, or purple tint, if the colors placed beside it are blue or 

 orange; but these effects can be overcome, in the case of these, or any other 

 colors, by giving to the influenced color a tint similar to that influencing it. 

 Thus, to prevent black from becoming orange by its contact with blue, it is 

 merely necessary that the black should be blued, and in such proportion that 

 the amount of blue will neutralize the orange thrown on by influence, thus 

 producing black. As an instance, to prevent a gray design acquiring a 

 pinkish shade through working it with green, give the gray a greenish hue, 

 which, by neutralizing the pink, will generate white light, and thus preserve 

 the gray. Mr. Calvert, after explaining the chromatic table of M. Chevreul, 

 which enabled any person at a glance to ascertain what was the complemen- 

 tary of any of the 13,480 colors which M. Chevreul had distinctly classed in 

 his table, stated that it was of the highest importance to artists to be ac- 

 quainted with these, in order to know at once the exact color, shade, and 

 tint, which would produce the greatest effect, when placed beside another 

 color; and that they could save great waste of time which, no doubt, the 

 great masters lost in ascertaining by experiment those laws by consulting 

 M. Chevreul's work. 



