370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



in which we have a spectrum to a register, in which the colors in each 

 register are all equally intense, but in values representing their several 

 natural luminosities, cannot, of course, be turned upside down, because 

 that would reverse the luminosities ; but the system admits of the other 

 changes which I have described, — the changes of pitch, the extension 

 or contraction of the value scale, and the extension or contraction of the 

 intensities. 



When it seems desirable, the middle register of greatest intensities 

 may be left out of the system. The register of lights and the register 

 of darks can then be brought close together, just above and just below 

 the central neutral. Then the lights and the darks are all equally in- 

 tense, and the first diminution of intensity is found in the register of high 

 lights and in the register of extreme darks. This arrangement may be 

 used both in Pure Design and in Representation. It is a system which 

 ought to give great satisfaction to the colorist because of the number and 

 variety of the colors, all equally intense, which it allows him to use. 



If you take your palette and, following any of the diagrams which I 

 have given, work out an illustration of the system, taking the central 

 neutral as ground-tone, and putting the tones in circles of half an inch 

 radius, you will observe that you have in the relationship of the tones a 

 relation of balance, of rhythm, and of harmony. The system, whichever 

 system it is and whatever form of the system is followed, is an illustra- 

 tion of Pure Design. Again, I am tempted to quote a passage of Plato 

 in his Symposium (§ 187), in which the physician Eryximachus says 

 that " harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch 

 which disagreed once but are now reconciled by art." In these various 

 systems of color-values or tones, we have a reconciliation of many differ- 

 ing elements harmonized by the art of design. Observe how the rhythms 

 of the different scales are so disposed that they balance in a perfect 

 equilibrium, and how by the principle of equal intervals of equal con- 

 trasts the many elements of each system are all perfectly related. 



Now we must take up and consider the second element of the spot of 

 paint, — measure. In order to do this without confusion, take one tone, 

 black on white paper, and one shape, the square. Thus eliminating all 

 differences of tone and of shape, you can vary the measure and study it 

 in all possible variations. Take some white paper and draw on it five 

 black squares of different sizes. Observe that you have harmony of tones 

 because the squares are all black, and you have harmony of shapes be- 

 cause the shapes are all square, but you have no harmony of measure. 

 There is no connection between your measures, unless you have made 



