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The tints of colours are infinitely more varied than the recognized 

 intervals in the musical scale. How, then, can vee expect to find rules 

 that shall snOice to secure that which in combinations of colours is 

 analogous to a beautiful melody or an impressive harmony in music ? 



Such rules, if we could find them, would constitute a perfect 

 definition of tone in colour patterns. 



We have had occasion to remark that certain colours are not found 

 to harmonize with each other, when placed together ; decorative artists 

 therefore avoid such combinations on ordinary occasions ; but when the 

 utmost possible intensity of effect is aimed at — as, for example, in a 

 picture lately exhibited in Liverpool, of " Queen Titania and her 

 Train," \\here the colouring was intended to dazzle the eye with its 

 gorgeous splendour — here these rejected combinations are the very 

 means employed to produce the required effect, and dashes of rose 

 colour are thrown on pink, and streaks of geranium on the rose ; 

 greens, blues, and yellows are charged one upon another, and the 

 result, when skilfully managed, is certainly .very brilliant. 



Nature has anticipated the artist even in this. If we examine any 

 of our British birds, we shall find no single instance of a colour placed 

 upon another with which it does not harmonize ; the tone is uniformly 

 moderate, and the contrasts of colour, where they exist, are simply 

 beautiful and pleasing. But we turn to some of the fairy-like birds of 

 Brazil, and what do we behold ? The most surprising combinations — 

 orange charged on crimson, blues surmounted by greens, and these 

 again by still more vivid greens ; ordinary rules are set utterly at 

 "defiance, yet no chance-medley work is here ; all this anomalous 

 painting is but the daring of a hand too skilful to require to work by 

 rule, and the result is splendour surpassing all description. 



Our minds are almost irresistibly led from this to an analogous 

 effect in music. Discord following discord " in the lowest depths to 

 find a deeper still," creates a thrill that no measured resolutions can 

 produce, but it requires the mind of a Mendelssohn to direct where 

 these consecutive discords shall come, and what they shall be. 



Have we then, after all, arrived at no more than this — that nature 

 has provided that the colour patterns in all her productions shall be 

 agreeable to the eye, and produce in us perceptions of beauty ? We 

 have, I tliink, done much more than this. We have seen how easily 

 a contrary effect might have been produced. We have seen that colour 

 patterns, without the most exact and skilful disposition, could no more 

 produce what wc see. in nature, than an animal running over the keys 

 of a piano could produce a melody. The hand must be there, and the 

 hkill to guide the hand. We have in nature thousands of colour 



