118 M. NOBILI ON COLOUKS, AND ON A NEW CHROMATIC SCALE 



first to the lower colours of the spectrum, such as the red, orange, &c., 

 and the second to the superior colours, such as the violet, indigo, &c. 



The most gloomy tints on the scale are, according to the generally 

 received opinion, those of Nos. 10, 11 and 12, in which the higher co- 

 lours of the spectrum abound. These colours, it cannot be denied, are 

 also the least bright, and this quality may well be the cause of the 

 gloominess which is felt in viewing them. 



It is possible however that there may be in this case an unknoAvn ge- 

 neral law, which it would be worth while to investigate with the aid of 

 the analogies afforded by acoustic phaenomena, of which the principles 

 are better known. 



On the Pathetic and the Cheerful in Music and Painting. 



An exclamation or shout of joy consists of notes ascending from the 

 grave to the acute; a cry proceeding from grief or pain consists, on the 

 contrary, of notes descending from the acute to the grave. It is not more 

 singular than true, although it has never before been remarked, that 

 the same notes sung or executed on an instrument will produce in the 

 ascending scale a very different effect from that which they produce in 

 the descending scale. In the first case the feeling excited is decidedly 

 cheerful; in the second it is as decidedly sad. This is a fact which 

 in both a physical and a physiological point of view remains yet un- 

 explained, but may serve nevertheless as a law for all analogous 

 cases. 



Violet is a colour which certainly awakes a feeling of sadness. Can 

 it be owing to a similar law that it produces such a sensation ? I inspect 

 the table of imaginary colours, and find that the green-yellow corresponds 

 to the violet. We know that according to the theory of vibrations the 

 violet is produced by shorter and the red by longer vibrations. The 

 transition then from the violet, which is the real colour, to the green- 

 yellow, which is the imaginary, is a transition from the acute to the grave, 

 and analogous to that which takes place in the notes that produce sad- 

 ness. The only difference between the two cases is, that in the one the 

 sensation is the direct and immediate effect of the notes conveyed to the 

 ear from without, whilst in the other the eye receives from without no- 

 thing more than the impression of the violet colour, the rest of the ef- 

 fect depending on the internal action of the optical nerves which are en- 

 dowed with the power of passing of themselves from the real to the ima- 

 ginaiy colour. iN. difference of this kind however is not incompatible 

 with the existence of the analogy : it only leads to the inference that the 

 eye possesses the more exquisite sensibility, since in this organ a mere 

 disposition or tendency is sufficient to produce an effect which in the ear 

 is due to an external cause: for, the superior delicacy of the eye is evi- 

 dently the cause of the existence of these imaginary colours, which have 



