728 ANNUAL KEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1913. 



titles produces the sensation of white. When other than equal pro- 

 portions of complementary hues are chosen, colors are produced 

 which are of hues intermediate between those of the complementaries 

 and which are mixed with varying degrees of white. They are in- 

 completely saturated colors. These facts may be satisfactorily rep- 

 resented by finding a point, called W, inside the color triangle, so 

 that any straight line passing through it will on striking the sides 

 of the triangle join two hues which produce white. This method of 

 finding the complementaries necessarily implies that they must be 

 separated from one another by a considerable distance on the spec- 

 trum. For representing these facts a circle instead of a triangle maj^ 

 be employed, and for practical purposes, in the use of colors in paint- 

 ing, such a circle has been found more useful than the triangle. 

 Before we proceed to explain its use, however, it may be well to 

 indicate some of the applications which can be made in art of the 

 facts we have already learned. 



It is in pointilism that this application is most evident. In this 

 method the pigments are laid down in minute areas or spots or lines 

 so that when the picture is viewed from a certain distance, the dif- 

 ferent hues act on the same nerve endings of the retina and there- 

 fore produce the same effect as if they had been superimposed, as by 

 the use of Maxwell's disks. Thus, if a white surface be dotted over 

 with red, green, and violet, or any other primary colors, or with red 

 and greenish-blue, or any other complementary colors, the surface at 

 a certain distance will appear grayish white. If, in any of the com- 

 binations, one hue be in preponderance of the others the gray will 

 become correspondingly tinted, so that a complete picture may be 

 built up of areas which on close inspection are a mosaic of pure 

 colors, but appear at a distance as tinted grays. 



The impressionists, Monet, Segantini, etc., appear to have laid as 

 the basis of their picture a gi-ay at the brightness (or value) which 

 they desired each portion of it to assume. On these surfaces they then 

 applied color more or less pointilistically. The neo-imprcssionists, 

 such as Seurat and Segniac, on the other hand, went a step further in 

 that the saturation Avas made to depend entirely on the synthetic 

 principle. They laid on their pigments strictly in dots on a surface 

 which was as nearly pure white as possible. Some of these neo-im- 

 pressionists had, however, already begun to apply certain of the prin- 

 ciples of color apposition in masses which we shall study later. To 

 build up a picture pointilistically must obviously greatly increase the 

 technical difficulties of the artist, especially with regard to outline 

 and form; his freedom of expression is also seriously curtailed. It 

 becomes necessary therefore that very great advantages should be the 

 outcome of such labor. Among the advantages are the sense of at- 

 mosphere, the vibrating, scintillating quality of the color areas and the 



