166 THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 



mind a definite programme to follow out, and will do his 

 best to achieve it, and will do so with more or less 

 success. But, through all, he must bear in mind that his 

 picture will eventually be highly magnified, and that the 

 least blemish will be magnified too. In no art, perhaps, 

 can a man learn more by repeated failures (failures 

 which should be, from time to time, submitted to the 

 searching light of the lantern) than he can in this art 

 of slide-painting. 



The worker must constantly remember that the effective- 

 ness of his picture is dependent far more upon contrast 

 than upon the tone of any particular tint. Without con- 

 trast his colours will be meaningless and poor, although, 

 individually they may present brilliant hues. The rule 

 governing contrast of painters' colours, i.e., colours which 

 are complimentary to one another, is most simple. Here 

 it is in a nutshell. The three primary colours are red, blue, 

 and yellow.* Any two of these mixed together form a 

 secondary colour which is complimentary to the remaining 

 primary. For example : Red and blue mingled form 

 purple. What better contrast to purple can there be than 

 yellow, its complimentary, being the primary which is 

 left out of the combination ? * Again, blue and yellow form 

 green, and green is complimentary to red. Once more, 

 yellow and red form orange, the complimentary of blue. 

 I have no hesitation in saying that a man possessing this 

 little bit of elementary knowledge is far more likely to 



* This is not correct for coloured light, but answers for painters' 

 pigments. 



