45° TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE APPLICATION OF THE PHYSIOLOGY OF COLOR 

 VISION IN MODERN ART 



By henry G. KELLER 



CLEVELAND SCHOOL OF ART 

 AND 



Professor J. J. R. MACLEOD 



WESTERN RESERVE MEDICAL SCHOOL 



L 



Introduction 



EONARDO in his treatise on painting says ; 



Those vrho become enamored of the practise of the art.without having previ- 

 ously applied themselves to the diligent study of the scientific part of it, may be 

 compared to mariners, who put to sea in a ship without rudder or compass and, 

 therefore, can not be certain of arriving at the wished-for port. Practise must 

 always be founded on good theory. 



Instead of serving as an incentive to more extensive study of the use 

 of colors in art, these words seem to have marked the advent of an epoch 

 extending over several centuries, during vrhich colors came to be less 

 and less successfully employed. The ideals of art came to be dictated 

 by the academic painter and they were much more m}i;hological and 

 allegorical than founded on the beauty of color patterns. Much of art 

 became black painting, little attempt being made to use pure colors 

 even in landscape painting, and no consideration being given to the 

 effects which could be produced by the influence of juxtaposed colors 

 on one another. With the exception of some masters the ideal of 

 artists was merely to reproduce as closely as possible the color tones and 

 values as seen in nature — to produce a colored photograph without add- 

 ing to it that mysterious something for which is responsible the peculiar 

 charm and strength of the paintings of the early Italian masters and of 

 the Chinese and Japanese, and which includes some subtle influence of 

 the picture itself quite apart from what it represents; something that 

 endows it with a charm that is all its own, and which no colored photo- 

 graph can ever contain. 



It is true that from time to time in the history of modern art 

 masters have arisen who have, intuitively as it were, produced pictures 

 the color schemes of which have contained this " something." But it 

 is the individual rather than the system that has been responsible, and 

 no attempts have been made until comparatively, recently to evolve new 

 principles for the use of colors which would serve as a guide to all ; nor 

 indeed was such an evolution possible until some progress had been 

 made in the scientific interpretation of color. This progress is itself only 

 of comparatively recent date. 



