1844. 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



397 



with Him who is the author of sublimity, the essence of harmony, the 

 spirit of all beauty. 



We are not all, however, affectpd in the same degree by the same 

 objects, neither are our minds always in a fitting state to receive 

 pleasurable impressions. Association has, also, a powerful influence 

 over our sympathies, and the contemphition of whatsoever has been 

 familiar to us in infancy never fails to inspire us with delight. 



Notwithstanding, however, that our minds are so variously con- 

 stituted, and acted upon in such a variety of ways, there are, without 

 doubt, certain fixed principles of beauty and harmony which command 

 universal admiration; a desire of possession is a natural result of ad- 

 miration, and where that may not be we have recourse to imitation. 

 Hence, the wish to imitate the beauties of nature has originated the 

 greater number of those delightful studies to which the energies of 

 genius have been devoted. Beautiful forms and true thoughts have 

 thus been handed down to us from remote times, and these Godlike 

 creations, being based on nature and on virtue, still exercise an undi- 

 minished sway over our imaginations. Seeing then, to take two fami- 

 liar examples, that the works of Homer, the poet, and of Phidias, the 

 sculptor, have been the boast and glory of the world for thousands of 

 years, may we not conclude that such productions are in strict ac- 

 cordance with certain fixed and leading principles; and is not this 

 opinion strengthened by the following remark, with which the inge- 

 nious author of the works before us incites himself and others onward 

 in the pursuit of the true and beautiful. "It seems almost certain," 

 says Mr. Hay, "that the Grecians, at the period of their highest re- 

 finement, had a positive geometric principle of beauty, systematically 

 developed and applied in all their works." 



Several years ago, Mr. Hay, who has been throughout life a diligent 

 and successful student of nature and art, published his " Laws of Har- 

 monious Colouring," a work which rapidly passed through four edi- 

 tions, and which at once placed its author at the head of his own pro- 

 fession, and effected a complete revolution in internal decorations. 

 For a considerable period previous to the appearance of Mr. Hay's 

 work, house painting had sunk to a very low state, and the term of 

 house painter was almost synonymous with that of "white-washer." 

 Those in the profession who ought to have led and improved the 

 public taste, either from a delusive idea of realising larger profits, or 

 from a want of scientific knowledge, banished everything like colour 

 from house painting, and as they could not arrange decided colours 

 harmoniously, they had the tact to persuade their employers that 

 there was no pure harmony excepting in cold neutral tints of quaker 

 drab or colourless grey. In the same way, also, everything like pen- 

 cilling was set aside ; and while the most abominable and unmeaning 

 compounds of bad drawing and crude colouring were permitted to 

 cover our walls in the shape of paper hangings, the chaste and appro- 

 priate pencilled decoration, so prevalent during the last century, had 

 almost entirely disappeared. 



At this juncture Mr. Hay's work on colour made its appearance, and 

 backed by the author's artistic talent it gave a new impulse to deco- 

 rative art in Edinburgli, which has ever since been perceptibly im- 

 proving. Patronized by a number of enlightened and wealthy em- 

 ployers, at the head of whom was the great Sir Walter Scott, Mr. 

 Hay executed a number of ornamental designs remarkable for their 

 masterly drawing and brilliant colouring, while those principles which 

 he had evolved in his book were in many instances practically carried 

 into operation under his own guidance. The arabesques of Rafiaelle 

 and the grotesques of Watteau shortly became fashionable, and 

 although at first many imperfect imitations were produced, competi- 

 tion and appplication in a short time produced their usual results, 

 until now the art of decorative house painting bids fair to rival, if not 

 to surpass its ancient excellence. 



No one who attentively peruses Mr. Hay's treatise on "The Laws 

 of Harmonious Colouring" can be at any loss to account for the ex- 

 tensive popularity of that work, or the revolution which it has been 

 the means of effecting in all matters connected with interior decora- 

 tions. The author had at once gone to the source of all harmony in 

 colour, and by means of a most ingenious and original experiment he 

 was enabled to establish the truth of the theory that in the solar ray, 

 as in the previous practice of the artist, " there are only three primary 

 homogeneous colours. 



Having thus established the first principles of harmonious colouring 

 ©n a scientific basis, Mr. Hay, in his work, proceeds to give a practical 

 exposition of the arrangements and proportions required to produce a 

 harmonic effect in every kind of combination or composition, whether 

 gay, gorgeous, or sombre. He shows how to avoid monotony and 

 preserve repose in every supposable case, and in this way he invests 

 the art of decorative house painting with a dignity to which formerly 

 it had no pretension. He treats of the styles of colouring best adapted 

 foi every apartment, from the light cheerfulness of the drawing room 



to the solemn tone which ought to prevail in the library. He trium- 

 phantly proves that the strongest possible contrasting colours may be 

 used in interior decorations, without disturbing that chaste simplicity 

 always so desirable, and the soundness of Mr. Hay's views on this 

 point must be universally admitted, when the celebrated architect Mr. 

 Barry, in his report to the Royal Commissioners, recommends the use 

 of positive colours in the decoration of the New Houses of Parlia- 

 ment. 



Mr. Hay, in the fifth edition of his work on colour, has published an 

 " Essay on jEsthetical Taste," which he defines to be the result of the 

 operation of external nature upon the senses, and the effects of these 

 again upon the ndud, without being subjected to the reasoning or 

 rather discursive faculty. "The accuracy of this kind of judgment," 

 he says, "although instantaneous, is purely mathematical and depend- 

 ant upon certain geometrical principles, which regulate all combina- 

 tion appreciable by the eye or the ear." As these geometrical prin- 

 ciples, however, are more fully digested and illustrated in Mr. Hay's 

 work on " Proportion," we shall now proceed to examine that volume, 

 in the mean time recommending to the perusal of all lovers of art 

 " The Laws of Harmonious Colouring." 



In "The Laws of Harmonious Colouring," Mr. Hay casually alludes 

 to an analogy supposed to exist between colour and sound, and in his 

 work on proportion he seeks to prove the existence of a still more in- 

 timate analogy between sound and form. In attempting to establish 

 this theory the author has puzzled and perplexed us to little purpose. 

 The comparisons so frequently introduced between musical sound and 

 geometric figures are exceedingly perplexing ; and while the reader 

 is convinced that " beauty depends on calculation and geometry, and 

 that certain measures are beautiful either as simply considered or as 

 related," he is far from being convinced that " the circle, the square, 

 and the equilateral triangle, have any analogy to the tonic, the medient, 

 and the dominant in the musical scale." 



Mr. Hay in his treatise assumes that this analogy does exist, and he 

 sets down the circle, the square, and the equilateral trangle as prima- 

 ries, and compares these forms with the tonic, the medient, the domi- 

 nant in music. Now there can be no possible analogy here. In the 

 first place, each form, assumed as a primary, has a distinctive and 

 positive character, independent of any relation it bears to the other 

 primaries; the circle cannot be transposed into a square, nor the 

 square into an equilateral triangle. Now the tonic, the medient, and 

 the dominant are relative terms, used only in respect to a harmony — 

 we can change their character at will, and convert the note which was 

 the tonic into cither the medient or dominant; the do, re, mi, fa, sol, 

 la, si, are positive qualities in music, which cannot be changed, no 

 combination of other notes can be substituted for any one of them — 

 they are the primaries of sound, and the analogy to hold good must 

 agree with them. No note in the gamut is of secondary quality. It 

 matters not whether B fiat or C natural be selected as the key note of 

 a melody or harmony, that instant the leafing note rules the composi- 

 tion, while the medient and the dominant arrange themselves in their 

 proper places. 



The analogy between colour and sound simply consists in the fact 

 that in like manner as a primary colour is never seen alone, but is 

 always surrounded with a combination of the other primaries, so in 

 music, when a note is struck that note, or tonic, is always heard ac- 

 companied by the other two required to complete the harmony. Now 

 we do not find that when the eye is fixed on a circle that that circle 

 appears surrounded or accompanied by a square or an equilateral tri- 

 angle, and such being the case, while we admire the ingenuity dis- 

 played by Mr. Hay in working out his theory, we are forced to come 

 to the conclusion that the analogy has not been established. The 

 primaries of sound, form and colour may have a few points of resem- 

 blance, but such general or accidental features of assimilation are to 

 be found throughout all nature. An analogy, to be of any practical 

 use to science or art, must be perfect, and the ingenious author of 

 the work now under notice will, we think, perceive and readily 

 acknowledge that his analogy is too remote and imperfect to be 

 turned to any account. Having said this much, we now proceed to 

 examine the book in its far more important capacity, as a thoroughly 

 practical and most useful digest of the geometric principle of beauty. 



The purpose of the work is to reduce to fixed principles what is 

 called taste in the combination of forms, principles which were sys- 

 tematically developed, and applied in all their works of ait, by the 

 Greeks at the period of their highest refinement, but which were 

 utterly lost when the other perfections of Grecian genius were over- 

 whelmed in barbarism. 



The author illustrates the object he has in view very forcibly, bf 

 making reference to celebrated works of painting and sculpture, some 

 of which are famous for their perfect imitation of objects in nature, 

 while others e:icel in coinpositioa, or in scientific combination of such 



