

Analysis of Taste. 89 



luminous music, consisting of successions or combinations of colours, 

 analogous to a tune in respect to the proportions above mentioned. 

 This might be performed by a strong light, made by means of 

 Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through coloured glasses, and falling on 

 a defined part of the wall, with moveable blinds before them, which 

 might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord, and thus produce 

 at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each other. 



Now as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melodious 

 notes, independent of musical time, and of the previous associations 

 of agreeable ideas with them, must arise from our hearing some pro- 

 portions of sounds after others more easily, distinctly, or agreeably; 

 and as there is a coincidence between the proportions of the primary 

 colours, and the primary sounds, if they may be so called; the same 

 laws must probably govern the sensations of both. In this circum- 

 stance therefore consists the sisterhood of Music and Painting; and 

 hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from each other: mu- 

 sicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and shade 

 of a concerto; and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone 

 of a picture. 



This source of pleasure received from the melodious succession of 

 colours or of sounds must not be confounded with the pleasure received 

 from the repetition of them explained above, though the repetition, 

 or division of musical notes into bars, so as to produce common or 

 triple time, contributes much to the pleasure of music; but in view- 

 ing a fixed landscape nothing like musical time exists; and the plea- 

 sure received therefore from certain successions of colours must de- 

 pend only on the more easy or distinct action of the retina in perceiv- 

 ing some colours after others, or in their vicinity, like the facility or 

 even pleasure with which we act with contrary muscles in yawning or 

 stretching after having been fatigued with a long previous exertion 

 in the contrary direction. 



Hence where colours are required to be distinct, those which are 

 opposite to each other, should be brought into succession or vicinity; 

 as red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet; but where 

 colours are required to intermix imperceptibly, or slide into each 

 other, these should not be chosen ; as they might by contrast appear 



