COLOUR STUDIES WITH TnE MICROSCOTE. 
129 
smother. Inferior colourists in their paintings constantly sin 
against colour melody, by making the transition from one 
colour to another next to it or near to it too violent, or mutually 
damaging through the unavoidable physiological introduction 
■of complementary tints. In decorative art — ladies’ dresses, por- 
celain work, wall-papers, curtains, and furniture — the colours 
should be so arranged that no good effect in any part is damaged 
by the eye coming to it from looking at any other part. 
Most of the commonplace rules, such as not to contrast a 
secondary with its outstanding third, will be found incorrect if the 
influence of quantity, already insisted upon, is taken into account. 
For example, instead of a contrast of green and blue being wrong, 
it is particularly agreeable if well made. Nature shows how to 
do it in such flowers as forget-me-not, nemophila, blue bells, blue 
irises, monkshood (pale and dark), violets, &c. Of course the 
pale sky-blue of the forget-me-not, and the fuller blue of 
nemophila, do not want the same green as the purple blue of 
the violets ; but take the purest blue that can be found, and a 
corresponding green will contrast well with it if the quantities 
are properly studied. The same may be said of orange and 
blue, purple and yellow. 
Equal quantities of colour in considerable masses and juxta- 
posed are never agreeable, and great inequalities are required to 
produce good effects when secondaries are contrasted with their 
outstanding thirds, although, contrary to what is stated in 
some books, there are, apart from errors of relative quantity and 
intensity, no inevitable colour discords except when two or more 
colours are so juxtaposed that their complementaries damage 
each other to the extent of ugliness, just as they would be 
injured if to each were applied a wash of the other’s comple- 
mentary tint. 
As the object of this paper is not to offer a theoretical trea- 
tise on colour, the preceding remarks may suffice as an intro- 
duction to our experiments. 
For the study of exceedingly brilliant combinations of colour, 
such objects as the elytron of the diamond-beetle, the Tamarisk 
beetle, pieces of peacock copper ore, slices of precious opal, &c., 
may be used with advantage, as showing what results from very 
striking juxtapositions. The diamond-beetle tints are best seen 
when the object is prepared by simply flattening an elytron, 
having softened it first by steaming the under surface, and then 
gumming on an uncovered slide. The usual balsam mounting 
of the opticians alters the effect. What is most remarkable in 
this gorgeous object is the softening influence of the blue and 
green, so that eyes of ordinary strength can bear with pleasure 
an intensity of illumination thrown upon it, that is by no means 
VOL. XIV. NO. LV. K 
