# Colour-Music: The Art of Mobile Color/Author's Preface

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THE interest aroused in the whole subject of Colour-Music seems to have become so widespread, and I have received so many inquiries with regard to it, that a short volume giving a brief description of the present position of the new art, and replying to some of the questions that are frequently asked about it, may perhaps not be unwelcome. Hitherto it has hardly seemed advisable to publish a book upon the subject, because fresh experimental work and frequent modifications of the instruments used in the production of Colour-Music have carried the art further and further into the field of the untried, but some statement of what has been and is being done should perhaps not be further delayed.
In writing these pages I have felt myself to be addressing two classes of readers, namely, those who know something of the art of ​Mobile Colour, its past history, its hopes and its aims; and others who have never even heard of the subject. To the former, including, as it does, many of those who have followed and assisted in the experimental work carried out by me for a good many years past, I would take this opportunity of expressing my thanks for the keen interest they have shown in it, and the many excellent suggestions I have received from them; and, from the latter, I would ask for as open-minded a consideration of the subject as they can give me, more especially in view of the difficulty of placing it before them without being able, at the same time, to give practical demonstration of some of the points dealt with.
Upon a subject so new misconceptions are sure to arise again and again; but in the present statement of the case for Colour-Music, I have used my best endeavours to guard against them, and, discarding much more that might have been said from the artistic and technical standpoint, to write as clearly and simply as possible. I make no claim to absolute originality of conception with regard to the whole ​matter. Since I first took up the question of the need for, and possibility of, such an art as Colour-Music, it has come to my knowledge that even from very early times—perhaps prior to the Christian era—the possibility has been alluded to by various writers, and, in the sixteenth century, it took somewhat more tangible form in the mind of a Jesuit, Lewis Bertrand Castel. It was also referred to in an eloquent passage by the late Mr. R. H. Haweis, which I have quoted, with regretful memory of the author, in the Appendix, Mr. Haweis having afterwards become one of the warmest supporters of the forms given to the new art.
Starting from my original belief in the need for and the importance of such an art, which, when I first conceived of it, I supposed to have been hitherto unthought of, my personal part has been to devise instruments for bringing it into practical being and to develop, through a long series of experiments, some of the principles upon which Colour-Music compositions can be produced. This has demanded the expenditure of much ​time and thought upon the construction and reconstruction of successive instruments and experimental apparatus, and I have been tempted further and further in the direction of fresh modifications and improvements which have necessarily meant long delays. It took centuries to evolve an instrument like the pianoforte, and therefore no excuse need be made for the amount of time which it has required to produce the Colour-Organ and its allied instruments. Others will, I hope, in their turn, improve the forms and powers of these, and build upon the foundations I have laid. The development of Colour-Music is not a commercial undertaking, and I have no wish to exclude rivals, but rather to welcome them.
I should wish to express my indebtedness for valuable advice and assistance—or personal interest in the experimental work—received from the late Sir George Grove, Sir Wyke Bayliss, Capt. W. B. Marling, Mr. W. Basil Wilberforce, Mr. De Vere Barrow, Sir Hubert von Herkomer, and Professor Gregory, amongst many others; also to ​Professor Silvanus Thompson and Dr. W. Brown, who have made suggestions as to the chapters of this book dealing respectively with the physical and psychological aspects of the subject. The notes contributed by the latter and by Sir Hubert von Herkomer will, I am sure, be read with special interest.
Whatever may be the divergencies of opinion as to how far the analogies between colour and sound extend, one thing at least is certain, namely, that Colour-Music opens up a new world of beauty and interest as yet, to a great extent, unexplored.
A. W. R.