# Colour-Music: The Art of Mobile Color/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX
THE EMOTIONAL INFLUENCES OF COLOUR
THE reference in the last chapter to the emotional influences of colour brings us back to the original contention that not only is a pure colour art possible in theory, but that in practice it has wider capabilities and power of education than can easily be realized.
It is difficult for many people, however, to understand that colour can be enjoyed and appreciated apart from form in at all the same kind of way that musical sound can be enjoyed in music. How, they say, can you isolate colour and produce it apart from form and make it interesting or beautiful? In reply, let us go to Nature for examples of how she does something of the same kind.
There are few people who cannot admire a sunset. Yet in many sunsets there is little form, and in some there is none. The lower ​expanse of a cloudless sky may, for instance, be suffused with primrose, orange or crimson, slowly changing either as to depth and intensity, or in respect of its actual colour. The latter may perhaps darken through tints of amber into blue and violet, or fade into pale peacock-green and ashy grey through endless subtle gradations, and yet cloud-forms may be entirely absent. But who shall say that such a series of colour harmonies is without beauty or interest?
To take another instance from nature. In a wide expanse of sea there may be little form—if we exclude a certain amount of structure to be seen in the nearer waves or ripples—and the beauty of its effect often depends almost entirely upon its colour, fluctuating in intensity and full of texture, but appealing to us mainly as colour alone. Yet how exquisite may be the varieties of tint in almost any given space of it, with gradations and interweavings of green and turquoise, deep blue and violet, with sparkle of pearly grey and depths of dark indigo and purple.
Many other examples from nature might be ​given, but these two will suffice to show that colour can be appreciated in nature for its own sake apart from form; and, upon reflection, most people will admit that even under these conditions it acts upon us emotionally.
Even when a sunset has beautiful form as well as beautiful colour, it is usually the colour that strikes most people and remains in their memory, and produces the chief emotional impression.
The writer recalls a sunset at Ruta, near Genoa, to which this would probably apply, and it may also serve as a further example of nature's compositions in mobile colour.
As the sun sank across the Bay of Genoa the sloping mountains of the Riviera, clad with olives, accentuated by rocky peaks, and with the pale white towers of towns and villages scattered along the coast-line, were all bathed in a warm golden glow of sunlight. The sea was a liquid peacock-blue shot with green and violet, and the long line of the more distant Maritime Alps, stretching out across the horizon, told against the sky in a tender shade of greenish blue.
​The effect thus began with a harmony in subdued gold and blue. As the sun neared the horizon, cloudlets formed above the distant peaks of the mountains and arranged themselves into those subtle fan-like groups which are often so exquisite in form and colour. At first these were of a pale dove colour, deepening from minute to minute and accentuating by contrast the light behind them. High above them appeared a few fleecy strands of vapour which soon drifted into delicate rose-coloured filaments continually changing their shape and gradually overhanging the lower fields of colour with a lace-like canopy across the whole width of the sky. Meanwhile the glowing light upon the nearer mountains and woods had been shut off and they had sunk into a tender green-grey, warmed in places by feeble tones of umber and madder. The distant mountains remained of the same deep peacock-blue, but the sea began to assume that strange rare colour of wine which is sometimes described by the Greek poets.
The first chord of this evening symphony of colour had given place to a series of others in ​which grey and rose were contrasted with grey-green, and in which the purple of the sea seemed as if it were a somewhat disturbing accidental note.
Further changes then took place, and the sky behind the mountains and the dove-coloured clouds became of a lemon tint streaked with topaz which gradually turned into a cool cinnamon, while glowing lakelets of aquamarine appeared in the lower sky. Meanwhile the topmost cloud filaments, far overhead, were deepening in colour, and from pale rose had become crimson, while the background of pure sky had changed almost to violet gradating downwards into paler tones.
Finally the splendour of the upper colouring faded away and the crimson filaments became a dusky grey touched here and there with a faint flush of pink. The sea darkened, and lines of current showed themselves upon its surface in cooler tones. The horizon on the other hand became suffused with ruby light, and the far-off mountains stood out sharply against it like the lead lines of a stained-glass window. Everything then ​deepened rapidly, and at last there was only one note of dull vermilion amongst the dying chords of grey and umber.
I think it may fairly be claimed that this, like many another sunset, was a piece of natural colour-music, and that it was well calculated to act on the emotions and to lead the mind from impressions of joyful beauty to the restful peace of night, though unlike the compositions of the colour musician it could never be seen again in all its fulness and variety. No doubt some of its impressiveness may have been due to the place and the poetic ideas associated with it, but how much less impressive would the whole scene have been under the glare of the midday sun or without the colour harmonies which have been described. It cannot, in fact, be denied that colour has an emotional influence in nature as it certainly has in pictorial art, and our own experiences, as well as the investigations of the psychologist, go to show that that influence is to a considerable extent independent of form.
If, then, colour in nature both with and ​without form is interesting and beautiful, and if we are able by means of the colour-organ to obtain somewhat similar effects to those in nature, it may be argued as probable that we could arouse emotions of a similar kind. This is found from experiment to be the case; and the next question is how far these emotional influences can be extended, and whether they can be made to assist in educating the colour sense.
It may be safely asserted that hardly any two persons are equally sensitive to the action of colour upon their eyes and minds; and, in testing the effects of colour-music upon various people, this appears in a very marked way. We find, of course, exactly the same thing with regard to music. There are some to whom music is the keenest joy in life, others to whom it is a moderate pleasure, others who are indifferent to it, and, finally, those who will candidly tell you that it is a pain to them.
It might, therefore be expected that colour-music would be variously appreciated by different people, and this has proved to be the ​case. For some of those who see it for the first time there is a good deal about it which it is difficult for them to understand or appreciate, while there are others who find keen enjoyment and interest in it from the beginning. But it has been found that, within broad lines, the emotional effects produced by given passages upon different people are similar. That is to say, a colour-phrase of well-marked emotional tendencies will induce the same kind of mental attitude in various people. But, as in music, when we get away from these broad divisions of effect, the emotional results of less marked passages are much more uncertain.
There is one difficulty which has to be faced from the first, namely, that the full emotional effect of mobile colour upon the mind cannot be obtained without use of the contrast between slow and fast passages. But unfortunately, as has been said, in most cases, a spectator to whom mobile colour is a new, or nearly new, experience, cannot follow fast changes without considerable difficulty, and certainly cannot properly appreciate them. His eye is unedu​cated and puzzled. From this it will be easily understood that there are certain difficulties in showing effects of mobile colour except of an elementary description to untrained spectators. The appreciation of colour-music, however, rapidly develops after a few days' experience of it, but education and explanation are absolutely necessary at the outset.
Something has already been said about the expression of pathos and of joyfulness by means of colour, but it may be well here to give an example. Any sequence of colour which changes gradually from brightness and purity into depth of tone and greyness will, by general consent, be more or less pathetic. It is quite true that into this change enters the mere alteration of tone as distinct from tint, or, in other words, of light and darkness as opposed to colour. That is, however, also the case more or less in music, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate tone from tint in questions of emotional expression. But the very fact that the adjective "sad" is constantly applied to colour shows a general recognition of the fact of some colours being ​less suggestive of joy and brightness than others. Upon the instrument itself it is easy to show colour passages which have a pathetic tendency, and it is equally certain that phrases which are thoroughly suggestive of brightness and pleasure can be given, while between these two extremes lie rich fields of intermediate emotional possibilities.
To take an extreme example of emotional expression in colour, let us imagine a low-toned tint of dark purple which is slowly varied by successive chords of cooler and cooler colour until the purple has gradually changed into a deep blue with indefinite fluctuations towards absolute blackness. Now let us imagine a few short notes of half-developed red, then one blaze of deep crimson, and then a return to absolute darkness with faint suggestions of the previous purple and peacock-blue. I do not think that such a passage would have any other significance for the majority of people if its emotional effect were analysed than that of theatrical tragedy, though, as in music, this significance will always remain an indefinite and disputable one.
​Speaking generally, the popular idea that low-toned colours are less exciting than bright ones, is borne out by mobile colour experiments.
As in nature, iridescence produces some of the most beautiful results in colour-music, and in rapid passages iridescent contrasts and harmonies affect the mind more than slow successions of plain colours or chords. These iridescent effects can be obtained in various ways—for example, by breaking up the component colours by diaphragms before they reach the screen, or by the surface of the screen itself, and very rapid successions of colour notes also produce the impression of iridescence.
If we examine a natural object which has iridescent colouring—for instance, the surface of some shells, or a piece of iridescent glass—we shall, I think, be led to the conclusion that great part of the beauty of the colour depends upon the minute contrasts contained within it. Red shades off into violet or green, in extremely small streaks and bars, and the violently contrasting colours are not large enough ​in quantity to be disagreeable—for quantity is an important element in questions of colour contrast—and yet they are sufficient to be exciting to the eye and the senses. Iridescence in nature always attracts us, and excites pleasurable emotions. We invariably admire it in the sunlit spray of the torrent, the plumage of the bird or the wing of the dragonfly—and colour-music gives us the power of bringing it into being at our will and using it as an æsthetic influence.