The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-12-29

carries to all the balls now large andin.
convenient lateh-key.
| Contiguous CoIOrs.
| [Edinburg Review.l
This power Of contiguous col0rs to mod
ify the specific impression which each
makes upon the eye is one of the diff
culties which landscape painters have to
study and meet. If an artist paints the
color which he thinks he sees, his picture
is pretty sure to he wide of the mark
which has been aimed at. The colors of
natural objects are Of very much lower
tensity than the tints which they suggest.
Distant fields. for instance, are commonly
clothed with gray containing only a
faint tihge of green, when they seem to the
eye to be intensely green. The true col
ors Of the different parts of the landscape
can only be correctly appreciated when
each is dissociated from its companion
ship with the rest; and Ruskin has sug-
gested that this discrimination of tint
can be most conveniently made by exam
lining each separate part Of view
through a small square aperture cut in
white cardboard, and held at arms length
from the eye. The colors used in the
composition Of picture require to be 80
selected and grouped that they help each
other both by the influence Of sympathy
and contrast. Prof. Rood remarks that
what an artist is got to do is to seize upon
color melodies as they occur in nature,
and to reproduce them upon the canvas
with such modification as his own in
stincts impel him to make. The great
distinction which he draws between
painting and the management of color in
the decorative arts is that in the first
color is subordinate to form, while in the
second it is more important than form.
In painting, color has to be used as
means of accomplishing an end; whereas
in decoration it is itself the end. A paint
ing is representation of an absent beau
tiful object, but an ornamented surface
is the beautiful object itself. 1t is on
this account that the realistic represent
alton of natural objects is untitled for
decorative art In "Modern Chromatics"
attention is drawn to physiological
reason for certain effects of contrast in
artists work, which is worthy of notice.
When light falls upon the nerves Of the
eye, it produces sensation which
remains for short interval after the ex-
citing cause has ceased to act. This
after-sensation is identical with the pri-
mary one, with the exception that it
grows gradually more and more faint,
until it fades quite away. When, how
ever, this after-image has finally disap-
peared, there springs suddenly up in its
place a secondary image of an altogether
different character, and of tint that is
complimentary to that of primary i'm
preston. Thus the immediate fter-im-
age of red sensation is red; but the
spectral image which follows when the
red impression has faded away is green
ish-blue, the tint that is complimentary
to red. These negative, or compliment
ary, after-images necessarily exert an i'm
portant influence in modifying the char
acter of chromatic perceptions. The
positive after-images have also specific
operation of their own, where moving OBJ
jects are concerned. The appearances
characterizing water in motion depend
upon them to considerable extent. The
images perceived are really made up of
an unconscious combination Of successive
pictures left upon the nerves. The
elongated streaks noticed in the waves of
the sea dancing in sunlight are really not
streaks, butsuccessions Of round images of
the sun heightened out in consequence of
their motion. Instanteous photographs,
for this reason, are by no means such true
transcripts Of nature as they pretend to
he. The visual image Of waves breaking
upon the beach is quite distinct thing
from the instantaneous photograph Of
the same objects. The visual image is
made up of different views rapidly sue
ceeding each other, and fusing them
selves together into one compound i'm
preston in the eye. But the photograph
ic image is single hard transcript Of
one of the series Of successive pictures.
Prof. Rood states. in reference to the
duration of visual impression upon the
retina of the eye, that it lasts with undi-
minished force for the ferty-eigh th partof
second, but that its total duration with
decreasing strength is for much longer
time, probably being MS much as third
part Of second in many instances. A
white spot near the edge Of black disk,
revolving 4S times in the second pro-
duces the effect of continuous white
ring near the circumference of the disk.
But the luminosity Of the ring il nec-
essarily more feeble than that of the
white spot, because the light Of the spos
is scattered over the comparatively larger
surface Of the ring when the disk it
caused to revolve. .
Cesar covered his bald head and gray hair