Colour-Music: The Art of Mobile Color/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF COLOUR-MUSIC
SIDE by side with the advantages of the new art as a wholesome emotional stimulus like music are its educational effects upon the colour sense. It is very remarkable to note how rapidly it produces increased sensitiveness to slight divergencies of colour, and how, after a short time, the eye can appreciate these differences much more quickly.
At first in any rapid passages of mobile colour most of the slight changes are scarcely felt at all, and it is only after a week or two that those compositions in which they most appear begin to give the greater satisfaction. Primarily it is the strong contrasts and the vivid colour combinations which most appeal to people, while later the delicate and subtle passages produce the greater impression and are more keenly enjoyed. In music, of course, we find the same thing, though perhaps not in so marked a degree.
There is also another side to the matter. Hitherto colours have chiefly been produced by mixing them on the palette or in the dye-vat, or in some other more or less laborious way; their production has also been, to a considerable extent at any rate, dependent as to their range and variety upon the character and scope of the pigments used. With the colour-organ, however, an almost infinite variety of colour combinations can be obtained with no more trouble than in sitting down to the keyboard and running the fingers over the keys, and a vast variety of very exquisite tints are obtained with ease which it is extremely difficult and often impossible to produce by paints or dyes. Among these colours are thousands to which no name can be given, many of which one has never seen before, and the memory for colour is exercised in endeavouring to retain some recollection of them. Not only, therefore, is the colour sense rendered more sensitive, but the memory for colour is also trained, and in any art dealing with colour the memory plays a very important part. It is, in fact, to a large extent, due to the absence of a strong memory for colour that a great deal of modern decorative and imaginative art work leaves so much to be desired, as is now generally admitted amongst artists.
If the decorative painter has not got a well-developed colour memory, he will be unable to retain the impressions of beautiful colour harmonies which he sees in nature, and make use of them in his designs. Even in a direct transcript or study from nature the memory comes into play, for effects change from moment to moment, and the mere observation of a colour and the attempt to mix it on the palette is in itself an act of memory.
In watching the effects produced by the colour-organ upon the screen, slow and simple compositions should be studied at first; and as an exercise and training for the eye, it is a good plan for the observer to take the colours tint by tint and guess at the combinations which produce them, verifying them afterwards by reference to the keyboard.
The amount of pleasure and interest derived from colour compositions varies immensely with individuals. An interesting instance of this was the case of a well-known London doctor, who told the author, after first seeing a recital of colour-music, that he was absolutely unappreciative of any form of "sound-music," that it was, in fact, a pain to him, and that he had always detested it; "but," he said, "from the moment that I first saw a display of mobile colour, I realized what I had missed all my life through my inability to appreciate music. It opened up a new world of sensations to me and gave me the greatest mental pleasure I have ever experienced." This clearly shows that to some persons mobile colour would, or does, fill the place which music cannot occupy in their lives.
On the other hand, there can be little doubt that to some, though they would hardly own it, colour of any kind is more or less unpleasant, and they would prefer to live in a monotonic world. One must therefore be prepared for a great variety of opinions with regard to any such art as that of mobile colour. The majority of people will probably derive a moderate but increasing pleasure from it. There are many to whom it at once provides a surpassingly interesting source of enjoyment and education, and some to whom, like my medical friend, it will open up an entirely new world of sensations; and there are others, again, to whom it will be supremely distasteful. It is well to recognize this to avoid disappointment, and be prepared for very divergent expressions of opinion about it.
Speaking broadly, it appeals most to those who have had an artistic training into which colour has entered, and it is less attractive to those whose interests, centre in music. This is not what the author personally expected. He imagined that the connection with music being so close on some points, those who would take the greatest interest in mobile colour would be musicians; but, with some striking exceptions amongst distinguished musicians, the musical world, as far as it has yet come into contact with colour-music, has been at first inclined to see points of divergence rather than those of analogy and to look upon the art as a possible rival. A similar attitude is often adopted towards any new departure in science or art, and there is no reason for resenting it; it merely makes the co-operation of those amongst musicians who are able to take a sympathetic view and welcome the endeavour to open up new fields of investigation all the more valuable.
In some cases musicians, on the other hand, are very susceptible to the influences of colour. The German author Finck says, in reference to Wagner in the following curious passage, that "splendour, beauty, light, all the components of colour, were claimed by him as the rights of genius; from these in his life he gave in art the rich clangtones and tints which distinguish his music from all others. Wagner's love of colour in tones extended itself to his actual surroundings, and the influence of the glorious colouring with which he constantly surrounded himself is to be felt in every note of music he ever wrote. Catulle Mèndes describes him as having been attired in coat and trousers of golden satin embroidered with pearls and flowers; for he had a passionate love for luminous stuffs that spread themselves like sheets of flame. Velvets and silks abounded in his drawing-room in broad masses and flowing pleats, anywhere, without pretext of furniture, without other reason than their beauty of colour, to give him the enchantment of their glorious brilliancy. Wagner fully realized the influence of these colour surroundings on his genius and his music, for he wrote, in a letter to Frau Wille, 'Is it really such an outrageous demand if I claim a right to the little bit of luxury I like; I who am preparing enjoyment for the world, for thousands? I am differently organized from other men. I must have beauty, colour, light.'"
With this testimony to the influence of colour upon the mind of a great musical composer, it is surely not too much to hope, or even to expect, that colour-music with its endless variety and magnificence of colour effects may well be of use in the future as a stimulating influence to musicians. Wagner's operas, as we all know, when they were first performed were attacked with insensate fury in France, and abused by the musical critics in England. If, therefore, colour-music should have aroused some slight opposition in the musical world, as well as have received some tributes of warm appreciation, there is no cause for surprise or discouragement. Wagner did not disdain to call in the assistance of colour both in his operas and in his surroundings, and were he alive now the writer believes that he would have found in him a warm supporter of some of the claims put forward on behalf of a mobile colour art. The educational effects of such an art are probably not confined to its action upon those into whose work or interests colour largely enters, but may well exercise an indirect psychological influence upon other arts of quite a different kind.
Keyboard colour-organ as used in the author's studio.