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COLOR HARMONY
scribed in the last chapter; and the quantity of each color chosen for the group is easily indicated by a variable circle, drawn round the various points on the diagram. Thus, in the case of the child’s clothes, a large circle around G65 gives the area of that color as compared with smaller circles around Y87 and BG43, representing the area of the straw and the trimming.
(174) When the plotting of color groups has become instinctive from long practice, it opens a wide field of color study. Take as illustration the wings of butterflies or the many varieties of pansies. These fascinating color schemes can be written with indications of area that record their differences by a simple diagram. In the same way, rugs, tapestries, mosaics,—whatever attracts by its beauty and harmony of color,—can be recorded and studied in measured terms; and the mental process of estimating hues, values, chromas, and areas by established scales must lead the color sense to finer and finer perceptions.
The same process serves as well to record the most annoying and inharmonious color groups. When sufficient of these records have been obtained, they furnish definite material for a contrast of the color combinations which please, with those that cause disgust. Such a contrast should discover some broad law of color harmony. It will then be in measured terms which can be clearly given; not a vague personal statement, conveying different meanings to each one who hears it.
Constant exercise needed to train the color sense.
(175) Appreciation of beautiful color grows by exercise and discrimination, just as naturally as fine perception of music or literature. Each is an outlet for the expression of taste,—a language which may be used clumsily or with skill.
(176) As color perception becomes finer, it discards the more
