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COLOR HARMONY
particulars that no practical relationship can be set up. The intervals of color sensation require fit names and measures, ere their infinite variety can be organized into a fixed system.
(149) Any effort to compare certain sounds to certain colors soon leads to the wildest vagaries.
Harmony of sound is unlike harmony of color.
(150) The poverty of color language tempts to a borrowing from the richer terminology of music. Musical terms, such as “pitch, key, note, tone, chord, modulation, nocturne, and symphony,” are frequently used in the description of color, serving by association to convey certain vague ideas.
(151) In the same way the term color harmony, from association with musical harmony, presents to the mind an image of color arrangement,—varied, yet well proportioned, grouped in orderly fashion, and agreeable to the eye. But any attempt to define this image in terms of color is disappointing. Here is a beautiful Persian rug: why do we call it beautiful? One says “because its colors are rich.” Why are they rich? “Because they are deep in tone.” What does that mean? The double-bass and the fog-horn are deep in tone, but not necessarily beautiful on that account. “Oh, no,” says another, “it is all in one harmonious key.’ But what is a key of color? Is it made by all the values of one color, such as red, or by all the hues of equal value, such as the middle hues in our color solid?
(152) Certainly it is neither, for the rug has both light and dark colors; and, of the reds, yellows, greens, and blues, some are stronger and others weaker. ‘Then what do we mean by a key of color? One must either continue to flounder about or frankly confess ignorance.
(153) Musical harmony explains itself in clear language. It
