Page:A color notation (Munsell).djvu/33

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QUALITIES

27

in view, and the red enamel is to be contrasted with the strongest and weakest red chromas obtainable. ‘These he writes R/1, R/5, R/10 seeing that this describes the chromas of red, but leaves out its values. R5/1, R5/5, R5/10, is the complete statement, showing that, while both hue and value are unchanged, the chroma passes from grayish red to middle red (enamel first learned) and out to the strongest red in the chroma scale obtained by vermilion.

(43) It may be long before he can imitate the intervening steps of chroma, many children finding it difficult to express more than five steps of the chroma scale, although easily making ten steps of value and from twenty to thirty-five steps of hue. This interesting feature is of psychologic value, and has been followed in the color tree and color sphere.

Does such a scientific scheme leave any outlet for feeling and personal expression of beauty?

(44) Lest this exact attitude in color study should seem inartistic, compared with the free and almost chaotic methods in use, let it be said that the stage thus far outlined is frankly disciplinary. It is somewhat dry and unattractive, just as the early musical training is fatiguing without inventive exercises. The child should be encouraged at each step to exercise his fancy.

(45) Instead of cramping his outlook upon nature, it widens his grasp of color, and stores the memory with finer differences, supplying more material by which to express his sense of coloristic beauty.

(46) Color harmony, as now treated, is a purely personal affair, difficult to refer to any clear principles or definite laws. The very terms by which it seeks expression are borrowed from music, and suggest vague analogies that fail when put to the test. Color