Page:Elementary Color (IA gri c00033125012656167).djvu/21

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THE THEORY OF COLOR.
11

tests are to be made, regarding color, it is evident that there must be some accepted terms in which to record the results, which has not hitherto been the case.

When the well known Newton and Brewster theory of three primary colors red, yellow and blue, was advocated by those scientists there appeared to be something of interest and value in it for the artists also, because with the three pigments red, yellow and blue, they seemed to be able to confirm the truth of the scientific theories regarding the spectrum colors. But the scientists have long been convinced that there is no truth in this theory and have quite generally accepted the Young-Helmholtz idea of three other color perceptions red, green and violet, from which they claim all color vision is produced, and which they call fundamental colors.

This more modern theory has seemed so far removed from the realm of the artists and the colorists that they have not been able to see anything in it of truth or value to them, and so have continued to repeat the old, old story of the three primaries red, yellow and blue, from which the secondaries orange, green and purple are made etc., etc., all of which is the more pernicious when accepted as a correct theory because of its seeming approximation to the facts. And yet there is not in it all any scientific truth on which to build a logical system of color education, and some of the effects which are considered prominent arguments for the system are directly opposed to well known facts in the science of color. Consequently, the artist has failed to gain from the investigations of the scientists anything to aid him in his pigmentary work, and the scientist has not been interested in the aesthetic ideas of the artists which in fact he has generally been unable to fully appreciate, from lack of training and associations.

The system of color instruction here presented for primary grades is based on the results of careful study and experiment for many years in which the attempt has been made to bring the scientist and the artist on to common ground, where