In order to a due understanding of the signification of colors, it is
necessary we should commence at the foundation. Accordingly I shall
begin by saying that colors are primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Primary colors are three: red, yellow, and blue.
RED is the color of greatest heat.
YELLOW is the color of greatest light.
BLUE is the color of chemical change.
In accordance with this philosophical truth, we should naturally expect
to find a preponderance of blue rays from the sun in the spring time,
and so it is.
These rays preponderate at the time of ploughing, sowing, and
germination.
In the summer time, after the plant has started from the ground, and
requires vigorous leaves to bring it to perfection ere the cold winter
rolls around once more, we have the yellow rays. 'Light, more light,' is
then the cry of nature, and as not even length of days affords this
element in sufficient completeness, the sun darts his brightest beams in
'the leafy month of June.'
Later still in the year, after germination is past and growth perfected,
comes the necessity of heat rays to ripen fruit, vegetables, and grain,
and nature's behests are obeyed in the then preponderance of the red
rays. Much of this effect may be due to the _media_ through which the
sun's rays pass. A sensitized photographic paper is not colored as much
at an altitude of three miles in half an hour as is a similar paper upon
the earth's surface in one moment. At any season of the year, gardeners
can either stimulate or retard germination as they place a blue or
yellow glass over the nursling. That the growth of plants is not due
alone to the rays of the sun we can, without experiment, convince
ourselves, as even ordinary observers are well aware that upon some days
plants shoot up so rapidly as to grow almost visibly under their eyes,
and in other conditions of the atmosphere seemingly remain dormant for
days.
The germinating influence, let it be due either to peculiar rays alone,
or to atmospheric state, does not contain much coloring matter. The
first spring flowers are of a pale color; as summer advances we have
brighter hues, but not until the approach of fall do we see Flora in all
her gorgeousness of coloring. The paleness of mountain and arctic
flowers, and the brilliancy of those of the tropics, point to the same
cause which gives the temperate zones their brightest flowers when heat
rays preponderate.
As depth of color seems connected with the red or heat rays; so perfume
belongs rightfully to the summer blossoms; when light is the strongest,
then we have our pinks, and roses, and lilies.
There are also in the spectrum four secondary colors: orange, green,
indigo, and violet. The secondary colors are alternate with the primary
in the spectrum, and are formed by a mixture of the two primary nearest
them--as orange, formed by a union of red and yellow; green, by a
mixture of yellow and blue; indigo and violet, of blue and red. Thus:
Red,
_Orange_,
Yellow,
_Green_,
Blue,
_Indigo_,
_Violet_.
Tertiary colors are many more than both primary and secondary. They are
hues not found in the spectrum. They are nature's stepchildren rather
than children, and many of them might not inappropriately be called
children of art; yet although most of them are of inventions that man
has sought out, they are at best but shades, and must all look back to
the spectrum as their common parent.
Each of the primary colors forms a simple contrast to the other two;
thus blue is contrasted by yellow and by red, either of which forms a
simple contrast to it; but as it is a law of color that compound
contrasts are more effective than simple in the proportion of two to
one, it follows that a mixture of either two of the primitive colors is
the most powerful contrast possible with the other.
Red and yellow form orange, the greatest and the most harmonious
contrast to blue; red and blue form violet or purple, so much admired in
contrast with yellow in the pansy; yellow and blue form green, the
contrast to red, and the color needed to restore the tone of the optic
nerve when strained or fatigued by undue attention to red. This is the
most common and admirable contrast in the vegetable kingdom; the
brilliant red blossom or fruit, with green leaves, as instance the fiery
tulip, the crimson rose, the scarlet verbena, the burning dahlia, the
cherry and apple trees, the tomato or loveapple of my childhood, and the
scarlet maple and sumach of our American October.
There are two distinct harmonies of color: the harmony of contrast, and
the harmony of shading. The former is the harmony of striking
diversities found in nature, and the other a mellowing of colors, or
blending of similar hues, attributable to art.
From this little synopsis of the effects and uses of the prismatic
colors, we shall be enabled the better to understand both the ancient
and modern popular ideas as to colors as representatives and
correspondences. Colors have a mental, moral, and physical
significance--a good and a bad import. The one to which I shall first
direct your attention is that which most readily strikes the eye.