fessing to explain the principles of harmony and contrast, but which exhibit nothing more clearly than the ignorance and egotism of their authors. They resemble nothing so much as portable backgammon-boards, labelled with the titles of works of standard literature. Such books in fact belong to the "dark ages," before Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Cuvier had said "let light be ;" and should be placed on our shelves beside Lilly's Astrology and Moore's almanacks. That they should have found recognition at all can only be attributed to the strong desire felt by the public for instruction on the subject of colour. That they failed to satisfy that desire is but too evident upon all occasions where a knowledge of principles was necessary to the successful result of great undertakings: it is only necessary to refer to the discussions raised upon the proper colouring for the Crystal Palace, in 1851. THIRD EDITION. IN the present edition the translation has been carefully revised, a new introduction adapted to the unscientific reader prefixed, and a complete index added. It is hoped the book will now be found as perfect as it is possible to make it. York-street, Covent-garden, AUTHOR'S PREFACE. THIS work is too remote from the science which has occupied the greatest part of my life, too many subjects differing in appearance are treated of, for me not to indicate to the reader the cause which induced me to undertake it: subsequently I shall speak of the circumstances which made me extend the limits within which it first seemed natural to restrain it. When I was called upon to superintend the dyeing department of the royal manufactories (Gobelins), I felt that this office imposed on me the obligation of placing the dyeing on a new basis, and consequently it was incumbent on me to enter upon minute researches, the number of which I clearly foresaw, but not the variety: the difficulties of my position were greatly increased by numerous perplexing questions proposed to me for solution by the directors of that establishment; I was therefore obliged to arrange my labours differently than if I had been free from every other occupation. In endeavouring to discover the cause of the complaints made of the quality of certain pigments prepared in the dyeing laboratory of the Gobelins, I soon satisfied myself that if the complaints of the want of permanence in the light blues, violets, greys, and browns, were well-founded, there were others, particularly those of the want of vigour in the blacks employed in making shades in blue and violet draperies, which had no foundation; for after procuring black-dyed wools from the most celebrated French and other workshops and perceiving that they had no superiority over those dyed at the Gobelins,-I saw that the want of vigour complained of in the blacks was owing to the colour next to them, and was due to the phenomena of contrast of colours. I then saw that to fulfil the duties of director of the dyeing department, I had two quite distinct subjects to treat-the one being the contrast of colours generally considered, either under the scientific relation, or under that of its applications; the other concerned the chemical part of dyeing. Such, in fact, have been the two centres to which all my researches during ten years have converged. In proportion as they are developed, those who read them will be enabled to see how much time and labour they have cost me, and I may venture to add, difficulty also, because undertaking them at a period when my work on Les Corps Gras d'Origine Animale, and my Considérations sur l'Analyse Organique, had opened to me a field which, so to speak, I had only to reap,-in separating myself from this career, under the necessity of opening a new one; and all who have been in this position know that human weakness is felt mostly by him. who would reap from the soil he has himself ploughed and sown. The work I now publish is the result of my researches on Simultaneous Contrast of Colours; researches which have been greatly extended since the lecture I gave on this subject at the Institute on the 7th April, 1828. The extension they have taken is a consequence of the method which directed me in my "Researches on Fatty Bodies," the rules of which have been explained in my Considérations sur l'Analyse Organique. To all who are acquainted with these works, it will be evident that the present work cannot be a collection of hypotheses (more or less ingenious) on the assortment of colours and their harmonies, and a perusal of it will doubtless convince them that it is as experimental and as exact as the two preceding works. In fact, numerous observations on the view of coloured objects made during several months, verified by my pupils, and others much accustomed in their professions to judge of colours, and to appreciate the least difference in them, have first been collected and described as proved facts. Then, in reflecting on the relations these facts have together, in seeking the principle of which they are the consequences, I have been led to the discovery of the one which I have named the law of simultaneous contrast of colours. Thus this work is really the fruit of the method à posteriori: facts are observed, defined, described, then they become generalised in a simple expression which has all the characters of a law of nature. This law, once demonstrated, becomes an à priori means of assorting coloured objects so as to obtain the best possible effect from them, according to the taste of the person who combines them; of estimating if the eyes are well organised for seeing and judging of colours, or if painters have exactly copied objects of known colours. In viewing the law of simultaneous contrast of colours with reference to its application, and in submitting to experiment all the consequences which appeared to me to result from it, I have thus been led to extend it to the arts of tapestry, to the different kinds of painting, block printing, tinting, horticulture, &c.; but in order to prevent the conclusions which some readers might arrive at upon the value of the opinions I have put forth (2nd part, 2nd division) in relation to the Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries, and to Savonnerie carpets, from the examinations which they will themselves make of these works, I now state that, an entire stranger to the inspection and direction of the works executed in the workshops of the royal manufactories, as well as to the selection of patterns, my views and opinions must only be, for the readers of whom I speak, as those of a private individual who has had frequent opportunities of seeing and examining works of art in the production of which he has no influence to exercise; the duties which attach me to the Gobelins being exclusively those of director of the dyeing department. Instead of this brief review of my researches, I had at first proposed to develop in an introduction, conformably to chronological order, the series of leading ideas which have presided over the composition of this book, thinking to show by their mutual connection how I have been obliged to treat of subjects which at first sight seemed foreign to the law of simultaneous contrast of colours; but upon reflecting that a great many things are unknown to the reader, I thought a summary of my researches, placed at the end of this work, would possess all the advantages of my first intention without the objections which upon reflection I discovered in it. I beg the reader never to forget when it is asserted of the phenomena of simultaneous contrast, that one colour placed beside another receives such a modification from it that this manner of speaking does not mean that the two colours, or rather the two material objects that present them to us, have a mutual action, either physical or chemical; it is really only applied to the modification that takes place before us when we perceive the simultaneous impression of these two colours. L'Hay, near Paris, 19th April, 1835. POSTSCRIPT. THIS work, written three years ago, has formed the subject of eight public lectures delivered at the Gobelins in the course of January, 1836, and January, 1838; I should have earnestly desired to publish it as soon as I had finished writing it; but the condition which I set that the price should not be too dear, notwithstanding the expense occasioned by numerous coloured plates, was an obstacle in finding a publisher, just at the time when M. Pitois-Levrault wished to become such. In stating the cause of the delay of this publication, I should certainly neglect a duty, if I did not publicly thank an illustrious foreigner for the offer he made me of the aid of his sovereign to hasten it; although I have not availed myself of it, I shall nevertheless always retain it in grateful remembrance. Au Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, 1st June, 1838. |