By the application of the lens, paintings or statues of any size may be reduced and admitted into the figure.
In order to convey to the reader some idea of the effect produced by the Kaleidoscope in grouping figures, we have given in [Fig. 51] a design created by the instrument. The inclination of the mirrors by which the figures were arranged is 36°, or ⅒th of a circle; and therefore the object is multiplied ten times, so as to give five pair of direct and inverted images.
3. Designs for Carpets.
There is none of the useful arts to which the creations of the Kaleidoscope are more directly applicable than the manufacture of carpets. In this case, the manufacturer requires not merely the outline of a design, but a design filled up with the most brilliant colours; and upon the nature of the figure which he selects, and the tints with which he enriches it, will depend the beauty of the effect which is produced. A carpet, indeed, is in general covered with a number of Kaleidoscope designs, arranged in lines parallel to the sides of the apartment; and while this instrument creates an individual pattern, it may also be employed, by the assistance of the lens, in exhibiting the effect or arranging or grouping these individual patterns, according to the form of the apartment, and other circumstances which should invariably be attended to.
When a plasterer ornaments the ceiling of a room, the figure which he chooses is always related to the shape of the ceiling, and varies according as it is circular, elliptical, square, or rectangular. In like manner, a carpet should always have a relation to the form of the apartment, not only in the shape and character of the individual designs, but in the mode in which they are combined into a whole. Although the designs given by the Kaleidoscope are in general circular, yet, when they are once drawn, their outline may be made either triangular, square, rectangular, elliptical, or of any other form that we please, without destroying their beauty. The outline of the pattern may be varied in the instrument, by varying the shape of the part of the tube or aperture which bounds the field of view at the widest end of the angular aperture; but it is only at certain inclinations of the reflectors that any of the regular figures can be produced in this way. If the bounding line is circular, the field of view will be a circle; if the bounding line is rectilineal, and equally inclined to the reflectors, the field of view will be a regular polygon, of as many sides as the number of times that the angle of the reflectors is contained in 360°; if the bounding line is rectilineal, but placed at right angles to one of the reflectors, the figure will still be a regular polygon, but its number of sides will be equal to half the number of times that the angle of the reflectors is contained in 360°. Hence it follows, that a square field may be obtained in two ways, either by placing the mirrors at an angle of 45°, and making the bounding line perpendicular to one of the reflectors; or by inclining the mirrors 90°, and making the bounding line equally inclined to both reflectors;—and that a triangular field may be obtained, either by inclining the mirrors 60°, and setting the bounding line at right angles to one of the reflectors, or by making the inclination 120°, and placing the bounding line at an angle of 60° and 30° to the reflectors. An elliptical field may be obtained, by giving the bounding line the shape of one quarter of an ellipse, and placing it in such a manner that the vertex of the conjugate axis falls upon one of the reflectors, and the vertex of the transverse axis upon the other.
The form of the pattern being determined, the next step is to select an outline, and the colours which are to enter into its formation. In order to do this to the greatest advantage, the differently coloured worsteds which the manufacturer proposes to employ should be placed upon a plane surface, either in the state of thread, or, what is much better, when they are wrought into cloth. These differently coloured pieces of carpet, which we may suppose to be blue, green, and yellow, must then be placed at the distance of a few feet from the Kaleidoscope, so that their image may, by means of the lens, be formed at the end of the reflectors. In this state a very perfect pattern will be created by the instrument, and the blue, green, and yellow colour will predominate according as a greater or a lesser portion of these colours happens to be opposite to the angular aperture. By shifting the position of the Kaleidoscope, any one of the colours may be made to predominate at pleasure; and the artist has it thus in his power, not only to produce any kind of outline that he chooses, but regulate the masses of colour by which it is to be filled up; and to try the effects which will be produced by the juxtaposition of two colours, by the separation of others, or by the transference of the separate or combined masses to different parts of the design. It would be foreign to our object to describe the apparatus by which these changes in the quantities of colour, and in their relative position, may be most easily and conveniently effected; the artist can have no difficulty in constructing such an apparatus for himself, and by means of it he will be enabled to obtain results from the Kaleidoscope which he would have sought for in vain from any other method.
As the methods we have described of using the Kaleidoscope in ornamental architecture, or ornamental painting, and in the manufacture of carpets, will apply to the various other professions in which the formation of symmetrical designs is a necessary part, I shall merely state, that it will be found of the greatest advantage to the jeweller in the arrangement of precious stones; to the bookbinder, the wire-worker, the paper-stainer, and the artist who forms windows of painted glass. In this last profession, in particular, the application of the Kaleidoscope cannot fail to indicate combinations far superior to anything that has yet been seen in this branch of art. From the uniformity of tint in the separate pieces of glass which are to be combined, the effect produced by the instrument from portions of the very same glass that is to be used for the windows, may be considered as a perfect fac-simile of the window when well executed on a large scale.
CHAPTER XXI.
ON THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DELINEATION OF THE
PICTURES CREATED BY THE KALEIDOSCOPE.