What names have we now, in this present advanced day, for defining tastes or smells? We say that something smells like a violet, or a rose, or a sea breeze, or a frosted cabbage. We say a smell is nice or nasty, that a taste is delicious or nauseous; but beyond calling it sweet or sour, we have no descriptive words for either smells or tastes, whereas the nations who traded in the materials for dyes exchanged their nomenclatures, which we can recognize from the descriptive remarks of different authors.
Colour, as an art, was born in those lands which cluster round the eastern shores of the Mediterranean—the northern coasts of Syria and Arabia, and the isles of Greece. All art grew in that area, and all its adjuncts and materials there came to perfection, though often imported from more southern and eastern sources.[284]
E. Curtius says that the science of colour came into Europe with the Phœnicians and accompanied the worship of Astarte. This, of course, applies to artistic textiles, as the Greeks had already acquired the art of dyeing for plain weaving. Numa, in his regulations for necessary weaving, refers also to colour. The Italians therefore must at that time have made some advance in the art, especially the Etruscans.[285]
The infinity of variation in colour is difficult to imagine. The chemists of the Gobelins have fixed and catalogued 4480 tones. Besides, we must not forget that it is now all but ascertained that the same colour is probably appreciated differently by nearly every eye.[286]
How the eye accepts colours and conveys them to the mind is still a question in dispute, though the theories of Tyndall, Helmholz, Hering, Charpentier, and others, aided by experiments, are drawing ascertained facts into a circle, which will ere long be complete, and the mysteries of colour may be ascertained.
Probably the effects of colour on educated minds are as various as the tints and shades of tones of the many substances which receive them,—reflected from all surrounding objects, blazing in light, or softened by shadow,—fresh and glowing, or permanently faded—shining with modern varnish, or sobered by the dust of ages.
It is the art of the colourist, whether he paints pictures, or dyes textiles, or embroiders them, to reduce the tints of the prism to an endurable and delightful lowness of tone, while preserving as far as possible all their light and purity.
Prismatic colours are so radiantly glorious, that when we see the rainbow in the sky it is each time a joyful surprise. The most stolid natures are moved by it; we have even seen our dog staring at it.
When, in experiments on light, the shafts of colour are thrown on the wall, they are greeted with shouts of admiration; but these glories are veiled to us by the fact that the eye cannot dissect the prismatic ray without the assistance of the instrument that has revealed it. This is a merciful arrangement; for we are not fitted to live in a prismatic display, any more than in a continuity of lightning flashes. We should go mad or blind if exposed to either.
Science has shown us the perfect beauty of colour without form, the soothing pleasures of its harmonies, and the delightful surprises of its contrasts. From the glimpses we have of its nature and laws, we may hope for fresh inspiration for the art of the colourist.