VIII Color Music
Color music is no new idea, but of late it is finding new expression.
While painters are beginning to paint color harmonies that are independent of the representations of natural objects, others are seeking the same emotional effects with colored lights.
A “color organ” has been invented60 which deals with color for its own sake as music does with sound, thereby opening up a new world of beauty and interest as yet to a great extent unexplored.
When you enter Mr. Rimington’s English studio you see at one end of it a curious instrument with a keyboard and stops, while at the other end is a white screen, hung in folds to give greater depth and life to the colors playing upon it. What happens when the instrument is played is thus described by Mr. Rimington:
“Imagine a darkened concert room. At one end there is a large screen of white drapery in folds, surrounded with black and framed by two bands of pure white light. Upon this we will suppose, as an example of a simple color composition, that there appears the faintest possible flush of rose color, which very gradually fades away while we are enjoying its purity and subtlety of tint, and we return to darkness. Then, with an interval, it is repeated in three successive phases, the last of which is stronger and more prolonged.
“While it is still lingering upon the screen, a rapid series of touches of pale lavender notes of color begin to flit across it, gradually strengthening into deep violet. This again becomes shot with amethyst, and afterward changing gradually into a broken tint of ruby, gives a return to the warmer tones of the opening passage.
“A delicate primrose now appears, and with little runs and flushes of pulsation leads through several passages of indescribable cinnamon
color to deep topaz. Then suddenly interweavings of strange green and peacock blue, with now and then a touch of pure white, make us seem to feel the tremulousness of the Mediterranean on a breezy day, and as the color deepens there are harmonies of violet and blue green which recall its waves under a Tramontana sky. More and more powerful they grow, and the eye revels in the depth and magnificence of the color as the executant strikes chord after chord among the bass notes of the instrument.
“Then suddenly the screen is again dark and there is only a rhythmic and echoing beat of the dying color upon it. At last this disappears also, and there is another silent pause, then one hesitating tint of faded rose as at the opening of the composition.
“Upon this follows a stronger return of the color, and as the screen once more begins to glow with note after note of red and scarlet, we are prepared for the rapid crescendo which finally leads up to a series of staccato and forte chords of pure crimson which almost startle us with the force of their color before they die away into blackness!
“This,” says Mr. Rimington, “is an extremely simple example, but it may suffice to show the kind of effect produced by an unadorned form of mobile color not accompanied by music. In some cases a musical accompaniment was found to add greatly to the interest of a color composition. The nearest approach to color music in nature is to be found in certain sunsets.” Of the emotional and aesthetic effect of color music on various beholders we read:
The amount of pleasure and interest derived from color compositions varies immensely with individuals. An interesting instance of this was the case of a well-known London doctor, who told the author, after first seeing a recital of color-music, that he was absolutely unappreciative of any form of “sound music;” that it was, in fact, a pain to him, and that he had always detested it. “But,” he said, “from the moment that I first saw a display of mobile color, I realized what I had missed all my life through my inability to appreciate music. It opened up a new world of sensations to me and gave me the greatest mental pleasure I have ever experienced.” This clearly shows that to some persons mobile color would, or does, fill the place which music can not occupy in their lives.
On the other hand, there can be little doubt that to some, though they would hardly own it, color of any kind is more or less unpleasant, and they would prefer to live in a monotonic world. One must therefore be prepared for a great variety of opinions with regard to any such art as that of mobile color. The majority of people will probably derive a moderate but increasing pleasure from it.
There are many to whom it at once provides a surpassingly interesting source of enjoyment and education, and some to whom, like my medical friend, it will open up an entirely new world of sensations; and there are others, again, to whom it will be supremely distasteful. It is well to recognize this to avoid disappointment, and be prepared for very divergent expressions of opinion about it.
Speaking broadly, it appeals most to those who have had an artistic training into which color has entered, and it is less attractive to those whose interests center in music. This is not what the author personally expected. He imagined that the connection with music being so close on some points, those who would take the greatest interest in mobile color would be musicians; but, with some striking exceptions among distinguished musicians, the musical world, as far as it has yet come into contact with color-music, has been at first inclined to see points of divergence rather than those of analogy and to look upon the art as a possible rival. A similar attitude is often adopted toward any new departure in science or art, and there is no reason for resenting it; it merely makes the cooperation of those among musicians who are able to take a sympathetic view and welcome the endeavor to open up new fields of investigation all the more valuable.
From time immemorial child and man have taken the keenest delight in fireworks and colored lights which are after all a species of light music.
Since the adoption of electricity for lighting it is comparatively easy to produce the most wonderful effects both indoors and out.
As yet little thought has been given to producing harmonious light effects on streets—save in advertising signs. For the most part the lighting is garish in the extreme, often positively painful to the eyes, but in time this will be corrected. Public authorities cooperating with private owners will work out schemes for lighting streets and shops that will yield charming effects.
Already much has been done in the theater, especially in Russia and Germany. The value of light effects is being recognized. Soft music is often played to enhance the effect of a tender or pathetic scene, and it is quite common for the lights to change in harmony.
By the use of light alone as an accompaniment to a love scene the same effect on the audience can be secured as by the use of soft music.
So far all this has been done crudely and for the most part unscientifically. Producer and electrician have worked together in a haphazard way, often with great success, sometimes with most disagreeable results.
The very term “stage lighting” is not inspiring, but the art of light music will be developed and be taught in theory and practice. Masters of the art will come and men will realize that it is just as great an art to satisfy the eye with light melodies as it is to please the ear with sound melodies.
There yet may be entertainments where only light music is played as there are concerts where only sound music is played.
And why not? Just ask yourself the question—Why not?
Of all the organs of sense the eye is the most delicate and the most wonderful. The ear responds to air waves that travel at the rate of 1,100 feet per second and vary in frequency from 16 to 32,000 per second. The musical notes vary from 32 to 5,000 beats per second.
The eye responds to ether waves that travel at the rate of 182,000 miles per second and vary in frequency from 400 millions millions—the lowest red of the spectrum—to 750 millions millions (red 400,000,000,000,000; violet 750,000,000,000,000) the highest violet.
Man has devoted ages to developing harmonies in the combination of air waves, and he has reduced sound music to a science.
He has devoted all the ages of his being to the use of color in one way and another to please his eye, but only of late has he made any attempt to understand the science of light and color music.
The material civilization we have attained in comparison with the spiritual civilization we should attain is fairly well indicated by the vast difference between the crude and natural art of sound effects which is, so far, man’s most abstract achievement in art, and the incomparably finer and more ethereal art of light and color effects which will be one of the crowning achievements of man’s nobler future.
The painter of easel pictures arrogates to himself the name artist and to his work the phrase fine art. He looks down upon the house painter, the dressmaker, and the interior decorator.
Yet as compared with those who clothe our bodies and decorate our homes in harmonies of line and color the painter of easel pictures cuts very little figure in life; he plays his part but much of his inspiration is drawn from the work of the other two.
It should never be forgotten that in all the great portraits of the world the clothes and the interiors that furnish the beautiful color schemes preceded the pictures often by generations.
The costumer and the decorator work year in and year out, from generation to generation, throughout the centuries, with not so much as a thought of the painter in the corner with his little canvas, faithfully copying.
Now and then a great painter, a great sculptor, takes off his coat, turns workman for the moment and makes sculptures for buildings, paints pictures on walls, devises costumes, and contributes to making our environment more beautiful.
But not infrequently the sculptor and the painter upset the equilibrium of the work of others by doing things which are out of key or out of proportion. The “fine artist” may bring the work of decorating to a standstill by painting spotty easel pictures on walls that should be treated in harmony with the entire building and with its uses.
The time will come when art schools will teach pure color composition as well as drawing and the painting of pictures.
Why should not prizes be offered for color harmonies?
As it is now pupils are taught everything except the use of color for the sake of color.
What is a “still life”? Simply a painting of a number of objects selected and arranged primarily for their color notes. Why not paint the notes without the fruit and dishes?
So far as the color harmony is concerned the figure of an orange, an apple, a banana is not essential; in reality the photographic realization distracts. But the public is not accustomed to pure color music, it is not accustomed to seeing canvases that contain only color harmonies with no suggestion of object or form, it demands that the note of yellow shall be a lemon or a banana, that the note of purple shall assume the shape of a plum and so on, and so on; yet all the time the enjoyment derived from a fine “still life” is from the harmony that results from the combination of colors, and in no sense from the objects arbitrarily and artificially grouped together.
The use of line and color imitatively to depict objects is one thing.
The use of line and color freely to produce pure line harmonies and pure color harmonies, with no reference to objects is quite another, and in a sense, a far higher art—a more abstract art.
It is toward the development of this more abstract art that the modern experiments are tending. The net result in the long run will be the education of a considerable fraction of the public to the appreciation of pure line and color music and a consequent demand for paintings that are simply pure line and color compositions.
With this development of a taste for a very abstract art all the arts and crafts are certain to be beneficially affected.
The study of line for the sake of line, and of color for the sake of color if systematically pursued will make all draftsmen greater masters of line, and all painters—to the humblest house painter—greater masters of color.