PREFACE
From a scientific standpoint admirable works on color have been written, but they demand more time and study than many can give to them, and are too theoretical to be easily understood; while those written from an artistic standpoint may be useful to those who paint pictures but are not of much benefit to larger classes of people who are artists in other occupations. Painters of pictures must study color as well as lines and composition; but a better understanding of color would also be of great value to decorators, designers, lithographers, florists, dressmakers, and milliners; women in their dress and home decoration, and many others. For such, to combine the essential results of the scientific and artistic study of color in a concise, practical manual, and to classify the study of color in individual eyes, in light, in history and in nature, has been the aim of the author of this book. Also, as color cannot be fully appreciated by any written description, the text has been made as brief as possible, the plates full and elaborate.
It has been asked by artists who have given years of study to form, perspective and composition, why it should be necessary to study color if one has a good eye for it, to which another question may serve as answer. Suppose a person intending to make art his life work has a good eye for form, will he, therefore, begin to paint pictures before learning to draw, or without going through a thorough drill in perspective? Later, having some subject in his mind which he wishes to put on canvas, he does not stop to review all the rules he studied of form and perspective; the knowledge and facility he gained in that study will enable him unconsciously to crystallize his thought into better shape on his canvas. Does the possessor of a naturally fine voice think he can dispense with the time and trouble of cultivating it? The same reasoning may well be applied to color and its study.