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On Colours as Developed by the same Laws as Musical Harmonies3

densed into a pair; as an example, we trace the notes and colours in the fundamental scale of C.

C rises from the fountain, and contains all tones within itself. Red also rises from the fountain, and contains all colours, with white and black.
D=the notes C and E mingled. Orange, red and yellow mingled.
E=the root of the fountain. Yellow, containing all colours, is white in its extreme.
F=the notes E and G mingled. Green=yellow and blue mingled.
G contains all tones. Blue, with more or less of black and white.
A=G and B mingled. Violet=blue, and all colours, inclining to black.
B, the key-note of the fountain. Ultra-violet=violet mingled with more black: a deeper shade of all colours—in its extreme, black. Orange, red and yellow mingled.


Notes and colours are thus condensed into a pair springing from the fountain, and mingling with each other in an endless variety. Although yellow as a colour is explained away as white, it is, nevertheless, the colour yellow in endless tints and shades throughout nature, and proves to us that the three great apparent primaries correspond to the tonic chord of the scale of Ci.e., C, E, G = red, yellow, blue; or more correctly, C and G correspond to red and blue with the central fountain of E, white and black mingled, from which all tones and colours arise.

The tones between the seven white notes of keyed instruments, and the tints and shades between the seven colours, cause the multequivalency of colours and of tones; consequently every colour, as every musical harmony, has the capability of ascending or descending, to and fro in circles, or advancing and retiring in musical clef. It is a curious coincidence that Wünsch, nearly one hundred years ago, believed in his discovery of the primary colours to be red, green, and violet; and in this scheme, red, answering to the note C, must necessarily be the first visible colour, followed by green and violet, but these not as primary colours, all colours in turn becoming primaries and secondaries in the development of the various harmonies. To gain facts by experiment, the colours must be exactly according to natural proportions—certain proportions producing white, and others black. In this scheme, green and red are shown to be a complementary pair, and therefore (as Clerk Maxwell has proved) red and green in right proportions would produce yellow. The same fact has been proved in Lord Rayleigh's experiments with the spectroscope. Yellow and ultra-violet,

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Created by Dale Pond. Last Modification: Thursday February 18, 2021 02:04:38 MST by Dale Pond.