Many psychological effects of light have been recorded from experiment and observation and affective values of light have been established in various other byways.  It is possible that the degree of pleasure experienced by most persons on viewing a color-harmony or the delightful color-melody of a sunlit opal may be less than that experienced on listening to the rendition of music.  However, if this were true it would offer no discouragement, because absolute values play a small part in life.  Two events when directly compared apparently may differ enormously in their ability to arouse emotions, but the human organism is so adaptive that each in its proper environment may powerfully affect the emotions.  For example, those who have sported in aerial antics in the heights of cloudland or have stormed the enemy’s trench are still capable of enjoying a sunset or the call of a bird to its mate at dusk.  The wonderful adaptability of the inner being is the salvation of art as well as of life.

In the rendition of mobile light it is fair to give the medium every advantage.  Sometimes this means to eliminate competitors and sometimes it means to remove handicaps.  On the stage light has had competitors which are better understood.  For example, in the drama words and action are easily understood, and regardless of the effectiveness of light it would not receive much credit for the emotive value of the production.  In the wonderful harmony of music, dance, and light in certain recent exhibitions, the dance and music overpowered the effects of lights because they speak familiar languages.

[Illustration:  A community Christmas tree

A community song-festival

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT IN COMMUNITY AFFAIRS]

[Illustration:  PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION

Artificial light not only reveals the beauty of decoration and architecture but enthralls mankind with its own unlimited powers]

A number of attempts have been made to utilize light as an accompaniment of music and some of them on a small scale have been sincere and creditable, but a much-heralded exhibition on a large scale a few years ago was not the product of deep thought and sincere effort.  For example, colored lights thrown upon a screen having an area of perhaps twenty square feet were expected to compete with a symphony orchestra in Carnegie Hall.  The music reached the most distant auditor in sufficient volume, but the lighting effect dwindled to insignificance.  Without entering into certain details which condemned the exhibition in advance, the method of rendition of the light-accompaniment revealed a lack of appreciation of the problems involved on the part of those responsible.

Incidentally, it has been shown that the composer of this particular musical selection with its light accompaniment was psychologically abnormal; that is, he was affected with colored audition.  It is not yet established to what extent normal persons are similarly affected by light and color.  Certainly there is no similarity among the abnormal and none between the abnormal and normal.