Painting today is almost exclusively concerned with the reproduction of natural forms and phenomena.  Her business is now to test her strength and methods, to know herself as music has done for a long time, and then to use her powers to a truly artistic end.

And so the arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental.  Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven.

PART II:  ABOUT PAINTING

V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING OF COLOUR

To let the eye stray over a palette, splashed with many colours, produces a dual result.  In the first place one receives a purely physical impression, one of pleasure and contentment at the varied and beautiful colours.  The eye is either warmed or else soothed and cooled.  But these physical sensations can only be of short duration.  They are merely superficial and leave no lasting impression, for the soul is unaffected.  But although the effect of the colours is forgotten when the eye is turned away, the superficial impression of varied colour may be the starting point of a whole chain of related sensations.

On the average man only the impressions caused by very familiar objects, will be purely superficial.  A first encounter with any new phenomenon exercises immediately an impression on the soul.  This is the experience of the child discovering the world, to whom every object is new.  He sees a light, wishes to take hold of it, burns his finger and feels henceforward a proper respect for flame.  But later he learns that light has a friendly as well as an unfriendly side, that it drives away the darkness, makes the day longer, is essential to warmth, cooking, play-acting.  From the mass of these discoveries is composed a knowledge of light, which is indelibly fixed in his mind.  The strong, intensive interest disappears and the various properties of flame are balanced against each other.  In this way the whole world becomes gradually disenchanted.  It is realized that trees give shade, that horses run fast and motor-cars still faster, that dogs bite, that the figure seen in a mirror is not a real human being.

As the man develops, the circle of these experiences caused by different beings and objects, grows ever wider.  They acquire an inner meaning and eventually a spiritual harmony.  It is the same with colour, which makes only a momentary and superficial impression on a soul but slightly developed in sensitiveness.  But even this superficial impression varies in quality.  The eye is strongly attracted by light, clear colours, and still more strongly attracted by those colours which are warm as well as clear; vermilion has the charm of flame, which has always attracted human beings.  Keen lemon-yellow hurts the eye in time as a prolonged and shrill trumpet-note the ear, and the gazer turns away to seek relief in blue or green.