Form can exist independently of color, but it never has had any important development without the chromatic adjunct. From a consideration of history, we should be led to conclude that form alone is incapable of yielding such enrichments as satisfy; for no national system of decoration has ever existed in the absence of color. Mere outline-form may be good, but it is not satisfying; mere light and shade may be pleasing, but it is not all that we require. With form our very nature seems to demand color; and it is only when we get well-proportioned forms which are graceful, or noble, or vigorous, in combination with colors harmoniously arranged, that we are satisfied.

Possibly this feeling results from our contact with nature. The flowers appear in a thousand hues, and the hills are of ever-varying tints. What a barren world ours would appear, were the ground, the hills, the trees and the flowers, the sky and the waters all of one color! Form we should have, and that in its richest variety; light and shade we should have, with ever-varying intensity and change; but color would be gone. There would be no green to cheer, no blue to soothe, no red to excite; and, indeed, there would be a deadness, although the world be full of life, so appalling that we can scarcely conceive of it, and cannot feel it.

Color alone seems to have greater charms than form alone. A sunset is entrancing when the sky glows with radiant hues; the blue is almost lost in red, the yellow is as a sea of transparent gold, and the whole presents a variety and blending of tints which charm, and soothe, and lull to reverie; and yet all form is indistinct and obscure. If so charming when separate from form, what is color when properly combined with beautiful shapes?

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There are few objects to which color may not be applied, and many articles which are now colorless might be colored with advantage. Our reasons for applying color to objects are twofold, and here, in fact, we see its true use. 1st. Color lends to objects a new charm—a charm which they would not possess if without it; and, 2nd, Color assists in the separation of objects and parts of objects, and thus gives assistance to form. These, then, are the two objects of color. Mark, first, it is to bestow on objects a charm, such as they could not have in its absence. In the hands of the man of knowledge it will do so—it will make an object lovely or lovable, but the mere application of color will not do this. Color may be so applied to objects as to render them infinitely more ugly than they were without it. I have seen many a bowl so colored at our potteries as to be much less satisfactory when colored d than when white—the coloring having marred, rather than improved, its general effect. Here, again, it is knowledge that we want. Knowledge will enable us to transmute base materials into works of marvelous beauty, worth their weight in gold. Knowledge, then, is the true philosopher's stone; for, we may almost say, if possessed by the artist it does enable him to transmute the baser metals into gold. But a little knowledge will not do this. In order that we produce true beauty, we require much knowledge, and this can only be got by constant and diligent labour, as I have before said; but the end to be gained is worth the plodding toil. Believe me, there is a pleasure in seeing your works develop as things of beauty, delighting all who see them—not the illiterate only, but also the educated thinker—such as words fail to express. Although there is no royal road to art-power, and although the road is long, and lies through much toil and many difficulties, yet as you proceed there is pleasure in feeling that one obstacle after another is cleared from your path, and at the end there is inexpressible satisfaction. The second object of color is that of assisting in the separation of form. If objects are placed near to one another, and these objects are all of the same color, the beholder will have much more difficulty in seeing the boundaries or terminations of each than he would were they variously colored; he would have to come nearer to them in order to see the limits of each, were all colored in the same manner, than he would were they variously colored; thus color assists in the separation of form. This quality which color has of separating forms is often lost sight of, and much confusion thereby results. If it is worth while to produce a decorative form, it is worth while to render it visible; and yet, how much ornament, and even good ornament, is lost to the eye through not being rendered manifest by color Color is the means by which we render form apparent.

Colors, when combined harmoniously, can please and satisfy, or according to the laws of harmony. What, then, are the laws which govern the arrangement of colors? and how are they to be applied? We shall endeavor to answer these questions by making a series of statements in axiomatic form, and then we shall enlarge upon these propositions.