Color is a progressive art. In painting, sculpture, literature, the drama, it is quite debatable if modern accomplishments surpass those of the past in quality of expression. The modern artist may be different; but is he superior?
Yet with color, there is a long history of achievement and increased knowledge. The physicist has exposed many of the mysteries of the nature and manifestations of light. The chemist has performed miracles in the making of dyestuffs and pigments. Most remarkable, scientists in the fields of psychology and physiological optics have probed the wonders of sensation and perception and given the world a revealing picture of the human nature of vision unrecognized in the past.
This book has been many years in the making.
While it draws much from tradition, its chief effort has been to explore new realms of creation.
Where the Impressionist of a past generation went to the physicist for new concepts in the manipulation of color, the modern approach has led to the laboratory of the psychologist.
Understand that in dealing with the phenomena of perception, the scientist has not been primarily concerned with art. His struggle has been to understand why man sees the way he does, how he senses form, space, color, how he orients himself within the world, and how much the human brain and human intelligence contribute to the magic process of seeing.