An introduction to the experimental psychology of beauty / by C.W. Valentine.

  • Valentine, C. W. (Charles Wilfred), 1879-1964.
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the experimental psychology of beauty / by C.W. Valentine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    constantly surrounded by natural objects which were of a darker colour below than above (e.g. trees and mountains), we had contracted the habit of consider- ing this arrangement as typical, and expected to find it conformed to in other objects which, as the triangles for instance, do not form part of our customary en- vironment.” But Mr. Bullough showed that there were two ob- jections to this theory. In the first place, the arrange- ment of natural objects is by no means so uniformly like that suggested. “* We may find a cornfield in the foreground with a dark wood behind it quite as often as a meadow with a corn or clover field beyond.” There are white cottages with thatched or tiled roofs. Even if the arrangement of light over dark is usual in nature, it does not seem sufficiently uniform to ac- - count for the fact that very slight differences of shade influenced the preferences given. There was a second reason against this explanation. A number of the subjects were specially liable to form associations between the coloured figures and land- scapes or seascapes: thus the circle with the lower half green and the upper half blue suggested the sea with the sky above. Now it was found that there was a curious antagonism between these landscape associations and the weight-principle. Scarcely ever was there an associated suggestion of a landscape when the weight-principle was at work. And on the few occasions when the two were found together they were actually opposed in their influence, 7.e. the weight-principle would make triangle A preferred, but the suggestion of landscape made B preferable. Associations of this kind, then, seem inadequate to explain the fact that we like to have dark colours be- low light ones, rather than vice versa. Mr. Bullough points out that in the case of red and. pink, the ad- dition of more red to the pink makes it more and