The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Thus orange is to red what D is to C; and to resume the proportion we
used before, red is to eye as C is to ear; yellow: eye: Mi: ear; and so
on the proportion extends, till the analogy embraces chords, harmonies,
melodies, and compositions even.
We have already mentioned the chord of the tonic, and the corresponding
eye-music, red, yellow, and blue; let us consider the chord of the
dominant or 5th note, whose analogue is blue. This chord is constructed
on the 5th of the diatonic as a fundamental note, and consists of the
5th, 7th, and 9th, or returning the 9th an octave, the 5th, 7th, and 2d.
The parallel harmony among the spectral colors is blue, violet, and
orange. The name 'dominant' indicates the nature of this chord; its
often recurring importance in harmonic combinations of a certain key
make it easily recognized, and it is even more pleasing than the tonic
in its subdued character.
Out of doors this chord is preeminent in the sunset key, and the western
skies ever chant their evening hymn in the 5th, 7th, and 2d of the
ethereal music. The correspondence of the sub-dominant would be red,
green, and indigo; of the chord of the 6th, red, yellow, and indigo; and
so on, the curious mind may elicit the symmetrical to any notes, half
notes, or combinations of notes. It is evident that as a note may be
interpolated between any two of the scale, for reach or variety, and
called, _e.g._ [sharp]-F or [flat-]G, so a half tint between green and blue
is a kind of analogical [sharp]green or [flat]blue.
It seems to us that the elementary angles which Mr. Hay conceives to be
the tonic, mediant, and dominant, in formal symmetry, will soon be
proved to decompose into a scale of linear harmony, forming another beam
in this glory of natural analogy. These angles are the fundamental ones
of the pentagon square, and equilateral triangle--respectively 108 deg.,
90 deg., and 60 deg.. Some such scale it is known existed when art was at its
culmination in buried Greece, and it was less the stupendous genius of
her designers than the soul of the universe which their rules taught
them how to infuse into form, which rendered the marbles of Hellas
synonymes for immortality.
The most beautiful and conclusive, and yet most mysterious sign, that
points the seeker to the prosecution of this last analogy, remains yet
for us to remark, and for some investigator yet to take advantage of. It
is the nodal figures which arrange themselves upon an elastic plate (as
of glass), when it is made to vibrate (strewed with sand) by a fiddle
bow drawn across its edge, so as to produce a pitch of some intensity.
These have been investigated, and found subject to certain laws, which
link into the chain of symmetry that philosophers have already grasped.
Among these figures, of which the simplest arise from the deepest
pitches, the angles mentioned occur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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