tion. This explains
why a note on the scale played on the piano, differs
from the same note played on the 'cello or the organ. From
these fundamental sensuous elements of sound, elaborate
symphonic compositions may be built up, but they remain
primary nevertheless. Unless the sensuous elements of sound
were themselves pleasing it is difficult to imagine that a musical
composition could be. Music would then be like an orchestra
whose members played in unison, but whose violins were
raucous and whose trumpets hoarse.

Color again illustrates the aesthetic satisfactions that are
found in certain kinds of sense stimulation, apart from the
form they are given or the emotions or ideas they express.
The elements of color, _as_ color, may be reduced to three simple
elements: First may be noted _hue_, as yellow or blue; second,
_value_ (or _notan_) dark or light red; and third _intensity_ (or
brightness to grayness), as vivid blue or dull blue. Specific
vivid aesthetic combinations and variations are made possible
by variations or combinations of these three elements of
color. If a color scheme is displeasing, the fault may be in the
wrong selection of hues, in weak values, in ill-matched intensities
or all three.

Dutch tiles, Japanese prints and blue towels, Abruzzi towels,
American blue quilts, etc., are examples of harmony built up with
several values of one hue.

With two hues innumerable variations are possible. Japanese
prints of the "red and green" period are compositions in light
yellow-red, middle green, black, and white....

Color varies not only in hue and value [_notan_] but in intensity--ranging
from bright to gray. Every painter knows that a brilliant
bit of color, set in grayer tones of the same or neighboring hues, will
illuminate the whole group--a distinguished and elusive harmony.
The fire opal has a single point of intense scarlet, melting into pearl;
the clear evening sky is like this when from the sunken sun the red-orange
light grades away through yellow and green to steel gray.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dow: _Composition_, p. 109.]

These variations in hue, value, and intensity of color afford
specific aesthetic satisfactions. The blueness of the sky is its
specific beauty; the greenness of foliage in springtime is its
characteristic and quite essential charm. Apart from anything
else, sensations themselves afford satisfaction or the
reverse. A loud color, a strident or a shrill sound may cause
a genui