Part 6

It probably is unnecessary to state that these experiments may be made with any color and its complementary and that red and blue-green are used here merely as an example.

Another phase of the same physical effect is seen under other conditions which may at first seem to be quite different from those described, but which on examination appear somewhat similar.

It is a well established fact that when two surfaces approximating each other in color, as red and orange for example, are placed side by side, both are rendered less brilliant, an effect which might be reasonably expected because in order to see both the eye is naturally directed first to one and then to the other, and in each case the after image induced is a green-blue or blue-green, which being approximately complementary to both, dulls both. Or in other words, it is as though one examines for a long time a line of goods of similar colors so that the eye becomes fatigued and the color dulled. It is said that a good salesman of colored materials will endeavor to occasionally attract a customer's attention for a few moments to some other colors approximating a complementary, so that when the attention is again directed to the goods under consideration the full effect of the color may be secured. If it is true that the phenomenon of the after image is the cause of the peculiar effects expressed by the terms simultaneous, successive and mixed contrasts, and that by these effects all harmonies in color are governed, it is certainly profitable to understand them while using color material with the children, for their good as well as our own pleasure.

Contrasted Harmony.

Returning to our classification of harmonies, already stated, we find the first to be Contrasted Harmony, which covers those combinations in which a positive color, as a spectrum color for example, is combined with white, black or gray, leaving out for the present silver and gold, which may be confusing, and can at best be used only as outlines.

The simplest combinations of colors are found in this class, all of which are not equally harmonious, and some may not perhaps be entitled to be classed as harmonies, although not positively inharmonious. In this class, as in all others, there is involved contrast of tone and contrast of color, which may best be considered in several divisions.

Color with White.

According to the results of Chevreul's elaborate experiments the effect of a combination of an active color with white is to render the color more brilliant and to give to the white the effect of the complementary of the active color. He admits that the modification of white is very indefinite, but claims that, knowing what to expect, a complementary effect may be seen which otherwise would not be noticed. There is also a contrast of tone which in all cases tends to strengthen a color when used with white.

Black with White.

White and black are both intensified by combination with each other, and this is the type of "contrast of tone." Contrast of tone is very clearly shown when two or more grays of different tones are placed contiguous to each other. This experiment is easily tried by mounting side by side several strips of gray papers of different tones. If more than two are used they should be arranged in order from lightest to darkest. In this case each band will appear to be graded in tone from one edge to the other, each being lighter at the edge next to the darker paper.

This effect is plainly shown on the color wheel by producing several rings of grays with white and black disks of several sizes graduated from light at the center to darker at the circumference.

Color with Black.

In consequence of this law of contrast of tone the contrast of black with active colors generally tends to intensify the black and lower the tone of the color, i.e., to weaken it as though white or light gray was mixed with it, but this effect is modified by contrast of color. Contrast of color is perceptible in black when combined with color simply because the black is not perfectly black but a very dark gray, and hence there is the same complementary effect which shows in white and the lighter grays, but in a smaller degree. This effect is most clearly seen when the color used in combination is blue or blue-green, which induces in the black, yellow or red complementaries and gives the black a "rusty" appearance.

On the other hand, for example, red with black adds the complementary green-blue to the black, which improves it. The orange and yellow have a similar effect by their blue complementaries to relieve the black from any rusty appearance and a green yellow induces a violet effect in the black.

Colors with Gray.

When a color is contrasted with white the light from the pure white surface is so intense as to very largely obscure the complementary effect on the white, while on the other hand the feeble light from the black is not favorable for the exhibition of a complementary. So it might naturally be inferred that some tone between the white and black would be much more favorable than either for the observance of this effect, which is proved by experiment to be the case. This fact is illustrated in the familiar experiment of placing a white tissue paper over black letters on a colored ground, by which the black is practically rendered a neutral gray and the color a light broken color, and in appearance the gray letters receive a color complementary to the color of the page on which they are printed. Each color has its own tone of gray most susceptible to this complementary effect. The truth of this proposition can be perfectly shown on the color wheel by forming with three different sizes of disks a gray ring on a colored surface. For example, select small disks of orange and white of equal size, then a black and a white disk of the second size and an orange and a white disk of the third size. First place the large orange and white disks on the spindle, then join the two medium-sized white and black disks and put them in front of it, and lastly add the small orange and white disks. By rotation the result is the required neutral gray ring on a light orange surface. By the joining of the white disk with each of the orange disks the orange surface may be changed to a variety of tints for trial with the different grays which may be made from the black and white disks, so that the best tones of both orange and gray may be secured. When the best proportions are obtained the effect will be surprising, because when such disks are properly adjusted the complementary effect is so strong in the gray that it appears as a very definite color, a broken green-blue. It is said that the tone of gray should have the same relation to the tone of the color that its complementary would have in order to get best results.

For the same reason if a circle of lightest neutral gray paper, say four inches in diameter, is placed on a piece of yellow paper about six inches square, and another circle just like it is put on a piece of blue paper of similar size, it will be quite difficult to convince any one who has not previously seen the experiment that both gray circles are from the same sheet of paper. The results observed in this experiment are produced by a contrast of tone which causes one to look lighter than the other, and a contrast of hue which gives one a blue and to the other a yellow hue, in contrast to the color on which it is mounted.

Contrast of Colors.

If two colors contiguous in the spectrum circuit are placed in juxtaposition the effect of the contrast of hue is to throw them away from each other. For example, if orange red and the red orange papers are put side by side the former will seem more red and the latter more orange. Therefore, when colored papers are pasted up or laid in order to form a spectrum, for example, the colors not only fail to blend together but each line of contact is very disagreeably prominent.

If two colors are separated by a narrow strip of light gray, gold, black or white, the effect is greatly improved. For this reason a design in analogous colors is often improved by separating certain colors by a fine line of black, gold or gray.

If two colors not closely related to each other in the spectrum circuit are placed in juxtaposition, each is modified by an effect which is the complementary of the other. For example, if red and yellow are placed side by side, in contact, the red is rendered more violet by the added effect of blue, which is the complementary of yellow, and the yellow is modified by the blue-green complementary of the red, which tends to dull the yellow and change it slightly toward green.

If blue and yellow are joined both are improved, as the two are so nearly complementary to each other that each is intensified by simultaneous contrast, blue being added to blue and yellow to yellow.

Dominant Harmonies.

In the use of colored papers those combinations classified as dominant harmonies are the most simple to make because they are all in one family, as the little children like to consider the relationship. The red family consists of the standard red and its tints and shades, or in other words the red scale. With the several papers ready made this harmony becomes very simple, but in the use of pigments the production of a true color scale is not a thing to be confidently undertaken by a novice.

In a very elaborate color chart for Primary education prepared with great care by Dr. Hugo Magnus and Prof. B. Joy Jeffries, and published at large expense about ten years ago with hand-painted samples in oil colors, this lack of classification of hues is very noticeable, although at that time it was by far the best publication of the kind and was not criticised on this point.

For example in a scale of five tones of red the following are the analyses, beginning at the lightest tint:--

Tint No. 2, O.45, Y.20, W.18, N.17. Tint No. 1, O.69, Y.3, W.7, N.21. Standard, R.75, O.25. Shade No. 1, R.85, O.15. Shade No. 2, R.75, N.25.

In this scale according to the Bradley nomenclature the standard or full color is a very fine vermilion expressed by R.75, O.25, i.e. an orange red, and therefore in order to form a perfect scale both tints and shades should be in the orange reds, but in fact the tints are both broken colors, the lightest a very broken yellow-orange and the deeper tint very nearly a light broken orange. The lightest shade is a pure orange-red but with a larger proportion of red to the orange than the standard, while the darkest tone is a pure shade of red. Thus in the five tones we have the following arrangement, beginning at the lightest tint:--

Broken yellow-orange, broken orange, orange-red; another pure orange-red but more red, and lastly red shade, thus embracing in one orange-red scale parts of four scales from yellow-orange to red. In these defects in the best chart of its kind in the market only ten years ago is seen the best possible evidence of the advance made since that time in color perception, largely due to the use of the color disks in determining scales. While in the use of colored papers the dominant harmony may be the simplest and the one in which there is least danger of really bad work, some of the combinations are much better than others, and superiority is perhaps secured as much by the relative quantities of each tone used in a composition as in the selecting of the tones. In the entire range of the spectrum even this class of harmonies involves problems too complex to be solved by a few rules, but it is a very interesting field in which the children may safely be allowed to roam and experiment.

Complementary Harmonies.

Complementary Harmonies may perhaps be classified next to dominant because they are more easily described and more definitely limited than those effects termed Analogous Harmonies. A pure Complementary Harmony consists of the combination of tones from two scales which are complementary to each other. For example, the red scale is complementary to the blue-green scale, as also the green to the violet-red, and so on throughout the entire range of the spectrum scales.

As explained on Page 50, the complementary of any color can be determined by means of the color wheel, or nearly enough for æsthetic purposes with the color top. But even though the colors complementary to each other may be determined scientifically there will always remain ample opportunity for the exhibition of color sense and artistic feeling in the choice of colors because the difference between a very beautiful composition in complementary harmony and an indifferently good one may be found in the choice of tones, or in the proportions of each and their arrangement with relation to each other. This harmony certainly contains great possibilities with comparatively few limitations.

While it is perhaps approximately true that complementaries are harmonious in combination, yet best authorities do not seem to fully sustain this opinion and it is quite evident that pure tones of some complementary pairs when combined are very hard in their effects, if not positively unpleasant. This can be relieved very decidedly and oftentimes very pleasing results secured by modifying the colors to tints and shades or various broken tones.

But as has before been stated, and must be constantly reiterated, all fine questions of harmonies can only be determined by a general agreement of experts in color based on accepted standards.

Analogous Harmonies may seem to be more closely related to the dominant than the complementary and hence, logically, should perhaps be considered before the complementary, but there may be greater difficulties involved in the analogous than in the complementary because they are not so definitely limited.

Analogous Harmonies.

In an Analogous Harmony we may use tones from a number of scales more or less closely related in the spectrum circuit. In some parts of the spectrum it is possible to include a much wider range than in others. It is comparatively easy to produce safe compositions through that part bounded by the orange-yellow and the green scales, while from the green to the violet experiments are much less safe.

In almost any section of the spectrum a range of three scales is safe if the tones are properly selected and proportioned, and in some sections as many as five or six may possibly be included, by an artist, with striking and pleasing effect.

Perfected Harmonies.

The compositions which have been classified as Perfected Harmonies may be defined as the combination of two Analogous Harmonies which as a whole are approximately complementary to each other, or in which the key tones of the Analogous Harmonies are complementary to each other. Such compositions may be entirely composed of analogous colors with the addition of but one complementary color, and this is in fact a very safe harmony, especially if that one color is used as a border line or an outline here and there in the design, in which case it may sometimes be strong in color and tone.

The chart of spectrum scales as made from colored papers cut in squares is of great value in explaining the classification of harmonies. Fig. 15 is a reduced copy of the chart of pure spectrum scales shown on page 41, and which is here placed horizontally for convenience.

The black zig-zag lines are designed as graphic illustrations of the various classes of harmonies.

Contrasted Harmonies as defined are limited to designs in one active color mounted on a background of one of the passive colors and thus need no further explanation, although experience will prove that some combinations are very much more pleasing than others.

The Dominant Harmonies which are defined as combinations of tones from one scale cannot be made more clear by a diagram, which would be simply a straight vertical line through any one of the eighteen scales, indicating that the five tones in that scale or any selection from them may be used in a Dominant Harmony.

The Analogous Harmony has given students the most trouble and the diagram is principally prepared to illustrate the great variety in harmonies of this class.

Commencing at the left, the first line indicates a harmony in three scales beginning with red-violet shade No. 2 and passing to shade No. 1, then to standard violet and thence to blue-violet tints No. 1 and No. 2.

The next is in two scales, beginning at violet-blue shade No. 2, thence to blue shade No. 1; back to normal violet-blue; again into the blue scale at tint No. 1 and back to violet-blue tint No. 2.

The next begins at green-blue shade No. 2 and ends in green tint No. 2. Theoretically the line beginning in G. B. S. 2. and leading to G. T. 1. and thence to Y. S. 2. may represent an Analogous Harmony, but it may be doubtful whether a range of such an extent in that part of the spectrum could be made very harmonious. This may be divided into two harmonies at G. T. 1. and each part may be extended to G. T. 2.

The straight line from G. S. 2. to O. Y. T. 2., embracing five scales, might be extended to include the joining broken line running into the Y. O. scale and finishing at O. Y. S. 2.

The remaining lines at the red end of the chart may be considered as indicating one harmony in six tones, or two harmonies in three tones each.

If the two ends of the Chart of Spectrum Scales are joined so as to form an endless band or a cylinder, bringing the violet-red scale adjoining the red-violet, as in the spectrum circuit, the same graphic illustration could be given of harmonies extending from violet to red.

The complementary harmonies require no diagrams, because they are limited to the combination of two scales complementary to each other and would be represented by two parallel vertical lines through any two complementary colors, as for example vertical lines through the red and green-blue scales.

The compositions termed Perfected Harmonies may be fairly well illustrated in the diagram by the combination of the line in V. B. and B. with the broken line commencing in G. Y. S. 2. and ending in G. Y. T. 2.; or again by the line in R. V. to B. V. combined with the straight line from G. T. 1. to Y. S. 2.; or the broken line G. to Y. S. 2. Or again, the entire range of the double combination O. S. 2., O. R. T. 2., V. R. and O. R. S. 2. with the broken line from G. B. S. 2. to G. T. 2. Another sample of Perfected Harmony is found in the union of line O. R. S. 2., V. R., O. R. T. 2., with line G. B. S. 2. to G. T. 2. These diagrams are designed to show the range or extent which a single composition may cover under its special definition and do not imply a necessity for using at one time all the colors through which the line passes, or that they are specially good harmonies.

A striking illustration in nature of a Perfected Harmony was seen one bright autumn morning in a species of woodbine covering the side of a red brick building, in which could be discovered an infinite variety of colors in greens and violet-reds whose tones were increased in number and intensified in effect by the reflections of the sunlight and the corresponding shadows, producing very light tints and very dark shades of various hues of the complementary colors, and forming a complicated and wonderfully beautiful effect very definitely classified as a Perfected Harmony.

Field's Chromatic Equivalents.

So much has been said and written about Field's Equivalents that there is a very general impression among artists and others that they constitute an important element in harmonious compositions of color. This proposition as given in Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament is as follows:--

"The primaries of equal intensities will harmonize or neutralize each other, in the proportions of 3 yellow, 5 red and 8 blue--integrally as 16.

The secondaries in the proportions of 8 orange, 13 purple, 11 green--integrally as 32.

The tertiaries, citrine (compound of orange and green), 19; russet (orange and purple), 21; olive (green and purple), 24--integrally as 64."

In commenting on this in "The Theory of Color" Dr. Von Bezold says: "It is often maintained that the individual colors in a colored ornament should be so chosen, both as regards hues and the areas assigned to them, that the resulting mixture, as well as the total impression produced when such ornaments are looked at from a considerable distance, should be a neutral gray. Starting from this idea, the attempt has been made to fix the proportional size of the areas, which would have to be assigned to the various colors usually employed in the arts, for the purpose of arriving at the result indicated. This idea was especially elaborated by Field, an Englishman, who gave the name of 'chromatic equivalents' to the numbers of the proportions obtained, a designation which has since been very generally adopted. In reality, however, these 'chromatic equivalents' have no value whatever."

The same writer also says: "It will always remain incomprehensible that even a man like Owen Jones in the text accompanying his beautiful "Grammar of Ornament" should have adopted this proposition in the form given to it by Field, since among all the ornaments reproduced in the work just mentioned there are scarcely any which will really show the distribution of colors demanded by the proposition in question."[B]

[B] The Theory of Color in its relation to Art and Art Industry. By Dr. William Von Bezold. Translated from the German by S. K. Koehler with introduction and notes by Edward C. Pickering. Boston; L. Prang & Company, 1876.

In accordance with this eminent authority any one familiar with disk combinations will know by experiment that no combinations of red, yellow and blue approaching the proportion named by Field can produce a neutral gray effect in the eye.

Colored Papers.

For practical study of color some economic material is absolutely necessary and nothing so well combines manual work with æsthetic cultivation as colored papers, if specially prepared in standard colors and with a dead plated surface.

In the manufacture of the colored papers adopted in the Bradley scheme of color instruction, the effort has constantly been to produce the closest possible imitations of natural colors consistent with the material.

With this aim in view we have secured the brightest possible red, orange, yellow, green and blue and have chosen a violet which has the same relation to the other pigmentary colors that the soft beauty of the spectrum violet bears to the other parts of the spectrum.

It however happens that in the pure aniline colors discovered in recent years a line of purples and violets has been found so much purer than the other pigments that we cannot with our red and violet make a perfect imitation of the brightest aniline purples used in some of the goods now in the market. Purple is a general name for the several modifications of violet, red-violet and violet-red as Peacock Blue is a name given to the beautiful hues of blue-green and green-blue. These aniline purples are but another indication that we may expect such advance in the science of pigment manufacture in the comparatively near future that a much purer line of standards may be secured than is now possible in papers. But it does not materially affect the value of the present standards as long as they are accepted as indicating the kind of color, i.e., its location in the spectrum, and the _artists_ certainly should not object to this lack of purity, because their only present criticism is that the standards are too "raw," which is but another term for pure.