Color scheme

“ It appears that those complementary color schemes which can be perfectly justified are such as reflect light rays nearest like the rays that show us white. Red and58 green, the two most pronounced and vigorous colors, are complementary. When mixed in the proper proportions they produce white, but this does not mean that they weaken each other when otherwise used; when placed side by side they enhance each other's power and brilliancy by reflection. ”

“ We must expect, then, in painting, to find that neutral gray will be more altered by pale tints of red, orange, or yellow, which are slightly lighter than itself, and that the gray will be less altered by these colors when differing considerably from it in luminosity; analogous conclusions with regard to green, blue, violet, and purple, can also be drawn. Saturated or intense colors in a painting have less effect on white or gray than colors that are pale; this was shown in the preliminary experiment when gray was placed on a ground of strong color. ”

“ As an artist's color, it replaces almost all the other red pigments which we have inherited from the past. The same chemists have an equally powerful yellow and blue under careful observation, and it is highly probable that in another year or two these, also, will be given to the world. Now it is evident that if painters can secure these three primary colors in two values, a light and a dark shade, they will, with the addition of white and black, have a perfect palette ”

“ If it were not that colors can be compounded, we should be limited in hue and shade to the seven spectral colors; the wealth and beauty of color in nature, art, and commerce would be unknown; the flowers with their thousands of hues would have a poverty of color undreamed of; art would lose its magenta, its lilac, its olive, its lavender, and would have to work its wonders with the spectral colors alone. By compounding various colors in different proportions, new colors can be formed to give freshness and variety. ”

“ White and black represent extremes in color. Mixing of all the color rays of the solar spectrum produces white, and mixing of all the colors in the solid form of printing ink produces black. From this contrast of white and black maybe drawn a lesson in color. (Example 31.) Light represents warmth, darkness cold. As the colors are toward light they are warm; as they are toward darkness they are cold. Red becomes warmer as it takes on an orange hue, and colder as it takes on a purple hue. A warm color should be contrasted with a cold color—as orange with black. ”

“ The pure colors consist of the purest possible pigmentary imitations of spectrum colors, with their tints and shades, and the broken colors are these pure colors dulled by the admixture of neutral grays in various tones. This distinction is readily recognized under proper training, so that if a broken color is introduced into a combination of colors from a pure scale it will be readily detected, which always occurs when the attempt is made to produce a series of spectrum scales by the combination of the three primary colors red, yellow and blue. ”

“ The vermilion shade of red is approximated by mixing white with orange-red.
The colored crayons with which the layout man should be supplied are exceedingly useful in determining color combinations. The eye is a reliable guide in this matter, if it is carefully trained to recognize color harmonies. It should be easy to distinguish the right from the wrong color treatment in Examples 5 and 6. The colder color should always predominate; backgrounds of bright red and bright yellow are difficult to harmonize with any color of ink excepting black. ”

“ It is important that the words which we use for the different colors should be well understood, that in using them we use them with the same meanings. By Red I mean the only positive color which shows no element either of Yellow or of Blue. It is the color which we often describe by the word crimson, and we produce it by the mixture of Rose Madder and Vermilion. By Yellow I mean the only positive color which shows no element either of Red or Blue. It is the color of the primrose which may be produced by the pigment Aureolin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of mixing upon his palette three primaries to produce the tertiary gray, he so places them on the canvas that at the proper distance (though this consideration is of small concern to him) the spectator will mix them—which he often does. The advantage of this method of color presentation lies in the degree of purity which the pigment retains. Its disadvantage appears in its frequent distortion of fact and aspect of nature, sacrificed to a scientific method of representation. ”

“ When the eye has been fatigued by looking intently for a few seconds at a red spot on a white wall and is then slightly turned to the wall, a faint tint of a bluish green is seen, and this is called the accidental color of the red, and is supposed to be identical with its complementary color. If with the disks we determine a color which with a given color will produce by rotation a neutral gray, we have the complementary color more accurately than by any other means at present known in the use of pigmentary colors. ”

“ Hue is the pure color neither mixed with white, black, nor a complementary color. A hue may be a primary color, secondary color, or tertiary color in its true value. When you mix a hue with white it becomes a tint; when mixed with black it becomes a shade; and when greyed with a complement it becomes a tone. Since walls should be lighter than the floor covering, walls are usually done in a tint; floor coverings in a shade or tone or a particular hue, and furnishings either in the pure hues in adjacent or complementary colors or in tones, tints, or shades of these hues. ”

“ People who are less refined admire deeper tones; yet want absolute harmony, while coarse individuals are satisfied with bright gaudy colors. Color is a sensation produced on the retina of the eye, by the action of one or more of the elements of light. Exact proportion by parts are not given in the following in order to let you be the judge of the exact shade. Follow the simple rule of using a little more of the dark colors of each color combination if a deeper shade is wanted and vice versa for a lighter one. ”

“ One must remember always in studying color that we are treating with the material, not with the illusion. We are dealing with pigments, not with prismatic phenomena, and it must be obvious that the only three primary colors that can be used in a way to produce all other colors are red, yellow and blue. ”

“ We must diminish the range of color-contrasts by giving predominance to one color, either to one of the colors to be harmonized or to some other. That may be done by mixing one color into all our tones.
The range of color-contrast is in this way diminished to the intervals between Violet, Orange, and Neutral. The process, so far as color is concerned, disregarding value-relations, is fully explained in the following diagram:— [Pg 162]
Diagram 9
Suppose, instead of giving predominance to Red, as in the example above, we give predominance to Blue, taking the same range of colors. ”

“ It is a common habit with artists to introduce very warm effects into all sunlight by the use of orange or yellow in the warm colors. This extreme tendency has been intentionally avoided in the preparation of these papers, however desirable or allowable it may be considered in heightening effects. So also in the shades as in the tints, the aim has been to keep all the tones of one color in the same scale, even though artists [Pg 118] often run the various tones of the same piece of color into two or three analogous scales. ”

“ It is pretty well established that the range of color-vision cannot be materially extended below the red or above the violet by practice, but susceptibility to color variations and the ability to distinguish gradations of tone within the scale can be increased almost indefinitely. ”

“ White, which is also a cold color when added to black makes a cold gray. Yellow added to red forms a warm orange.
MEANING OF COLORS White is said to mean purity; blue, fidelity or truth; red, love or sacrifice; green, envy; pink, modesty; violet, innocence; yellow, jealousy; black, sorrow or distress, and lavender, passion.
4 ART OF COLOR MIXING Mixing colors is an art in itself. With a combination of the chief colors—red, yellow, blue (and black and white) , thousands of shades and hues may be produced. ”

“ As there may be many tones of each, and many intermediate combinations from red to green, or green to blue, the number of grays in nature is infinite, but these four classes with two tones of each in the papers form what may be called standards or stations from which to think of the grays, the same as the six standards in the spectrum constitute points from which to think of pure colors. ”

“ Pigments that are jet black and pure white either vegetable or mineral are unknown. It takes the addition of blue to alter the yellowish cast of white, and blue to deepen the brownish cast of any so called black pigment.
White being a neutral color, will harmonize with most any color combination.
NEUTRAL HUES AND TINTS Neutral hues are made by a 50–50 mixture of warm and cold colors. White added to neutral hues produce neutral tints. ”

“ Complementary Colors.—A colored object shows a certain color by absorbing part of the light rays and reflecting part of the light rays. For instance, we know that light consists of the colors of the spectrum, red, green and violet. If an object is red, it absorbs the green and violet rays, and reflects only the red rays of light. Therefore, green blue which is a combination of green and violet is the complementary color to red or the shade which is absorbed by a red object. ”

“ Color preferences are often determined in this way; yet sometimes they spring from another and more radical source—an affinity between personal temperament and the feeling tone of the preferred color. A consistent choice of blues and grays indicates a specific kind of man or woman, very different from the chooser of yellows and reds.
Although single color tones are expressive, they seldom exist alone in works of art. Significant expression requires variety. The invention of original and expressive color combinations is a rare gift of genius. ”

“ The three primary colors must always be present in a picture to produce harmony. Colors are divided into what are called warm and cold colors, the yellow and red being termed warm, and the blue cold. Yellow and red produce light and warmth, and it is impossible to produce coolness without the use of blue. In painting we [Pg 104] use the three terms, light, shade and color, because they best express the qualities of color. Light is expressed by yellow, shade by blue, and color by red. ”

“ We then shall have representations of all the spectrum colors, but there are still the colors between violet and red, known in nature and art as purples, which must be produced by uniting the red and violet disks, thus completing a circuit of colors containing all the pure colors in nature.
In nature all colors are modified by light and shade, strong light producing tints and shadows more or less deep forming shades. ”

“ A person totally color blind would see in the solar spectrum a band of gray in various tones, and hence if a red and a green should seem to be of the same tone of gray he would call both either red or green, and after much experience would come to give color names to various tones of gray. ”

“ All spectrum colors are pure, while no pigmentary color is absolutely pure, but the pigmentary color which approaches most nearly to the corresponding color in the spectrum must be selected as the pigmentary type of purity of that color. For example, the standard for green must be the best possible pigmentary imitation of the spot in the spectrum which by general consent is called green, and so not only for the six standards but for all their combinations which produce the other colors in nature. ”

“ Rough rules of color combination have been devised from the practice of artists and from experiment, the following of which will enable one to produce faultless patterns, but without genius will never enable one to create a new expression. Color combinations are either harmonious or balanced, the former produced by colors or tones of colors very close to one another, the latter by the contrasting or widely sundered. In the one case, we get the quiet commingling of feelings akin to each other; in the other, the lively tension of feelings opposed. ”

“ If light broken colors are properly combined a beautiful imitation rainbow is produced, which is more harmonious than the spectrum made from full colors. A series of such colors combined in spectrum order produce a more pleasing effect when separated by a small space of white, black, gray, silver or gold. ”

“ White, black and gray, which find no place in the color-tone series, give an intensity series of their own, running from white through light gray and darker and darker gray to black, and any gray in this series may be the zero point in a saturation series of any color-tone. ”

“ 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. ”