Good triads: red, yellow, blue; red, yellow, green — blue; orange, green, violet; white, yel low, violet.
The following are to be regarded as bad: Bad pairs: green, blue; yellow, green; violet, red; violet, blue; crimson, orange; orange, yellow.
It will be seen on comparing these combina tions with the diagram that colors which do not go well together, e.g., green and blue, are adjacent in the circle while good pairs and triads, e.g., red, yellow, green, are separated. Tints, shades and grays, being less colorful or vivid, form less offensive combinations and are easier to harmonize. By generalizing the fore going results we arrive at some of the various methods of harmonizing colors; they show rather how to avoid discord than to produce beauty.
Harmony by Contrast: use of complements in pure hues, tintt, shades or grays. An ex ample of this is the use of red (figure, chimney, etc.), in a green landscape.
Monochromatic Harmony: • tints, shades and grays of a single hue as in the different greens of a landscape. This includes harmony by variation or gradation. Ruslcin in 'Elements of Drawing,) says 4The victorious beauty of the rose as compared with other flowers depends wholly upon the delicacy and quality of its color-graduations.0 Harmony of Analogous Colors: tints, shades or grays of components which are side by side or close together in the color circle, for instance in autumn leaves which contain various tones of yellow, orange, red, brown and intermediate colors. The effect is usually not pleasing when the normal hues are employed yet the beauty of green trees, blue slcy and blue-green water fur nishes a striking exception to the rule.
Chevreul, director of the Gobelins tapestry works, published in 1839 a great many rules or laws of harmony which are merely detailed developments of those above. Unfortunately all such results as these are debatable, for the question of a good or bad combination depends on the individual's training and susceptibility; if he has been taught either explicitly or by his environment that this or that is bad he is likely to believe it. Association also is not without
influence; °loud" clothes are considered in compatible with dignity and gaudy wallpaper is regarded as Icheap,') Southern or Oriental. In consequence of this we have the strange fact that brightly colored things more often than not cost less than those more delicately colored although so far as color and design are con cerned the difference in cost of production is negligible. If the prices of, say, wallpapers were reversed— the cheaper being made the more costly—it is safe to predict that a notice able reversal of taste would take place. Other important factors which determine the beauty of a color scheme are texture of surface, quan tity, composition and design; thus silks, on ac count of their lustre, may be handsomer than cottons, but the same hues in crayon, because of their lack of shine, may be better than in oils. Moreover, the difficulty with rules of taste is that they tend to create and thus to trammel it. Many interesting illustrations of actual color schemes are shown in Vanderpoel, Color Problems.
Strong contrast in colored signs and signals is not as closely related to legibility as might be expected. Observations on advertisements led to the following results which are arranged in the order of decreasing legibility; it is pos sible that they are influenced somewhat by personal equation (Scientific American Sup. 2 Feb. 1913) : Black on yellow, green on white, red on white, blue on white, white on blue, black on white, yellow on black, white on red, white on green, white on black, red on yel low, green on red, red on green. (See PAINT ING; PIGMENT). Consult, besides the references given above, Jorgensen, (The Mastery of Color> (2 vols., with 22 colored plates, showing about 1,000 colors, Milwaukee 1906) ; Luckiesh, (The Language of Color) (New York 1918) ; Ridg way, (Color Standards and Color Nomenclature) (with 53 colored plates and 1,115 named colors, Washington, D. C., 1912).