LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION 



107 



of lemon-yellow and similar hues because the light which they reflect 

 has been only slightly diminished in its illuminating eff'ect by the 

 absorption of that portion of the original white light which was not 

 yellow. The value is low in the case of blue and violet, because a 

 violet pigment, in removing the other hues, has removed nearly all the 

 illuminating power of the light. In a black surface, in which all the 

 mixed hues of the original light have been absorbed, value is at its 

 lowest. 



It is apparently the fact that in certain very general ways most Emotional 

 people are affected emotionally in the same manner by the same colors.* ^^f'-^ °^ 

 It would appear that red and orange usually produce an exciting effect, 

 green a soothing effect, bluish purple a depressing effect. The fact 

 however that it is almost if not quite impossible to eliminate from any 

 experiments the effect of the size and shape of the colored areas ob- 

 served and various associational results of the colors, makes the data 

 which we have in this direction still uncertain in its value in color- 

 design. 



It is a fact of every-day experience that, to almost all observers. Color 

 certain colors, when applied to juxtaposed surfaces, produce a pleasing ii<^^i^ony 

 efi"ect, and certain others, similarly juxtaposed, produce an unpleasing 

 effect. What are all the physical and psychological causes of these 

 facts, we do not as yet know, but as to what combinations of colors are 

 pleasing and what displeasing, we have a great amount of testimony 

 of the best possible kind, namely, such of the paintings of all the mas- 

 ters of color as have been preserved to us since the beginning of art. It 

 is possible by a careful study and comparison of these, by careful con- 

 sideration of what color combinations are pleasing to us and to those 

 whose opinion we know, to make definite empirical statements in this 

 regard which are of very great value to us when using color in design. 



The colors as they appear in the spectrum are a sequence, passing 

 by degrees from one distinguishable color to the next. There is no 

 spectral color of violet-red or red-violet, intermediate between the 

 violet of one end of the spectrum and the red of the other end. Al- 



* The reader is referred to the description and analysis of experiments given in an 

 article by Newton A. Wells, entitled A Description of the Affective Character of the 

 Colors of the Spectrum, in The Psychological Bulletin, June 15, 1910, vol. 7, p. 181-195. 



