08 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



though the colors of the spectrum cannot be exactly matched by pig- 

 ments, they can be approximately imitated, and when the more com- 

 monly recognized colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet 

 are arranged in this order, proper mixtures of any two contiguous colors 

 will produce a series of colors intermediate between these two. More- 

 over, mixtures of violet and red will produce similar intermediates 

 between these two colors, not found in the spectrum ; and thus pig- 

 ment colors may be arranged in a closed circuit, passing through the 

 whole sequence of color by as many gradual transitions as we may desire. 



If pigment colors are thus arranged in a circle, properly spaced, all 

 of the same value and of the same intensity, it will be found that a 

 mixture of pigments of colors diametrically opposite on the circle 

 for instance, violet and yellow, or red and green will in every case 

 produce a neutral color. Such pairs of colors are called complementary. 

 A neutral color will similarly be produced by mixing all the colors to- 

 gether, or by mixing any number of colors which are symmetrically 

 disposed about the circle, as for instance, violet, orange, and green. 



Experience shows that juxtapositions in composition of two ap- 

 proximately complementary * colors, or of three or six or any number of 

 colors taken nearly symmetrically about the color circle, are likely to 

 be pleasing. Why this is so we cannot tell, though it may be conjec- 

 tured that the pleasure is related in some way to the complete 

 or balanced appeal, so to speak, which colors so chosen might make 

 to the fundamental sensitiveness of our perceptive apparatus to red, 

 green, and violet-blue. In any case the pleasure of color is so much 

 modified and complicated in practice by the size and shape of the 

 colored objects, that it is extremely difficult, as we have said, to deter- 

 mine just how much of the observed effect is due to the color alone. 

 We may say, however, using the two latter terms rather metaphorically, 

 that pleasure from colors in composition will come from color harmony, 

 color balance, or color rhythm, f 



* Cf. Experiments on the JEsthetic of Light and Colour. On Combinations of Two 

 Colours, by Emma S. Baker, in University of Toronto Studies, Psychological Series, vol. 

 I, 1900, p. 201-249. 



t Cf. Dr. Denman W. Ross, A Theory of Pure Design. Boston, Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co., 1907. 



