LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION 109 



If two or more objects are to be harmonious in color, they must 

 have some color-characteristics in common. They must be similar in 

 value, or similar in hue, or similar in intensity. If they are to avoid 

 monotony, they must of course, being similar in one or two of these 

 characteristics, be agreeably different in some other. 



A composition of colored areas may be made harmonious in color, 

 then, in three simple ways. All the colors may be made to contain 

 some admixture of some one chosen hue, — all the colors having a yellow 

 tinge for instance. The result of carrying this to the extreme would 

 be that all objects in the composition would be of the same hue, an 

 achievement of harmony but also very possibly of monotony. 



All the colors may be made to have the same value, that is, to 

 appear to send the same amount of light to the eye per unit area of 

 surface. When dealing with pigment-colored areas, and choosing any 

 value higher than black and lower than white, all the colors may be 

 made to have this value by the proper admixture of black or white as 

 the case may require. If the values be all absolutely the same, the 

 resultant harmony may be monotonous. 



All the colors may be made to have a similar intensity. Since the 

 maximum intensity of different pigment colors occurs at different 

 values,* changing the intensity of a color by adding more of the same 

 color, so to speak, will probably change its value as well. If the value 

 be kept the same, the intensity can still be changed by an admixture 

 of gray of the same value. This process applied to several colors would 

 tend to produce a harmony something like that of the first case which 

 we have just discussed, a harmony of hue, by toning the whole com- 

 position toward a uniform gray. 



Colored areas may be pleasantly related in the same composition, 

 also, not because of harmony through a similarity in hue, or value, or 

 intensity, but because of an equal amount of diiference between each 

 tone and the ground tone on which they all lie. This difference may be 

 a difference of hue, — for instance, two spots, one of green and one of 

 orange, on a ground tone of yellow. It may be a difference of value, 

 — for instance, one spot of dark green and one of light green on a 

 ground tone of red of a middle value. It may be a difference of in- 



* Cf. p. 106-107. 



