February, 1919 
39 
basis of neutral or, at least, quiet and undis¬ 
turbed surfaces. In themselves the colors may 
not conflict but there is no dominant note and 
there are so many different points of emphasis 
and “reliefs” that they produce both mental 
and visual confusion and the reliefs fail to 
relieve. It is plain that all harmony without 
relief, and all relief without harmony, are er¬ 
rors equally to be avoided. All of which comes 
back to what was said at the outset—that it is 
necessary to have one predominating tone or 
key color upon which to add the accents and 
the relieving, harmonies. The predominating 
ground, or foundation color acts as a foil for 
the accents and relieving harmonies, but to do 
so. it must predominate and have enough un¬ 
disturbed, unbroken expanses to give stability 
and to intensify the accents and reliefs. 
T he individual colors are the tools we have 
to work with in carrying out our schemes. 
We must, therefore, consider their peculiar in¬ 
dividual properties and their effects upon each 
other. 
Black, strictly speaking, is not a color at all, 
but the absence of color. When black is juxta¬ 
posed to a color, it lessens the effect of that 
color, renders it less brilliant, or lowers its 
tone. If blue, for example, is lowered in tone 
and removed to another scale by putting black 
next it, the same amount of black must be 
added to its complement, orange, in order to 
give a true contrasting harmony, both the pri¬ 
mary and its complement being thus kept in 
the same relation by simultaneous removal to 
a lower scale. Although the two colors, just 
noted by way of example, were kept in the same 
relation to each other by exposure to an equal 
amount of black, it is not, however, advisable 
to employ black with one luminous or advanc¬ 
ing color and one sombre or receding color, for 
the latter will be almost wholly nullified. The 
receding quality inherent in the color itself 
plus the modifying effect of the black produce 
a doubly negative result. With luminous or 
advancing colors, black can always be em¬ 
ployed to advantage and adds both emphasis 
and refinement. A high-keyed polychrome 
decoration, for instance, will look well on a 
black ground; on a white ground the same 
decoration would be insufferably garish. 
White heightens or intensifies the tone of 
colors placed upon or beside it, just as black, 
similarly used, has a subduing effect. With 
white, also, one may quite safely use both lumi¬ 
nous and sombre colors at the same time in 
close proximity without the receding color or 
colors suffering any diminution of value. 
White tends to increase apparent size, and 
white woodwork materially aids in giving an 
aspect of space to rooms in which it is used. 
Dark woodwork, on the contrary, tends to re¬ 
duce apparent size. White has also a reliev¬ 
ing quality. It should be remembered, espe¬ 
cially in dealing with large surfaces, that white 
has great reflective quality and that the 
shadows on a white surface are not v/hite but 
reflect varying degrees of color while the high 
lights alone are truly white. 
G ray is a term susceptible of several ap¬ 
plications. It is more accurate, there¬ 
fore, to speak of the grays. 
In the first place, gray is a tone midway be¬ 
tween black and white. It is a cold tone and 
in its effect may be regarded as half way be¬ 
tween the effects of black and white. 
In the second place—and this is much the 
more common—there is the normal gray re¬ 
sulting from a fusion of equal powers of the 
three primary colors, yellow, red and blue, or 
from a fusion of equal powers of two comple¬ 
mentary colors—red and green, for instance, or 
blue and orange—which is, of course, virtually 
the same thing. By the preponderance of a 
little more of one element, therefore, are nat¬ 
urally derived cool grays and warm grays. 
Thus, for example, we have blue grays or 
greenish grays, pink grays or yellow grays. 
These grays are pre-eminently useful as 
backgrounds and generally possess a receding 
or else a neutral quality which renders them 
valuable as foils to throw other colors into re¬ 
lief, or as harmonizers to blend other factors 
and neutralize too insistent qualities, unless 
there be an excess of one of the warm color 
elements so marked as to make the resulting 
gray an actively warm tone. Such grays, if 
there be not a great excess of any one element 
as just indicated, assume a tint complementary 
to the adjacent color. For example, gray be¬ 
side red appears faintly greenish or gray be¬ 
side blue has a faint orange tinge. 
Tones of gray along with soft colorings al¬ 
most invariably make safe combinations. The 
grays, however, are too inert and non-com¬ 
mittal to be left entirely to themselves. They 
need “accents” and “reliefs” to get the best 
effects of which they are capable. To illustrate, 
the cream gray of linen furniture covering in 
summer has a cool, refreshing aspect, but the 
whole effect of the room is vastly improved if a 
few spots of accentuated color relief are visible. 
Again, yellow or rose with gray make the com¬ 
bination sing without being loud or dissonant. 
Still again, a room with gray walls and mul¬ 
berry hangings gives a combination of great 
depth and refinement. In using grays, one 
must, of course, be careful to discriminate be¬ 
tween the different kinds. 
O F the raw, unmodified primary colors in 
immediate juxtaposition, yellow and blue 
alone do not create a combination bizarre and 
often painful to the eye. Used in judicious 
proportions, they may produce a harmony of 
contrast that is pleasing. Red and blue so 
used are unpleasant; red and yellow are even 
more so. 
Yellow and its derivatives in which yellow 
emphatically preponderates make for light, life 
{Continued on page 52) 
THE HOUSE PRETTY-FULL 
-im/sMsiF 
sigisS. 
