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COLOR HARMONY
Where shall we find harmonious colors, where discordant, where those paths most frequently travelled? Are there new ones still to be explored?
(158) There are three typical paths: one vertical, with rapid change of value; another lateral, with rapid change of hue; and a third inward, through the neutral centre to seek the opposite color field. All other paths are combinations of two or three of these typical directions in the color solid.
Three typical color paths.
(159) 1. The vertical path finds only lighter and darker values
of gray-green, —“self-colors or shades,” they are generally called,—
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and offers a safe path, even for those deficient in color sensation, avoiding all complications of hue, and leaving the eye free
to estimate different degrees of a single
quality,—color-light.
(160) 2. The lateral path passes through neighboring hues on either side. In this case it is a sequence from blue, through green into yellow. This is simply change of hue, without change of value or chroma if the path be level, but, by inclining it, one end of the sequence becomes lighter, while the other end darkens. It thus becomes an intermediate between the first and second typ- ical paths, combining, at each step, a change of hue with a change of value. This is more complicated, but also more inter- esting, showing how the character of the gray-green dress will be set off by a lighter hat of Leghorn straw, and further improved by a trimming of darker blue-green. The sequence can be made still more subtle and attractive by choosing a straw whose yellow is stronger than the green of the dress, while a weaker
