How to achieve color harmony? Color Harmony - Color harmony Color harmonies blue

We begin a cycle of lectures on the harmony of color, without which it is impossible to achieve the unity of the color of a person and the color of clothes. Before presenting the material, I’ll immediately add on my own behalf that our task, as researchers and practitioners of the color type, is complicated by the fact that we need to know the laws of harmony in general, see the harmony of a person’s color and be able to reduce the color of a coat of arms, if I may say so about it, and the color of a person into a single, coloristically and stylistically harmonious whole.

Many will object that harmony is subjective. Nevertheless, the laws of color harmony have been known since antiquity, they exist as an objective reality within the framework of subjective human perception, they are well studied and tested in practice. And even if we mentally disagree with some particular case of harmony, our eyes will still demand a balance of power.

I will try to quote in these chapters as much as possible useful material, not skimping on volume, because it is very important, and it is better to assimilate the postulates of harmony slowly but surely. We will figure it out together, including myself, relying on the works of authoritative experts.

Today I'll start with a large amount of lyrics for the seed, there will be few pictures today, read the text carefully.

Below I quote the work of Valentin Zheleznyakov, already mentioned in the previous chapters on contrast, "Color and Contrast"

In the era of Greco-Roman antiquity, color became the subject of attention and reflection of philosophers, but the views of florist philosophers can be called artistic rather than scientific, because aesthetic and even ethical prerequisites were at the heart of their attitude. Ancient philosophers considered it necessary to classify colors - to single out the main and derivatives, but they approached this mainly from mythological positions. In their opinion, the main colors should correspond to the main elements (air, fire, earth and water - white, red, black and yellow). Nevertheless, Aristotle was already aware of the phenomenon of color induction, simultaneous and sequential color contrast, and many other phenomena, which later formed the basis of physiological optics. But the most important thing is the doctrine of color harmony.

Antique color aesthetics became the same foundation for all European art of the Renaissance, as ancient philosophy for the science of the Enlightenment. Harmony was considered a universal principle of the universe and was applied to a wide variety of phenomena: to the structure of the Cosmos, to the social structure, to architecture, to the relationship of colors and numbers, to music, to the human soul, and so on. In the very general view harmony meant the principle of a higher, "divine" order, instituted not by man, but higher powers, but, despite this, such an order should be quite accessible to human understanding, since it is based on reason. This, by the way, is the difference between the Western concept of harmony and the Eastern one, in which there are always elements of mysticism and unknowability.

Here are some provisions of ancient harmony in relation to color:

1. Communication, combination individual elements systems with each other. Harmony is a connecting principle. This is expressed in color. unity of color When all colors are brought together as if by a common bloom, each paint is either whitened (in the background), or blackened, or softened by mixing in another paint. Apelles, according to Pliny, after finishing the picture, covered it with something like a grayish varnish in order to bind all the colors into a harmonious unity.

2. The unity of opposites, when there are certain opposite principles, called contrasts. In monochrome, this is the contrast of light and dark, chromatic and colorless (for example, purple with white, red with black), rich colors with undersaturated ones. Or are these contrasts in color tone - a comparison of red and green, yellow and blue, etc., i.e. connection of additional, complementary colors.

3. Harmonious can only be related to the measure, and the measure is human sensations and feelings. According to Aristotle, every sensation is a definition of correlations. The brightness and strength of the color should be neither too strong nor too weak. Bright color, sharp contrasts were considered barbarism, worthy of "some Persians" (the original enemies of Hellas). The civilized Greek appreciates beauty more than riches, the subtlety of art pleases him more than the high cost of material.

4. The concept of measure is relative, it means the ratio of the measured quantity to the unit of measurement, therefore it includes such definitions as proportionality, proportion, relationship. Aristotle believed that in "beautiful" colors, the proportions in which the primary colors are taken are not accidental: "Those colors in which the most correct proportion is observed, like sound harmonies, seem to be the most pleasant. These are dark red and purple ... and some others of the same kind, which are few for the reason that musical harmonic consonances are also few.

The whole practice of ancient applied art proceeds from the principle that in color mixedness is more valued than purity.

5. The harmonic system is stable because it is balanced. The Universe is eternal because it is harmoniously arranged, the opposing forces in it cancel each other out mutually, creating a stable balance. If the figures in the picture are dressed in bright cloaks, then these relatively saturated spots occupy no more than one-fifth or one-sixth of the entire picture in area. The rest of the colors are undersaturated. Light to dark is taken in approximately the same ratio. Thanks to this proportional system, an overall balance of the color composition is achieved: strong, but short pulses of bright and pure colors are balanced by longer, but weak fields of dark and mixed colors.

6. A sign of harmony is its clarity, the evidence of the law of its construction, simplicity and consistency both in general and in parts. The classical color composition does not set difficult tasks for the viewer, juxtapositions of close or opposite colors are preferred in it and are almost never used as a color dominant of juxtaposition in the middle interval, since they have neither an obvious connection nor opposition (more on this will be discussed in the example of color circle).

7. Harmony always reflects the sublime. According to Aristotle, "mimesis" is a reflection of reality in the forms of reality itself, art only imitates nature, but does not reproduce the ugly and ugly - this is not part of the task of art.

8. Harmony is conformity and expediency, as well as order. In this principle, in the most general form, the relation of ancient aesthetics to the world is expressed: the goal cultural activities of man is the transformation of the formless and ugly world of chaos into a beautiful and orderly cosmos. Any harmonious color composition is so organized and ordered that it is easily comprehended by the human mind and lends itself to logical interpretation.

From this enumeration of the main features of ancient color harmony, it is clear that many of them have not lost their significance to this day.

The German poet Wolfgang Goethe wrote: “Everything that I have done as a poet does not at all fill me with special pride. Excellent poets lived at the same time as me, even better ones lived before me and, of course, will live after me. But what am I in my age? the only one who knows the truth about the difficult science of colors - I cannot but attach importance to this, it gives me the consciousness of superiority over many.

Goethe fundamentally, ideologically diverged from the position of Newton and believed that he must fight against his "delusions". He was looking for the principle of color harmonization not in physical laws, but in the laws of color vision, and we must give him his due, he was right in many ways; No wonder he is considered the founder of physiological optics and the science of the psychological effects of color.

Goethe worked on his "Teaching about Color" from 1790 to 1810, i.e. twenty years, and the main value of this work lies in the formulation of subtle psychological states associated with the perception of contrasting color combinations. Goethe describes in his book the phenomena of color induction - luminance, chromatic, simultaneous and successive - and proves that the colors that appear in successive or simultaneous contrast are not accidental. All these colors seem to be embedded in our organ of vision. The contrasting color arises as the opposite of the inducing one, i.e. to the imposed eye, just as inhalation alternates with exhalation, and any contraction entails expansion. This manifests the universal law of the integrity of psychological being, the unity of opposites and unity in diversity.

Each pair of contrasting colors already contains the entire color wheel, since their sum is White color- can be decomposed into all conceivable colors and, as it were, contains them in potency. From this follows the most important law of the activity of the organ of vision - the law of the necessary change of impressions. "When the eye is offered the dark, it demands the light; it demands the dark when the light is presented to it, and it manifests its vitality, its right to grasp the object by giving rise to something opposite to the object."

Goethe's experiments with colored shadows showed that diametrically opposite (complementary) colors are precisely those that mutually evoke each other in the mind of the viewer. Yellow calls for blue-violet, orange calls for cyan, and magenta calls for green, and vice versa. Goethe also built a color wheel (Fig. 13), but the sequence of colors in it is not a closed spectrum, like Newton's, but a round dance of three pairs of colors. And these pairs are additional, i.e. half generated by the human eye and only half independent of man. The most harmonious colors are those that are located opposite, at the ends of the diameters of the color wheel, it is they who evoke each other and together form integrity and completeness, similar to the fullness of the color wheel. Harmony, according to Goethe, is not an objective reality, but a product of human consciousness.

According to Goethe, in addition to harmonic combinations, there are "characteristic" and "characterless". The former include pairs of colors located in the color wheel through one color, and the latter - pairs of adjacent colors. Harmonic color, according to Goethe, occurs when "when all neighboring colors are brought into balance with each other." But harmony, Goethe believes, despite all its perfection, should not be the ultimate goal of the artist, because the harmonious always has "something universal and complete, and in this sense devoid of character." This unusually subtle remark echoes what Arnheim later said about the entropic nature of the image perception process and that images that are harmonized in all respects often lack expressiveness and expression.

Goethe's book contains several very subtle definitions of color. For example, in painting there is a method of shifting all colors to any one color, as if the picture were viewed through colored glass, for example, yellow. Goethe calls such coloring false. "This false tone arose from instinct, from a lack of understanding of what to do, so that instead of integrity, they created uniformity." Such color glazing, which is often considered a sign of good taste in color cinema, does not at all deserve such a respectful attitude, and that there are other, more perfect ways of obtaining color harmony, which, however, require more work and a higher visual culture.

Harmony is a philosophical and aesthetic category, meaning integrity, unity, regular connection of all parts and elements of the form, i.e. this is a high level of orderliness of diversity and the correspondence of parts in the composition of a whole that meets the aesthetic criteria of perfection and beauty.

Color harmony is a combination of individual colors or color sets that form an organic whole and evoke an aesthetic experience.

Color harmony in design is a certain combination of colors, taking into account all their main characteristics, such as

color tone;

Lightness;

saturation;

The dimensions occupied by these colors on the plane, their mutual arrangement in space, which leads to color unity and has the most favorable aesthetic effect on a person.

Signs of color harmony:

1) Communication and smoothness. The connecting factor can be: monochrome, achromaticity, unifying submixtures or raids (mixture of white, gray, black), shift to any color tone, gamma.

2) Unity of opposites, or contrast. Types of contrast: by brightness (dark-light, black-white, etc.), by saturation (pure and mixed), by color tone (additional or contrasting combinations).

3) Measure. Those. in a composition brought to harmony there is nothing to add and take away.

4) Proportionality, or the ratio of parts (objects or phenomena) to each other and the whole. In gamma, it is a similarity to the ratios of brightness, saturation, and color tones. Consider the ratio of the areas of color spots:

1 part of the light field - 3-4 parts of the dark field;

1 part pure color - 4-5 parts muted;

1 part chromatic - 3-4 parts achromatic.

5) Equilibrium. The colors in the composition should be balanced.

6) Clarity and ease of perception.

7) Beautiful, the pursuit of beauty. Psychologically negative colors, dissonances are unacceptable.

8) Sublime, i.e. perfect combination colors.

9) Organization, order and rationality.

Picture for variety and reflection from the same site:

So, today we also mentioned the concept of color, but we will consider colors and scales in more detail later. In the next lecture, we will consider the general provisions of Itten's theory of harmony, and then first briefly, and then in detail for 1 lecture on the type of harmony, we will consider how color harmony relationships are practically solved on the color wheel.

Homework will be of a philosophical nature, I ask you to speak in the comments: what is color harmony for you, on what grounds do you conclude what is harmonious and what is not, and what is beautiful for you and what is not?

Color harmony

When people talk about color harmony, they are evaluating the impression of two or more colors interacting. Painting and observations of the subjective color preferences of various people speak of ambiguous ideas about harmony and disharmony. As a rule, the assessment of harmony or dissonance is caused by a feeling of pleasant-unpleasant or attractive-unattractive. Such judgments are based on personal opinion and are not objective.

The concept of color harmony should be withdrawn from the realm of subjective feelings and transferred to the realm of objective laws.

Harmony is balance, symmetry of forces.

The following remark belongs to the physiologist Ewald Hering: “The average or neutral gray color corresponds to the state of the optical substance in which dissimilation - the expenditure of forces expended on the perception of color, and assimilation - their restoration - are balanced. This means that the average gray color creates a state of equilibrium in the eyes. Hering proved that the eye and the brain need a medium gray, otherwise, in its absence, they lose their calm.

The processes that take place in visual perception cause corresponding mental sensations. In this case, the harmony in our visual apparatus testifies to the psychophysical state of equilibrium, in which the dissimilation and assimilation of the visual substance are the same. Neutral gray corresponds to this condition.

Two or more colors are harmonious if their mixture is a neutral gray.

All others color combinations that don't give us gray color, by their nature become expressive or disharmonious. In painting, there are many works with one-sided expressive intonation, and their color composition, from the point of view of the above, is not harmonious. These works are irritating and too exciting with their emphatically insistent use of any one predominant color. There is no need to argue that color compositions must necessarily be harmonious, and when Seurat says that art is harmony, he confuses artistic means and purpose of art.

The basic principle of harmony comes from the physiological law of complementary colors. In his work on color, Goethe wrote about harmony and integrity as follows: “When the eye contemplates a color, it immediately comes into an active state and, by its nature, inevitably and unconsciously immediately creates another color, which, in combination with a given color, contains the entire color wheel. . Each individual color, due to the specificity of perception, makes the eye strive for universality. And then, in order to achieve this, the eye, for the purpose of self-satisfaction, searches next to each color for some colorless-empty space on which it could produce the missing color. This is the basic rule of color harmony.”

The color theorist Wilhelm Ostwald also touched upon the issues of color harmony. In his book on the basics of color, he wrote: “Experience teaches that some combinations of some colors are pleasant, others are unpleasant or do not evoke emotions. The question arises, what determines this impression? To this we can answer that those colors are pleasant, between which there is a regular connection, that is, order. Combinations of colors, the impression of which we are pleased, we call harmonious. So the basic law could be formulated as follows: Harmony = Order.

It can be generally concluded that all pairs of complementary colors, all combinations of three colors in the twelve-part color wheel, which are connected to each other through equilateral or isosceles triangles, squares and rectangles, are harmonious.

Yellow-red-blue form here the main harmonic triad. If these colors in the system of the twelve-part color wheel are combined with each other, then we will get an equilateral triangle. In this triad, each color is presented with extreme force and intensity, and each of them appears here in its typical generic qualities, that is, yellow acts on the viewer as yellow, red as red and blue as blue. The eye does not require additional additional colors, and their mixture gives a dark black-gray color.

Yellow, red-violet and blue-violet colors are united by the figure of an isosceles triangle. Harmonious consonance of yellow, red-orange, violet and blue-green are united by a square. The rectangle gives a harmonized combination of yellow-orange, red-violet, blue-violet and yellow-green.

A bunch of geometric shapes, consisting of an equilateral and isosceles triangle, square and rectangle, can be placed at any point on the color wheel. These figures can be rotated within a circle, thus replacing the triangle of yellow, red and blue with a triangle of yellow-orange, red-violet and blue-green or red-orange, blue-violet and yellow-green.

The same experiment can be carried out with others geometric shapes. Further development this topic can be found in the section on the harmony of color consonances.

Types of color harmonies and principles of their construction

What is color? This concept has dozens of complex definitions, but speaking plain language, color is the sensation that a person has when light rays enter his eyes. It is easy to guess that the sensations of all people are different, therefore we perceive colors individually. Someone will say that yellow reminds him of the July heat, while the other, on the contrary, associates this color with sadness and longing, remembering the notorious song about “yellow tulips”.

Each interior is unique in its own way, but each should have harmony: not just one room, but the entire home as a whole. To create it in rooms located on the south side, you need to use cold shades:

• purple - the color of idealism, contributing to self-esteem;
• blue - soothing, relieving stress and radiating tenderness, the color of carelessness, which is ideal for relaxation, but not for mental and physical labor;
• blue is a symbol of constancy, perseverance, dedication and rigor, helping to achieve harmony with oneself and with the world around;
• green - symbolizing prosperity and a new, unencumbered life.

It is customary to decorate rooms from the north (cold) side with the shades remaining in the rainbow palette:

• red is a strong dominant, symbolizing power, stubbornness, determination and strength;
• yellow - the personification of the mind, willpower and self-confidence;
• orange is the color of warmth, kindness, bliss and fun, it keeps you in good shape every day.

Cold to warm, warm to cold - this is an essential rule for combining colors in the interior!

Each of the above colors in the interior has a wide palette of shades, which also need to be used correctly, for which there is a special science - color science.

A bit about color theory

Before you is a 12-part color wheel, which formed the basis of this science and directly the harmony of color.

You see that all the spectral colors available in the circle are characterized by excessive brightness, and to reduce it, achromatic shades are added to them: white and black. As a result, hundreds of new shades are obtained, in a narrow range, which can be represented in the following figure:

This is already called "Itten's color wheel". As you can see, each color has several shades, i.e. own spectrum. And now we come close to the question of how these shades can be combined with each other.

Monochrome (one-color) combination

From the name it is clear that monochrome color harmony is achieved by using shades (in unlimited quantities) from only one spectrum. A monochrome interior will always be in demand - this is a classic version of a room design, which is especially attractive to people who prefer one color.

Contrasting combination

It consists in a lineup of two shades located strictly opposite each other in the color wheel. Using the principle of contrasting, you will make the room truly bright and memorable by highlighting the most important functional areas in it with the brightest color (in the kitchen - a set or a bar counter, in the bathroom - sanitary ware, in the bedroom - a bed and furniture, etc.) . Add unusual things for the home, and then the interior of the room will become not only creative, but also unique.

Classic triadic combination

It is based on the use of three shades equally spaced from each other in distance within the color wheel. To achieve harmony in the triad, you need to take one color as the main one, and use it in most of the elements. home interior(mainly - the main ones that play a dominant role), and with the help of the rest, make a few bright accents.

Analog Triad Combination

Three colors are already used here, which are “neighbors” on the Itten color wheel. This combination is found everywhere in nature, so it looks exceptionally harmonious. By the way, green, unpretentious in care, can be used as one of the shades.

Tetrad combination (tetrad)

The use of 4 colors equidistant from each other, or two pairs of colors located opposite each other. One shade is made dominant, the other two complement it, and the fourth is accentuated.

Accent analogy

This is a triadic combination, complemented by another shade located opposite the selected color group. It turns out a rather aggressive palette, which you need to work with very carefully.

On color solutions There has always been, is and will be fashion, like everything else in our world. Your choice: to follow it or not, but it is important to observe harmony in creating the interior.

Color harmony is the consonance of colors, their compatibility, beautiful ratio. Often artists achieve harmony in their works, relying on intuition and an inner sense of color. This feeling develops in the process of constant work. However, harmony in color is based on certain laws. In order to understand these patterns, you need to use the spectral circle or color wheel.

Three primary colors.

The color wheel is a scale of color shades arranged around a circle. These colors are arranged in a certain sequence - just like in the rainbow. Therefore, the color wheel for the artist is almost the same as the periodic table for the chemist. Among all the colors of this circle, there are three that are called primary: yellow, red and blue. The whole huge variety of other colors is formed by mixing these three (this is applicable for the CMYK color model reflected from objects; if the light is emitted like on a monitor, then this is the RGB color model and here the mixing occurs according to other laws, between green, red and blue) . But in practice, it is not always possible to achieve the desired sound of color, because the pigments of paints have certain limitations. For example, if you mix red (scarlet) and blue (azure), you get a dirty purple color. If red (kraplak) and blue (ultramarine), then a pure purple color is formed. But this is not always enough, so they also produce cobalt violet or kraplak violet. Its color is very intense and pure. Thus, despite the fact that in theory you can get all the colors from just three primary colors, in practice, artists use a large number of colors. However, the main ones are blue, red and yellow. On the color wheel, their positions form an equilateral triangle. These colors cannot be obtained by mixing others.

Saturation and brightness of color.

Every color has a number of characteristics. The main things for the artist can be called saturation and brightness. These are different concepts. Brightness refers to how bright the selected color is. That is, any color can be lighter or darker with the same saturation (closer to white or black). Saturation refers to the strength of the color, so to speak, its "juiciness". It can be different for the same color brightness (or illumination). The lower the color saturation, the more it approaches gray shades. This can be clearly seen in the color chart below.

Harmony of contrasting colors.

On the color wheel, there are colors that are opposite each other. These are contrasting colors. They form the most contrasting combinations. For example, if red is placed next to orange, then it will not stand out much. But if the same red color is adjacent to green, then it will seem to “burn”. That is, green and red reinforce each other, create a contrast. If you look closely, red and green are located exactly opposite each other on the color wheel. There are three pairs of contrasting colors: red-green, yellow-violet, orange-blue. These are opposite colors that form the most contrasting combinations.

Harmony of related colors.

Colors located within one quarter of the color wheel and having one common shade are called related. They seem to be "related" by the common color contained in them. There are many related flowers. For example, red, red-orange, orange-yellow. They all have red in them. This unites them. That is why they are called relatives. There are the following four groups of related colors: yellow-red, red-blue, blue-green, green-yellow.

Harmony of related-contrasting colors.

Contrasting colors are called related-contrasting colors, containing one common color that unites them. Related-contrasting colors are located in two adjacent quarters of the color wheel. There are four groups of related-contrasting colors: yellow-red and red-blue, red-blue and blue-green, blue-green and green-yellow, green-yellow and yellow-red.

Chromatic and achromatic colors.

All colors are called chromatic, except for black, white and gray shades. Accordingly, achromatic colors are gray shades, white and black.

Warm and cold colors.

Warm colors are yellow, orange, red, brown, beige and many similar shades. These colors are associated with the warmth of fire. Cool colors: blue, cyan, violet, green, as well as a large number of colors derived from them. Cold colors are associated with cold, freshness, spaciousness…

Harmony is a philosophical and aesthetic category, meaning integrity, unity, regular connection of all parts and elements of the form, i.e. this is a high level of orderliness of diversity and the correspondence of parts in the composition of a whole that meets the aesthetic criteria of perfection and beauty.

Color harmony is a combination of individual colors or color sets that form an organic whole and evoke an aesthetic experience.

Color harmony in design is a certain combination of colors, taking into account all their main characteristics, such as

• - color tone;
• - lightness;
• - saturation;
• - forms;
• - the dimensions occupied by these colors on the plane, their mutual arrangement in space, which leads to color unity and has the most favorable aesthetic effect on a person.

Signs of color harmony:

• 1) Communication and smoothness. The connecting factor can be: monochrome, achromaticity, unifying submixtures or raids (mixture of white, gray, black), shift to any color tone, gamma.
• 2) The unity of opposites, or contrast. Types of contrast: by brightness (dark-light, black-white, etc.), by saturation (pure and mixed), by color tone (additional or contrasting combinations).
• 3) Measure. Those. in a composition brought to harmony there is nothing to add and take away.
• 4) Proportionality, or the ratio of parts (objects or phenomena) to each other and to the whole. In gamma, it is a similarity to the ratios of brightness, saturation, and color tones. Consider the ratio of the areas of color spots:
• 1 part bright field -- 3-4 parts dark field;
• 1 part pure color - 4-5 parts muted;
• 1 part chromotic - 3-4 parts achromatic.
• 5) Balance. The colors in the composition should be balanced.
• 6) Clarity and ease of perception.
• 7) Beautiful, striving for beauty. Psychologically negative colors, dissonances are unacceptable.
• 8) Sublime, i.e. perfect combination of colors.
• 9) Organization, order and rationality.

Classical harmony should avoid color combinations in the middle interval of the circle: Orange-Green, Violet-Cyan, Purple-Orange; these colors are neither close nor far, they, according to Goethe, have no clarity of expression. Classic combination colors according to Goethe:

harmoniously combined Orange-Blue, Yellow-Purple, Red-Green;

characterless juxtaposition: Yellow-Orange, Orange-Red, Red-Violet, Violet-Blue;

inharmonious combination: Yellow-Green, Green-Blue.

The combination of colors from the standpoint of decorativeness. Harmony is always higher and wider than the concept of "decorative". Decorativeness can be described as a certain maximum of aesthetic quality. From the standpoint of decorativeness, the traditionally harmonious triad colors are Red, White, Black.

Explanations:

• - Badly
• -- Very bad

Depends on the degree of harmonization.