Complementary Harmonies.
Complementary Harmonies may perhaps be classified next to dominant because they are more easily described and more definitely limited than those effects termed Analogous Harmonies. A pure Complementary Harmony consists of the combination of tones from two scales which are complementary to each other. For example, the red scale is complementary to the blue-green scale, as also the green to the violet-red, and so on throughout the entire range of the spectrum scales.
As explained on Page 50, the complementary of any color can be determined by means of the color wheel, or nearly enough for æsthetic purposes with the color top. But even though the colors complementary to each other may be determined scientifically there will always remain ample opportunity for the exhibition of color sense and artistic feeling in the choice of colors because the difference between a very beautiful composition in complementary harmony and an indifferently good one may be found in the choice of tones, or in the proportions of each and their arrangement with relation to each other. This harmony certainly contains great possibilities with comparatively few limitations.
While it is perhaps approximately true that complementaries are harmonious in combination, yet best authorities do not seem to fully sustain this opinion and it is quite evident that pure tones of some complementary pairs when combined are very hard in their effects, if not positively unpleasant. This can be relieved very decidedly and oftentimes very pleasing results secured by modifying the colors to tints and shades or various broken tones.
But as has before been stated, and must be constantly reiterated, all fine questions of harmonies can only be determined by a general agreement of experts in color based on accepted standards.
Analogous Harmonies may seem to be more closely related to the dominant than the complementary and hence, logically, should perhaps be considered before the complementary, but there may be greater difficulties involved in the analogous than in the complementary because they are not so definitely limited.
Analogous Harmonies.
In an Analogous Harmony we may use tones from a number of scales more or less closely related in the spectrum circuit. In some parts of the spectrum it is possible to include a much wider range than in others. It is comparatively easy to produce safe compositions through that part bounded by the orange-yellow and the green scales, while from the green to the violet experiments are much less safe.
In almost any section of the spectrum a range of three scales is safe if the tones are properly selected and proportioned, and in some sections as many as five or six may possibly be included, by an artist, with striking and pleasing effect.