Harmony

A similar confusion exits concerning harmony in music: The word is used rather loosely to denote theories that outline combinations of tones in chords and in chordal progressions according to unexamined or unchallenged esthetics. Very narrowly defined, harmony in music means euphony or a kind of creamy concordance. Its opposite therefore is dissonance or discord. Actually the two, working in various degrees of tension with each other, characterize the greater portion of Western music from Baroque era to the present. If only euphony is allowed, as in the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance [except in the occasional "passing note"], one must listen for contrast in other elements, such as melodic line, counterpoint, and rhythm.

That some form of contrast must exist is certain. A design of any sort may be examined for the way it organizes the forces of concord and dissonance, the way these are made to function in a unity of form, space, and feeling. It is in this higher order that true harmony resides.

In color, as in music, if only the most harmonious elements are allowed, they must be treated in such away as to create contrast. Otherwise the result is artificial and anemic. We would be better advised to proceed from the direction of contrast.

We return once again to the color wheel and the natural order of colors on which it is based. The most simple harmony is that which occurs when three colors from the wheel, the middle one being a primary, are placed together, pure and unaltered. Although they are of different hues, they contain such a high percentage of identical semi-chromes as to constitute a family kinship. Not only are they closely related in hue, but equally so in value.

STUDY 11
a. A most exemplary type of harmony is to be found in what is called a monochromatic [a one-color] arrangement--variants of a single hue [tints, shades, broken versions, and so on]. Close harmony is inevitable under these circumstances, provided the variants do not depart too much from the family strain, and an area or areas of the original unaltered hue is included in the design. This is likely to be one of the most satisfying of all color combinations: the Variants animate one another, especially if sensitively placed. The broken variants, because they lean away from the dominant hue, provide slight contrast and tension within the group, without which expressive differences would be minimal.

The kind of studies we choose for demonstrating the virtues of harmony may be strict or free, geometric or spontaneous. In either case, we must bear in mind the need for contrast of proportion or extension, if vigorous design relations are wanted. It is possible to create both beautiful and expressive combinations of color by the use of any assortment of colors whatever, provided we place them together in what, in each instance, seems to be the right proportions [Paul Klee said: "To paint well is simply this: to put the right colors in the right place."]. Experienced artists and children often strike one as knowing the right proportions with greater certainty and directness than most grown-ups.

b. We could do a study in simple harmony like the one mentioned above: Choose three neighboring colors, a symmetrical trio consisting of a primary and the two tertiary hues on both sides of it, and place them together in carefully adjusted proportions. Or select any two or three colors in their natural order and sequence on the wheel [for example, yellow, orange-yellow, and orange]. The design may be such that one or two of the colors may need to appear several times in regular sequence or irregular sequence.

c. A kind of extended harmony may be achieved by including areas of the principals suggested above plus a few lighter and darker versions of the same colors. Or two separate color schemes may be employed--say, a stronger one and a paler one--in the same design.

d. We could select, consciously or at random, two colors that seem to create a jarring effect and try mixing a bit of one with the other, or mix a bit of a third color with the two. The design could consist of the two harmonized colors alone or the same colors in both altered and unaltered conditions.

Other ways of harmonizing colors are to alter them in such a way as to equalize [more or less] differences of value, hue, and/or intensity, as follows:

Take, for example, the three primaries--red, yellow, and blue--in their natural position and in full intensity. They are dissimilar in terms of value [yellow is the lightest, red is of a middle value, and blue is the darkest] and hue [they are all distinctly different with regard to family identity]. You could (1) raise the value of the blue to much the same value as that of the red by adding white to it, and lower the value of the yellow by adding a bit of black to it [it's better, however, to lower the value of yellow by breaking it with, say a tiny bit of violet], and then place areas of the two together with red, unaltered; or (2) raise the values of both blue and red closer to that of yellow; or (3) lower the values of yellow and red to that of blue; or (4) add a bit of each of the three colors to the others in such a way as to alter their intensities and their values, hoping not to damage them so much as to destroy their hue identity[ the yellow will probably suffer the most, the blues somewhat, the red the least]. There still remains the factor of simultaneous contrast when it comes to placing these colors together in a design--possible shifts of value and hue. [One could play a similar game of harmonizing any three colors in any condition with regard to hue, value, and/or intensity, and rather unpleasant as a trio.]

Both artists and theorists tend to agree on at least two types of harmony: that of analogous colors [colors that lie next to each other on the wheel] and, although it would seem totally contradictory, complementary colors. See the section on Contrast of Complementaries, Study 12, d and e.

Color lends itself to circular or spherical conformations, as in Munsell's color solid. We have referred to a number of color circles, most of them variations on colors and their complementaries. Yet another kind of wheel could be based on color proportion, after a suggestion by Goethe. It would demonstrate, for example, how large an area of red is needed to balance an area of yellow--a heavier, a more "physical" color in relation to a light, radiant color. Goethe's ratios of extension for the primaries and secondaries [in their purest condition] pertain, not surprisingly, to the natural order of colors. Yellow is awarded the numerical ratio of 9 in a scale ranging, presumably, from white [10] downward to black [0]. Yellow is followed by orange [8], red and green [6], blue [4], and, finally, violet [3]. Yellow spreads the most, takes up the most room--it "travels"; violet spreads the least--it and the blues seem to turn inward. Therefore, a wheel based on these ratios would be, from the point of view of harmonious design, very unbalanced. Johannes Itten, in his book The Art of Color, [New York: Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1961; reissued by Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973]; or see Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color [New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970, pp. 59-63.]] redresses the balance by "taking the reciprocals of the light values": Yellow, three times as light as violet, must occupy one-third as much space as violet on his wheel, and so on. This, in a sense, tames the hues by forcing them to behave democratically. Seldom, however, do all hues occur in maximum purity and strength, nor is it required that all colors in a design, in a work of art, be equally assertive. A more organic balance is obtained when one hue dominates in extension as well as in strength [quite often the case is that one hue is dominant, another is subdominant, and a third is subordinate]. pp. 108-109