Color Harmony in the Home
The Importance of Color
We are seated in a theatre. The hush that follows the sudden glow of the footlights is settling on a slowly darkening auditorium. The curtain rises, revealing an interior in a house. Immediately, before one word is spoken on the stage, we have taken in the room and formed our opinions of the people who live in it. We have decided that they are rich or poor, simple or pretentious, that they have taste or lack it. We have made up our minds whether or not we are going to like them.
Even though we do not realize it, the color scheme has had an important effect on our decision. If it is dreary with bleak walls and bare floors, we settle down for a dismal evening enjoying the sufferings of the suppressed. If it is bright with warm colored rugs and pleasant hangings, we prepare for an amusing evening with people we would like to have for friends. Of course, the designer of the set may not have given a just interpretation of the play. In that case, we may later change our hasty opinions, but, meanwhile, the actors will have to work twice as hard -- be twice as charming to make us like them.
The same thing is true of actual rooms in real houses -- of your rooms and mine. People visiting us for the first time can tell more about us a glance than they could have learned from months of frequent association on the outside. The things we do, or the things we don't do, make explicit statements of the kind of taste we have -- the kind of persons we are. And color is the biggest tattle-tale of all.
A room may be an unfortunate shape, have a bad light, furniture not of our choosing, and for some reason we may not be able to change. But these things can, and to a great extent will, be overlooked, if the color is harmonious. Ugly shapes can be eliminated or made less apparent by clever arrangement; artificial light can supplement the sun, but a bad color scheme is hopeless. It is so irritating that even the kindest-hearted of our friends will unconsciously hold it against us. And they will be justified, because there is really very little excuse for our living under such a great, and such an unnecessary handicap.
Even a rented house can be transformed by the comfort and luxury of new rugs, by new color on the walls and woodwork, new hangings, new slip-covers to hide impossible upholstery. Astonishing results can be accomplished with a comparatively slight expenditure of time and money. If you are sensitive to color, you will make these changes. If you do not take the trouble, then that's the kind of person you are.
The Influences of Color
COLOR is all-important. The eye sees only color. Even form is dependent on it, and is seen only because of color. When one object is placed against another, the contrast with the color of its background is what allows us to see the shape. Color has a tremendous effect on our dispositions. And its power is not lessened by the fact that is works quietly, subtly. The shriek of a siren leaves no doubt in the hearer's mind as to what startled him; he knows, too, what the cause is, when he is soothed by a soft, crooning melody. But often, unelss he is specially trained, color can irritate him, disturb him pleasantly or unpleasantly, without his having the slightest idea of what caused the sensation.
Not only do the colors with which we live reflect our tastes and our personalities, but they are important factors in shaping these qualities well or badly. For this reason, an harmonious color scheme is extremely important in our homes, especially if there are children. Its influence on their impressionable minds is apt to be much more lasting than many of the things they will learn when they are older.
Many of our color preferences are results of associations made in childhood. Most of us like soft, warm colors -- yellow and yellow-orange. One reason is that they recall the light which is dispersed the darkness that frightened us so when we were children; they awaken the memory of firelight from the hearth, with the family gathered about on a winter evenings. Our feeling about blue is conditioned by the fact that it suggests deep water, limitless sky, ice and cold. Green soothes us because it reminds us of the tranquil foliage of summers when we cold play all day long without a thing to worry us. Purple, a stately, pompous, impressive, and rather depressing color, subdues us, partly, no doubt, because some tight-lipped dowager aunt made it her own. Red startles us because we associate it with blood and pain, and perhaps with the first time we cut a finger. Its effects similar to that of a sharp cry of warning. Inevitably, it was chosen as a danger signal.
Harmonious Colors
Now let us see how these colors can be combined to produce harmony. Doubtless it is slightly presumptuous to approach it from a purely intellectual point of view.But we believe that the instinct of harmony is inherent in most people and that they should be encouraged to develop it.Simple, obvious combinations are pleasant to almost anyone whose eyesight is not defective, and appreciation for the more complex harmonies, instinctive in the artist, is largely a matter of cultivation and experience in the layman.
The best way for you to begin the development of your color sense is to provide yourself with a box of paints and daub around, trying first one combination and then another, until you find some that you like. Since we are discussing color in terms of interiors, we advise you (in a whisper) to try the nefarious practice of decorators (may the gods protect us from the indignation of harrased clerks). Go out and beg or steal all the samples of fabrics, of papers, of paints, all the colored pictures of rugs you can lay your hands on. Take them home with you and revel in them. The first thing you know, a color scheme will be suggested, perhaps by the lovely colors and perfect harmony of a Whittall rug, that you simply cannot live without. And the first thing your family knows, they will be in the midst of an orgy of decoration.
On the next few pages you will find a few simple, well-established rules for color harmony that may help guide your first timid steps.
You will have to bear with me if I seem to get technical by talking about this color wheel. It's called a spectrum chart, but it's really a rainbow. That doesn't sound very scientific, does it?
On the chart are shown the three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue -- the elements from which all the other colors are made. Yellow combined with red makes orange; combined with blue, makes green. Red combined with blue makes violet. Orange, green, and violet -- these are secondary colors. The colors between them and their primaries are made by using a greater proportion of one of the primaries. These colors are called hues. Thus yellow-orange (between yellow and orange) is a hue; and so is yellow-green (between yellow and green).
Complimentary Colors
The colors directly opposite each other on the wheel are complements. For instance, green, the combination of yellow and blue, is the complement of the third primary, red; and orange, the combination of red and yellow, is the complement of blue; violet is the complement of yellow.
The colors on the right side of the wheel are cool colors; those on the left are warm. Neutral gray is made by combining the primaries.
Neutral Colors
The colors described above are seldom used in their full intensity, especially the primaries. They are too disturbing. But people of taste use them raw only in small amounts, as seasoning, just as they use cayenne pepper, preferring as a rule to neutralize their primitive brilliance when they use them with varying amounts of white, black, or gray. Those combined with white (or diluted) are called tints. The others are called shades, a word, by the way, that is often misused to designate any variation of color, either light or dark.
Nature employes a relatively small amount of pure color. Even the glorious sunsets are devoid of pure colors. Their beautiful, ever-changing effects arise from combinations of tints and shades. Nature paints scenes of the most breath-taking beauty chiefly with tints and shades, using only slight amounts of fairly pure color here and there to give emphasis by contrast -- for example, bright flowers that are all the more brilliant against their dull green foliage.
Law of Areas
Accepting nature's guidance, civilized man has made the law of areas, which states that quiet color shall be used on large areas, and bright colors, in small amounts, only where strong contrast is needed.
Kinds of Harmonies
The combination of certain colors produces a pleasant effect, just as the combinatioin of certain musical notes makes a sound that pleases the ear. Some colors combine unpleasantly, just as some notes, played together, make a discord. They are antagonistic toward each other and, if we are sensitive, the effect of their association is like that produced by two dear friends of ours in a bitter quarrel. There are three kinds of harmonies: monochromatic, analogous, and complementary.
Monochromatic Harmonies
Monochromatic harmony means the combining of several tints, shades, and intensities of the same color. Some variety may be added by the use of different textures, but, unless very cleverly handled, this type of harmony is apt to become tiresome for a whole room.
Analogous Harmonies
Analogous harmonies are based on colors near each other on the spectrum; for instance, yellow and green, green and blue, blue and vilet, violet and red, red and orange, orange and yellow. These harmonies are most successful when limited to one primary and the colors that come between it and the primary on one side of it. These colors are harmonious because they are closely related.
In using analogous harmonies, the colors should always be in different values or different intensities. If they are too nearly alike, it will seem that an unsuccessful attempt has been made to match them. Combinations of adjacent colors on either side of a primary are not recommended to the amateur. They are possible, but very difficult to manage. It takes genius to combine red-orange with red-purple, yellow-green with yellow-orange, blue-purple with blue-green, without setting teeth on edge. These colors are neither different enough to form contrasts, nor yet similar enough to claim close relationship to each other.
Analogous harmonies are quiet and restful. They have more variety and interest than monochromatic harmonies, yet they have not enough to make them always successful as the scheme of a room.
Complementary Harmonies
Complementary harmonies combine colors with their complements -- the colors directly opposite them on the chart. Employing contrasting colors, they are more difficult to use than those of neighboring colors. Their success depends largely on the correct application of the law of areas. When well done, they are by far the richest and most satisfying.
The reddish hues, in particular, need careful handling because they are much stronger than their complements. Either they or the complement should be very dull, or very light or dark, or else small note of the opposite should be used. Red and green are perhaps the most beautiful together of all contrasting colors, and the most difficult to combine effectively. When successful, this combination is enhanced by its rarity. All colors can be combined if they are sufficiently grayed, and black and white can be used with any combination.
The most beautiful rooms are apt to contain many colors rather than few, but definite relationship will be discovered among all of the colors used in them. They are harmonious because they are keyed.
Keyed Color Schemes
One way to be sure that a color scheme is correctly keyed is to select some object that you particularly admire -- a vase, a picture, a rug -- and let it decide the scheme of the entire room. Since it is generally wise to build a room from the ground up, (as an example) we shall take one of our Whittall rugs.
Say that the main color in the rug we chose is a deep, rich mulberry, that it has accents of blue-green and tan on a background of deep ivory. We might use a shade of ivory for the walls and woodwork, and paint the ceiling a lighter tone of the same color. The curtains could be patterned in tones of mulberry, blue-green, and brown on a cream ground. We'd use blue-green bindings. We'd select red mahogany furniture and have it upholstered in green and another tone of mulberry. The floor would be stained a rich dark brown.
That's only one of the color schemes that could be developed from this oriental patterned rug. There are many others. The walls, for instance, might have been a very much diluted tone of mulberry, the curtains plain blue-green satin, lined with ivory. In this case, we'd choose furniture in light woods to echo the tan. Another scheme could be worked out with walls of blue-green, very much neutralized because it is being used over such a large area, and curtains of a deep, rich ivory.
Appropriate Schemes
Now the question arised of how to choose the best color scheme for a particular room. We must consider the shape, the size, the position of the room, how much light it gets, what time of day it will be used most, and for what purpose. We must consult the personal likes and dislieds of those who occupy it. These requirements overwhelm us, and we are afraid that our advise will have to be of the most genial nature.
The lighting and the size of a room condition the color scheme. Warm colors make a room look smaller, and cool ones, becuase of their recessive quality, make it seem larger. However, a small room, if it is dark, needs warm color, in tints rather than shades. Variety can be obtained by an accent wall of a varied but complementary color, by the contrast of masses, such as furniture that is dark in value and interesting in outline, placed against the light-toned walls.
In a sunny room, cool color can be used to advantage. Here bright accents can be employed, because sunlight has the tendency to dissipate the intensity of strong colors and to make them blend more easily.
Have you sometimes experienced a sense of peace and tranquillity upon entering a strange room? Perhaps you have attributed your reaction to the personality of your host or hostess, to their social graces, or cleverness. You were right. No host or hostess that possesses these quality to any remarkable degree would think of handicapping themselves with an unattractive background. They would never tolerate a disagreeable color scheme to compete with the delicate sparkle of their wit, costume or character. They would have more consideration for the peace of mind and the comfort of their guests.
Color Harmony in the Home
The booklet presented above is a sincere tribute to the discriminating taste of our modern home decorators whose interiors are setting a world standard of artistic arrangement and color harmony. To Clare Alden Booth, the decorator whose articles are a historically respected, to Joseph B. Platt, Art Director of the Butterick Publications, and to George Hughes, well-known colorist, of the Delineator Art Staff, we are indebted for the test and pictures presented here.
We hope this little volume is inspiring and constructively helpful to you in planning the arrangement of your home and interiors.
Originally published by Whittall Mills.
