Page:Elementary Color (IA gri c00033125012656167).djvu/52

 tion of the three primary colors red, yellow and blue. By this method, if logically carried out, the orange, green and violet are dark broken colors, and hence to a less extent the intermediate colors also, because each of these is a mixture of a pure color with a broken color. The usual result, however, is that the orange made from the red and yellow seem so out of place in the warm end of the spectrum that it is modified and made much nearer the pure color, usually, however, too yellow, while the greens and violets, which are deep and rich broken colors, may seem more harmonious, but are so dark as to be out of place among spectrum colors.

If light broken colors are. properly combined a beautiful imitation rainbow is produced, which is more harmonions than the spectrum made from full colors. A series of such colors combined in spectrum order produce a more pleasing effect when separated by a small space of white, black, gray, silver or gold. The reason for this may be found in the discussion of simultaneous contrasts.

In nature nearly all colors are broken. First, there is always more or less vapor together with other impurities in the air, so that even in a clear day objects a few hundred feet from us are seen through a gray veil, as it were, and in a misty or hazy day this is very evident. In the case of somewhat distant foliage the general color effect is produced by the light reflected from the aggregation of leaves, some of which may be in bright sunlight and others in shadow, with a mixture of brown twigs. All these tints and shades of green and brown are mingled in one general effect in the eye. Also, owing to the rounded forms and irregular illumination of objects, we see very little full or local color in nature.

Therefore the study of broken colors becomes the most fascinating branch of this whole subject, and it also has an added interest because nearly all the colors found in tapestries, hangings, carpets, ladies' dress goods, etc., come under this head. In fact it would be hazardous for an artisan or an artist to