Complementary colors are color pairs that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Some examples of complementary color pairs are red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple. Complementary colors play an important role in painting by creating color harmony, contrast, and visual interest. Using complementary colors allows artists to produce vibrant, eye-catching works.
Definition of Complementary Colors
Complementary colors are any two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. The color wheel organizes colors into 12 slices based on their hue. Complementary colors reside on opposite sides of the wheel, meaning they share no common hues.
Some examples of complementary color pairs:
| Red | Green |
| Blue | Orange |
| Yellow | Purple |
When complementary colors are mixed, they “cancel” each other out and produce a neutral gray or brown. This is why complementary colors are sometimes called “opposites.” However, when placed side-by-side, complementary colors make each other appear brighter, more saturated, and more compelling to the eye.
The Importance of Color Harmony
One of the key reasons complementary colors are important in painting is because they create harmony. The human eye sees color relationships as harmonious when complementary pairs are used together.
Complementary colors balance each other out. There is a satisfying unity when opposites coexist. The eye does not register tension or discord when complementary colors are combined. This allows the viewer to experience the painting as peaceful and integrated.
Color harmony contributes to the overall aesthetic enjoyment of a painting. When colors work well together, it creates a sense of order and rightness. The viewer perceives the image as pleasant, appealing, and compositionally sound.
Master painters rely heavily on complementary colors to produce consistently harmonious works. The strategic use of complements ensures paintings are not chaotic, jarring, or aesthetically “off.” With complementary colors, artists can be confident their colors will cooperate and enhance each other.
Achieving Maximum Contrast
Complementary colors also maximize contrast when used together. Contrast occurs when two elements are markedly different. Complementary colors contrast strongly in hue but also in lightness and saturation.
For example, orange and blue are complements. Orange is light and highly saturated while blue is darker and more muted. When paired, the dark blue makes the orange seem even brighter while the brilliant orange makes the blue appear even darker. This amps up the visual contrast.
The high contrast of complements is what makes them “pop” so vividly. The eye is naturally drawn to areas of strong contrast. Complementary colors leverage this effect to grab the viewer’s attention and create areas of emphasis.
Painters rely on complements when they want certain elements to stand out or appear more dynamic. A splash of blue in an otherwise orange painting immediately draws the eye due to the contrast. Strategically using contrasts of complements allows artists to move the viewer’s gaze across the painting.
Color Psychology
Complementary colors also produce contrast in their psychological effects. Each color has symbolic associations and meanings attached to it by culture. Complementary pairs often have opposite psychological effects.
Some examples:
| Red | Exciting, Dangerous | Green | Calming, Natural |
| Orange | Fun, Playful | Blue | Serious, Melancholy |
| Yellow | Warm, Energetic | Purple | Cool, Mystical |
When complementary psychological colors are combined, they create contrasting sensations and moods. This adds complexity, nuance, and visual interest to an image. The interplay between clashing colors moves and engages the viewer.
Painters intentionally leverage complementary psychological effects to create tension, tell stories, or convey emotion. A painting with both fiery red and tranquil green takes on a dynamic, multidimensional quality through the rivals colors.
Making Colors “Pop”
Complementary colors cause each other to appear more vibrant, intense, and luminous. This phenomenon actually has a scientific explanation. Our eyes contain special receptor cells called “opponent receptors.”
There are three types of these receptors:
– Red/Green receptors
– Blue/Yellow receptors
– Black/White receptors
These receptor pairs work in opposition to process color and light. When one receptor is activated, the other is suppressed. This creates contrast between the two colors.
When complementary colors are present in a painting, their opponent receptors are engaged. The eye experiences heightened activity in the red/green and blue/yellow receptors as they signal back and forth. This fluctuation between on and off amplifies our perception of the vibrancy of both colors. They seem to “pop” off the canvas.
Artists leverage this phenomenon to make their colors as vivid and exciting as possible. A dash of an intense complementary color next to any hue will make that hue appear to glow and shimmer. This visual pop intrigues viewers and energizes paintings.
Color Psychology in Action
Many famous paintings demonstrate masters utilizing complementary colors to produce stunning, emotionally-resonant works:
– Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night: The night sky swirls with vivid blues and yellows, complementing the yellow lights below with eerie, energetic blue.
– Georgia O’Keefe, Red Canna Lily Paintings: Fiery red flowers pop against contrasting green foliage and background. Their exotic shapes seem to vibrate against the complementary green.
– Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise: Deep indigo, blue, and green water and sky make the orange sunbeams piercing through the morning mist seem almost supernaturally radiant.
– Leonid Afremov, Rainy Day in Venice: Umbrellas in vivid purple, green, orange, and red complement the blue-gray rain soaked streets and stones. The contrast makes both colors shine.
– Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII: Multiple complementary color pairs used together kaleidoscopically for bold visual energy and movement.
These examples demonstrate how masterful use of complements can amplify a painting’s color, contrast, symbolism, and overall beauty.
Mixing Complementary Paints
In paint itself, complementary colors mix together to create new hues. Primary colors red, blue, and yellow are complements of each other. Mixing two primaries produces the secondary colors orange, violet, and green.
Some examples of mixing complements:
| Red + Green | Brown |
| Blue + Orange | Gray |
| Yellow + Purple | Reddish Brown |
When complementary paints are blended, they lose their vividness and neutralize each other, creating muted, dull hues. This is useful when painters wish to subtly shade or tone down colors. However, true complements provide the most pure mixtures.
Many artists prefer to layer complements rather than blend them. This way, the vibrancy of each color remains intact. The transparent layers also refract light in interesting ways, causing optical shimmering.
Temperature Contrasts
Complementary colors also enable temperature contrasts in painting. Color temperature refers to how “warm” or “cool” a color is perceived to be. Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow evoke heat or fire. Cool colors like blue, green and purple evoke water or ice.
Warm and cool complements, like red and green or purple and yellow, create strong temperature clashes. This contrast immediately attracts the viewer’s eye and adds complexity and dynamism.
Painters can use temperature contrast between complements to suggest different seasons, times of day, light conditions, or symbolize conflicting moods like tension or discord. Temperature contrast adds subtle nuance or visual excitement.
Creating Depth Through Atmospheric Perspective
Complementary colors are also key in creating the illusion of depth and space through atmospheric perspective. Atmospheric perspective makes distant objects appear lighter, blurrier, and bluer than close objects thanks to the effect of the atmosphere.
Painters can mimic this naturally-occurring optical phenomenon by fading complementary colors towards blue as they recede into the distance.
For example, a foreground tree’s greens and oranges remain vivid, but shift towards blue-green and blue-gray further away. The complementary color contrast helps objects appear increasingly far and spaced apart. This builds depth and realism into the scene.
Atmospheric perspective relies on complementaries because the fading to blue increases color contrast in the distance. If artists shifted to unrelated hues, the fading would flatten the image instead of deepening it. The complementaries enhance the dimensional illusion.
Making Colorful Shadows
In nature, shadows are often not simply black or gray, but filled with reflected color from surrounding objects. Complementary colors are key for painting colorful, realistic shadows.
For example, the shadow on a sunlit orange wall will contain hints of blue from the sky’s reflection. A shadow on green grass may pick up touches of red from nearby flowers. A peach-colored dress will cast a purple shadow from subtle violet light reflections.
Using complements in shadows helps them seem luminous and naturalistic compared to neutral black shadows. The color contrast adds visual excitement. Painters observe how complements interact in real shadows, then replicate the lively color interplay in their art.
Simultaneous Contrast
Complementary colors also enable painters to create “simultaneous contrast.” This occurs when complementary colors placed side-by-side seem to intensify or exaggerate each other’s hues.
For example, a yellow square on an orange background will appear distinctly more yellow and intense. The orange background makes the yellow “pop” more than it would on white.
This simultaneous contrast effect is another way painters can make colors vibrant and eye-catching. They strategically place complements so each enhances the adjacent hue. Even muted colors appear to glow and radiate when next to their complement.
Advancing and Receding Colors
The intensity of complements can also be used to make colors visually advance or recede from each other. More intense, saturated complements come forward. Grayer, muted complements seem to retreat.
For example, a vivid orange circle will stand out in front of a dull blue square. The colors’ intensity contrast makes the orange shape project forward while the blue recedes.
Painters control the placement of complements to guide the viewer’s eye between foreground, middle ground, and background elements. Advancing and receding complements create a convincing sense of space and 3D perspective.
Complementary Color Schemes
In addition to placing pure complements together, painters blend neighboring complements to form stunning color harmonies.
Some examples of complementary color combinations include:
| Split Complementary | A color plus the two hues adjacent to its complement |
| Triadic | Three equidistant colors forming a triangle on the color wheel |
| Rectangle (tetradic) | Two complementary pairs |
| Analogous | Colors side-by-side on the color wheel |
Master painters leverage these harmonious complementary combinations to design vibrant, sophisticated, and unified color schemes. The balance between complements creates rich, complex palettes.
Avoiding Visual Tension
While complements add excitement, painters must use them judiciously to avoid visual tension or discord. Large areas of pure complements can seem jarring and uncomfortable to view.
Strategically separating complements helps maintain harmony. If pure complements are placed close together, painters soften their intensity, dilute with white, or intersperse a linking color. This ensures the complements enhance rather than overwhelm the composition.
Conclusion
In summary, complementary colors play a crucial role in painting across many applications:
– They create harmony, balance, and unity when used together.
– They produce strong visual contrast that defines shapes and creates emphasis.
– They allow colors to appear more vibrant and luminous through simultaneous contrast.
– They establish color symbolism, temperature, and psychological contrasts.
– They are essential for realistically depicting depth, shadows, and perspective.
– They produce new hues when mixed as paint.
– Linking complements form sophisticated color schemes.
Masterful use of complements adds life, energy, and visual richness to paintings. Though opposites, complements interact in beautiful harmony. Their contrast showcases each color at its most vivid. Complements optically amplify a painting’s excitement and emotional resonance. Understanding complementary colors is key for painters seeking to create maximum color impact.
