To begin examining 19th century color theory, we must first know the basics: color is classified according to different wavelengths of light, creating a continuous spectrum with no beginning or end. We often take color for granted, but considering that our entire world is covered in it, we should better understand it. Beginning in the 19th century, scientists began to ask questions about color. While some questions, like “What is color?� had been answered, one question stumped scientists and artists alike for years: Which combinations of these colors are appealing to the eye? Understanding this question would give artists the information they needed to cater their artwork to the public eye.
This question was certainly hard to define in a quantitative way, but through human tests, chemists Michel Chevreul and Ogden Rood both concluded that complementary colors, also known as contrasting or opposite colors, look good together and balance each other. Complementary colors can be found by finding two colors opposite from each other on Chevreul’s color wheel. The most obvious combinations are green/red, yellow/violet, and orange/blue.
So, what does it mean when these colors are appealing? Do they make you feel any happier? Not exactly. Take, for instance, brown and red. Somewhere between the eye and the brain, we register that these colors do not look good together. In fact, they clash. This is very much like hearing two adjacent piano keys played at once. Appealing color combinations can be defined as the opposite of dissonant.
To further capitalize on complementary colors’ pleasing effects, both Chevreul and Rood experimented and discovered that abrupt contrasts between two colors created the greatest effect. We can see in the series of color plates below a simulation of such a study. The first image demonstrates color blending as most artists do on their canvases. While there is still a distinction between the colors, they do not seem as vibrant as in the next plate. Because of their mixing, the two hues become more alike and therefore lose the intended contrast.
The color theorists did not stop their research there. Rood continued to study color with applications to art and explained that by using small spots on the canvas rather than large blocks of color, the image would be further enhanced. Here, we see the contrast between color blocks and many dots. The multitude of dots on the right side of the image gives the viewer more of a sense of contrast, creating for a harmonized image. Styles similar to this final swatch appear again and again in Seurat’s work, as well as in some of his contemporaries’ art.