1. The deception of color

    In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize
    that color deceives continually.

    What counts here – first and last – is not so-called knowledge
    of so-called facts, but vision – seeing.

  2. Practice before theory

    Instead of mechanically applying or merely implying laws and rules
    of color harmony, distinct color effects are produced
    – through recognition of the interaction of color –
    by making, for instance,
    2 very different colors look alike, or nearly alike.

    The aim of such study is to develop – through experience
    – by trial and error – an eye for color.
    This means, specifically, seeing color action
    as well as feeling color relatedness.

    As a general training it means development of observation and articulation.

    This book, therefore, does not follow an academic conception
    of “theory and practice.”
    It reverses this order and places practice before theory,
    which, after all, is the conclusion of practice.

  3. 50 reds

    If one says “Red” (the name of a color)
    and there are 50 people listening,
    it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds.
    And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.

  4. Not the what but the how

    Our concern is the interaction of color; that is, seeing
    what happens between colors.

    We are able to hear a single tone.
    But we almost never (that is, without special devices) see a single color
    unconnected and unrelated to other colors.
    Colors present themselves in continuous flux, constantly related to
    changing neighbors and changing conditions.

    As a consequence, this proves for the reading of color
    what Kandinsky often demanded for the reading of art:
    what counts is not the what but the how.

  5. Scotopic seeing

    The sensitivity
    and consequently the registration of the retina of an eye is different
    from the sensitivity and registration of a photographic film.

    Normally, black-and-white photography registers all lights lighter
    and all darks darker than the more adjustable eye perceives them.
    The eye also distinguishes better the so-called middle grays,
    which in photography are often flattened if not lost.

    This shows what a higher key in light can lose in photography.

    The greatest advantage the eye has over photography
    is its scotopic seeing in addition to its photopic seeing.
    The former means, briefly, the retinal adjustment to lower light conditions.

  6. Disliked colors

    We try to recognize our preferences and our aversions –
    what colors dominate in our work; what colors, on the other hand,
    are rejected, disliked, or of no appeal. Usually a special effort
    in using disliked colors ends with our falling in love with them.

  7. Color intervals

    The tune of “Good morning to you” consists of 4 tones. It can be sung
    in a high soprano, a low basso, and in all in-between voices, as well as
    on many levels and in many keys. It can be played on innumerable instruments.

    In all possible ways of performance, this melody will keep its character
    and it will be recognized instantly.

    Why? The intervals of the 4 tones, that is, their acoustical
    constellation (again comparable with a topographical relationship),
    remains the same.

    Although it is not common practice, one can also speak of intervals
    between colors.
    Colors and hues are defined, as are tones in music, by wavelength.

    Any color (shade or tint) always has 2 decisive characteristics:
    color intensity (brightness) and light intensity (lightness).
    Therefore, color intervals also have this double-sidedness, this duality.

  8. Time and space

    Tones appear placed and directed predominantly in time from before to now to later.

    Their juxtaposition in a musical composition is perceived
    within a prescribed sequence only.
    Horizontally, the tones follow each other,
    perhaps not in a straight line, but of necessity in a prescribed order
    and only in 1 direction – forward.
    Tones heard earlier fade, and those farther back disappear, vanish.
    We do not hear them backward.

    Colors appear connected predominantly in space. Therefore,
    as constellations they can be seen in any direction and
    at any speed. And as they remain, we can return to them repeatedly
    and in many ways.
    This remaining and not remaining, or vanishing and not vanishing,
    shows only 1 essential difference between the fields of tone
    and color.

    The accuracy of perception in one field is matched
    by the durability of retention in the other, demonstrating
    a curious reversal in visual and auditory memory.

    1. ​It will not stand still to be pointed at​

    Pye critiques the common view of visual perception as non-linear, or spatial as opposed to temporal.

  9. A cook with taste

    Observe the interior and exterior, the furniture and textile decoration
    following such color schemes, as well as commercialized color “suggestions”
    for innumerable do-it-yourselves.

    Our conclusion: we may forget for a while those rules of thumb
    of complementaries, whether complete or “split”, and of triads and
    tetrads as well.
    They are worn out.

    Second, no mechanical color system is flexible enough
    to precalculate the manifold changing factors, as named before,
    in a single prescribed recipe.

    Good painting, good coloring, is comparable to good cooking.
    Even a good cooking recipe demands tasting and repeated tasting
    while it is being followed.
    And the best tasting still depends on a cook with taste.

  10. Flexible imagination

    By giving up preference for harmony,
    we accept dissonance to be as desirable as consonance.

    Besides a balance through color harmony, which is comparable
    to symmetry, there is equilibrium possible between
    color tensions, related to a more dynamic asymmetry.

    Again: knowledge and its application is not our aim;
    instead, it is flexible imagination, discovery, invention – taste.

  11. Does it have color?

    Whether something “has color” or not is as hard to define verbally as are
    such questions as “what is music” or “what is musical."

  12. Thinking in situations

    Naturally, practice is not preceded but followed by theory.
    Such study promotes a more lasting teaching and learning
    through experience. Its aim is development of creativeness
    realized in discovery and invention – the criteria of creativity,
    or flexibility, being imagination and fantasy. Altogether
    it promotes “thinking in situations,” a new educational concept
    unfortunately little known and less cultivated, so far.

  13. Not of method but of heart

    In the end, teaching is a matter not of method but of heart.

    The teacher actually is right and always will gain confidence
    when he admits that he does not know, that he cannot decide, and,
    as it often is with color, that he is unable to make a choice
    or to give advice.

    Besides, good teaching is more a giving of right questions
    than a giving of right answers.

  14. Simple forms

    The concept that “the simpler the form of a letter the simpler its reading” was an obsession of beginning constructivism. It became something like a dogma, and is still followed by “modernistic” typographers.

    This notion has proved to be wrong, because in reading we do not read letters but words, words as a whole, as a “word picture.” Ophthalmology has disclosed that the more the letters are differentiated from each other, the easier is the reading.

    Without going into comparisons and the details, it should be realized that words consisting of only capital letters present the most difficult reading—because of their equal height, equal volume, and, with most, their equal width. When comparing serif letters with sans-serif, the latter provide an uneasy reading. The fashionable preference for sans-serif in text shows neither historical nor practical competence.