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Color Harmony

Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology

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Synonyms

Balance; Coherence; Color accord

Definition

A sense of accord and balance among colors in a visual composition or design, resulting in a positive affective response and/or cognitive judgment about color combination.

Color Harmony Theories

Many theories about color harmony have evolved since antiquity across different fields including art, design, psychology, and physics. Each of these has a different focus, and hence there is little consensus in terms of defining and describing the construct “color harmony.” Most theories about color harmony are highly prescriptive, and this is their weakness – they assume that responses to color are deterministic, uniform, universal, and fixed irrespective of context rather than idiographic, less deterministic, and open to the influence of factors relating to culture and context.

The problem of color harmony has long been regarded as an esoteric matter for the artist. But since the advent of interdisciplinary research on colors, color harmony...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 3. Műegyetem rakpart, Budapest, Hungary

    Antal Nemcsics

  2. Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Zena O’Connor

  3. AFOL Milano Moda, Milan, Italy

    Renata Pompas

Authors
  1. Antal Nemcsics
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  2. Zena O’Connor
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  3. Renata Pompas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antal Nemcsics .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Ronnier Luo

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Nemcsics, A., O’Connor, Z., Pompas, R. (2014). Color Harmony. In: Luo, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_239-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_239-4

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27851-8

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Color Harmony
    Published:
    27 November 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_239-5

  2. Original

    Color Harmony
    Published:
    29 September 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_239-4

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