9 Morphological invariants which appear as living color unfolds

What characterizes the color and color combinations which are created by the use of the fundamental process? More precisely, what typical structure follows from the continuous, step-by-step attempt to create life in the color of a building by unfolding it experimentally?
The experimental method — starting with a vision in the mind’s eye, then creating color by conceiving and adding color in such a way as to create life in the centers — has certain predictable results. These results (eleven invariants which resemble the fifteen properties) are summarized briefly here. They are described fully in chapter 7 of Book 4, where the life that can happen, through color, is rather carefully analyzed as “inner light”. The eleven are:

1. Hierarchy of colors,
2. Colors create light together,
3. Contrast of dark and light,
4. Mutual embedding,
5. Boundaries and hairlines,
6. Sequence of linked color pairs,
7. Families of color,
8. Color variation,
9. Clarity of individual color,
10. Subdued brilliance, and
11. Color depends on geometry
    First, the structure-preserving process, in relation to the surroundings, points to an overall color in which colors create light together — something like a complementary color of the surroundings. This color, like the blue of the Kaiser house, is occasionally startling and surprising. In other instances, like the yellows and greens of the Sarlo spa that mirror and complement its landscape, the color can be an echo of the families of color visible in the surrounding hills.
    As a result of further efforts to make the color come to life, the colors may then be supported by smaller areas of different colors forming a hierarchy of colors. In finer detail, an overall glitter of tiny amounts of contrasting color may begin to show — hairlines, sequence of linked color pairs, mutual embedding. Finally, the effect, when successful, can be a quiet harmony: the grays and reds of the West Dean Visitor’s Centre, or the interior blackish red of the San Francisco Art Museum, a subdued brilliance made more subdued by color variation.
    All these qualities of the color are likely to emerge from use of the fundamental process in the sphere of color. They are described in great detail, with many examples, in the 86-page chapter of Book 4 called “Color and inner light”.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/19 Color which unfolds from the configuration#