The impressionists understood about colour contrast. If you put a colour patch on a coloured background the colour of the patch will usually change (compared to if, for example, the patch was observed on a chromatically neutral background). The colour of the patch tends to move towards the complementary colour of the background. If the background is the complementary colour of the patch then the patch becomes particularly vivid.

In Van Gogh’s cafe and night cafe paintings you can see the juxtaposition of yellow and blue and red and green. Today I came across a more contemporary application of colour theory – eye make-up!

DoWop have produced something called EyeCatcher Shadows where the colour that is applied to the eyelid is the complementary colour of the iris. To see more visit – http://www.asos.com/Duwop/Duwop-Eyecatcher-Shadows/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=1047107