Yellow & Purple

Yellow and purple creates the iris complementary combination — because yellow and purple are directly complementary on the RYB colour wheel (yellow at approximately 60° and purple at approximately 270° — directly opposite, maximum chromatic contrast), making the iris flower (Iris germanica and related species, which consistently combine vivid yellow in the 'falls' — the lower petals or 'standard' — with deep purple-violet in the upper petals) the most botanically authentic and the most directly complementary warm-cool botanical object in nature. The Iris flower specifically exploits the yellow-and-purple complementary relationship to attract the most specific class of insect pollinators (primarily long-tongued bees) through the maximum chromatic contrast of directly complementary warm-cool.

Van Gogh's 'Irises' series — Vincent van Gogh painted the most celebrated depictions of purple irises in the history of art, including 'Irises' (1889, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, sold at Sotheby's New York in 1987 for $53.9 million — the highest auction price ever achieved for a painting at that time) and 'Vase with Irises Against a Yellow Background' (1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) — specifically exploits the yellow-and-purple complementary relationship in the most celebrated and the most art-historically significant series of iris paintings. 'Vase with Irises Against a Yellow Background' (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) places deep purple irises directly against a vivid yellow background, creating the yellow-and-purple complementary at the most deliberately composed and the most chromatically pure scale in van Gogh's oeuvre.

The Los Angeles Lakers — the National Basketball Association franchise (founded 1947, playing in the Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles) uses vivid yellow ('Forum Gold', Pantone 7405 equivalent, approximately #FDB927) and deep purple ('Laker Purple', Pantone 270 equivalent, approximately #552583) as the official team colours. The Lakers' yellow-and-purple has been the most commercially successful and the most globally recognized sports warm-cool in professional basketball since the franchise's championship years with Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Kobe Bryant.