Crimson & Blue & Violet

Blue (pure, electric, maximum saturation — the most vivid primary cool) and Violet (deep, electric, spectrally extreme — the color at the edge of human visible perception, between blue and ultraviolet) create the most dramatically spectrally extreme cool pair — the most vivid primary blue and the most spectrally advanced cool. Against Crimson's passionate warm, this creates the most theatrically dramatic and most visually extraordinary warm-cool split-complementary palette.

The palette is the visual world of the Venice Carnival (Carnevale di Venezia — the most celebrated and most internationally famous carnival in the world, held annually in Venice, Italy, from approximately 10 days before Ash Wednesday through Shrove Tuesday). The Venice Carnival palette: the deep vivid crimson of the Venetian bauta mask and the most dramatic crimson carnival costume (the bauta — the most traditional Venetian carnival mask — white mask covering the upper face, combined with a black lace tricorn hat — tabarro — and for women, the moretta — a black oval mask — but the most theatrically dramatic Venice Carnival costumes include vivid crimson cloaks — tabarri — that are the most immediately spectacular element of the Carnival visual); the pure electric blue of the Venetian canal reflected light at dusk (the specific pure electric blue of the Grand Canal and the smaller canals of Venice at the specific moment of dusk, when the canal water reflects the deep blue of the western sky — the 'ora blu' — blue hour — the most theatrical and most celebrated lighting condition for Venetian canal photography); and the deep electric violet of the Venetian Carnival masquerade at night (the specific deep electric violet of the stage lighting and the reflected candlelight on the most elaborate violet velvet Carnival costumes at the most extravagant Venetian Carnival masquerade balls — particularly at the Palazzo Pisani Moretta and the Palazzo Contarini-Polignac balls).