Crimson & Green & Gray

Crimson and Green are vivid chromatic complementaries; Gray is perfectly achromatic — containing no chromatic information at all (equal R, G, B at 50% luminance). Gray's presence changes the palette dramatically: where White would add luminous sparkle and Beige would add earthly warmth, Gray adds the most sophisticated and most formally restrained quality. The gray creates a 'gentlemen's club' or 'museum' quality — the most formal, most composed, and most intellectually sophisticated of all three-color palettes using Crimson and Green.

The palette is the visual world of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg — specifically the Winter Palace's most celebrated interiors. The Hermitage palette: the deep vivid crimson of the famous Crimson Drawing Room (Малиновая гостиная — Malinovaya Gostinaya, literally 'crimson drawing room') with its crimson moire silk-lined walls, the vivid mid-green of the Malachite Room (Малахитовый зал — Malachitovy Zal, the most spectacular room of the Winter Palace, with its columns, fireplace, and decorative elements covered in vivid green malachite), and the warm-to-cool gray of the suite rooms and the most formally restrained palace corridors.