1. Understanding the Blue Period:
- Picasso's blue period predominantly used shades and tones of blue, often accompanied by neighboring colors on the color wheel such as bluish green, bluish purple, and yellowish green.
- These neighboring colors maintain a harmonious tonality, which is a hallmark of an analogous color scheme.
2. Analysis of Color Combinations:
- Option A (Split complementary combination): Involves using one base color and the two colors adjacent to its complementary color. This does not align with the blue period's tonality.
- Option B (Double complementary combination): Involves two complementary color pairs, which is not evident in the paintings.
- Option C (Simple analogous combination): Involves colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel, creating a unified and harmonious tonality. This matches Picasso's blue period perfectly.
- Option D (Triadic color combination): Uses three colors evenly spaced on the color wheel, which does not align with the observed tonality.
Conclusion: The tonality in Picasso’s blue period paintings is an outcome of a simple analogous combination.