[Don_1 (OP)]

Unless it happens to be Lady Gaga, you are unlikely to see a women dressed in a yellow top with a mauve skirt, blue shoes, pink jacket and green scarf, topped off with an orange hat and carrying a red handbag (US = purse). Such a combination of colours would be considered garish and uncoordinated. The same applies to men and to our homes, offices, shops, restaurants and, in some cases, we even insist on colour co-ordinating our gardens.

Now take a look at this:


The beautiful colours of a wild meadow. You might find just about any colour here next to any other colour and result is pleasing to the eye.

So what is it in the human psyche that demands we colour co-ordinate our dress, homes, cars and so on. If we find the multicolour composition of a wild meadow so pleasing, why would the multicolour outfit described above be so distasteful?

[RD]

The eye continuously makes slight movements ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_%28sensory%29#Saccades

This jittery movement makes the boundary between clashing-colours appear to shimmer , which is an eyesore ...

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[dlorde]

There's quite a significant difference between Ms Gaga's large areas of pure strong colours adjacent to each other and a wildflower meadow's random, small, irregular patches of pastels and broken colour on a varigated green background. If Ms Gaga wore a dress decorated with a multicolour wildflower pattern, it would look less garish.

Also, certain combinations of colours are less pleasing to the eye than others; if you want to catch attention, garish or clashing colours will do it.

[Bored chemist]

OK a meadow is different but this
http://www.hdwallpapers.in/rose_buds-wallpapers.html
is bright red on bright green and it's still attractive.
Similarly this
http://homenaturally.org/calendula-muffins/
is orange and green.
Any art or fashion teacher would tell you that you can't have that composition and make it work.