Color theory

Not to be confused with colourimetry.

For other uses, see Color theory (disambiguation).

Colour theory, or more specifically traditional colour theory, is a historical body of knowledge describing the behavior of colours, namely in colour mixing, colour contrast effects, colour harmony, colour schemes and colour symbolism.^[1] Modern colour theory is generally referred to as colour science. While there is no clear distinction in scope, traditional colour theory tends to be more subjective and have artistic applications, while colour science tends to be more objective and have functional applications, such as in chemistry, astronomy or colour reproduction. Colour theory dates back at least as far as Aristotle's treatise On Colours and Bharata's Nāṭya Shāstra. A formalisation of "colour theory" began in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy over Isaac Newton's theory of colour (Opticks, 1704) and the nature of primary colours. By the end of the 19th century, a schism had formed between traditional colour theory and colour science.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's colour wheel from his 1810 Theory of Colours

History

Colour theory is rooted in antiquity, with early musings on colour in Aristotle's (d. 322 BCE) On Colours and Ptolemy's (d. 168 CE) Optics. The Nāṭya Shāstra (d. 200 BCE) composed in Ancient India, had an early, functional theory of colour,^[2] considering four colours as primary, black, blue, yellow and red. It also describes the production of derived colours from primary colours.

The bluish white (kāraṇḍava) colour, is made up of the white and the blue, and the yellowish white colour (pāṇḍu) of the white and the yellow. The lotus (padma) colour is made up of the white and the red, and the green (harit) colour, of the yellow and the blue. The dark red (kāṣāya) colour is made up of the blue and the red, and the pale-red (gaura) colour of the red and the yellow. These are the derivative colours. Besides these there are [many] minor colours which may be made up of three or four [original] colours.

Bharata, Nāṭya Shāstra, Chapter XXIII "Costumes and Make-up".

The influence of light on colour was investigated and revealed further by al-Kindi (d. 873) and Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1039). Ibn Sina (d. 1037), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274), and Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253) discovered that contrary to the teachings of Aristotle, there are multiple colour paths to get from black to white.^[3][4] More modern approaches to colour theory principles can be found in the writings of Leone Battista Alberti (c. 1435) and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1490).

 

Page from 1826 A New Practical Treatise on the Three Primitive Colours Assumed as a Perfect System of Rudimentary Information by Charles Hayter

Isaac Newton (d. 1727) worked extensively on colour theory, helping and developing his own theory from stating the fact that white light is composed of a spectrum of colours, and that colour is not intrinsic to objects, but rather arises from the way an object reflects or absorbs different wavelengths. His 1672 paper on the nature of white light and colours forms the basis for all work that followed on colour and colour vision.^[5]

The RYB primary colours became the foundation of 18th-century theories of color vision,^{[citation needed]} as the fundamental sensory qualities that are blended in the perception of all physical colours, and conversely, in the physical mixture of pigments or dyes. These theories were enhanced by 18th-century investigations of a variety of purely psychological colour effects, in particular the contrast between "complementary" or opposing hues that are produced by colour afterimages and in the contrasting shadows in coloured light. These ideas and many personal colour observations were summarised in two founding documents in colour theory: the Theory of Colours (1810) by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and The Law of Simultaneous Color Contrast (1839) by the French industrial chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. Charles Hayter published A New Practical Treatise on the Three Primitive Colours Assumed as a Perfect System of Rudimentary Information (London 1826), in which he described how all colours could be obtained from just three.

Subsequently, German and English scientists established in the late 19th century that colour perception is best described in terms of a different set of primary colours—red, green and blue-violet (RGB)—modeled through the additive mixture of three monochromatic lights. Subsequent research anchored these primary colours in the differing responses to light by three types of colour receptors or cones in the retina (trichromacy). On this basis the quantitative description of the colour mixture or colourimetry developed in the early 20th century, along with a series of increasingly sophisticated models of colour space and colour perception, such as the opponent process theory.

 

Munsell's 1905 colour system represents colours using three colour-making attributes, value (lightness), chroma (saturation), and hue.

Across the same period, industrial chemistry radically expanded the colour range of lightfast synthetic pigments, allowing for substantially improved saturation in colour mixtures of dyes, paints, and inks. It also created the dyes and chemical processes necessary for colour photography. As a result, three-colour printing became aesthetically and economically feasible in mass printed media, and the artists' colour theory was adapted to primary colours most effective in inks or photographic dyes: cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). (In printing, dark colours are supplemented by black ink, called "key," to make the CMYK system; in both printing and photography, white is provided by the colour of the paper.) These CMY primary colours were reconciled with the RGB primaries, and subtractive colour mixing with additive colour mixing, by defining the CMY primaries as substances that absorbed only one of the retinal primary colours: cyan absorbs only red (−R+G+B), magenta only green (+R−G+B), and yellow only blue-violet (+R+G−B). It is important to add that the CMYK, or process, colour printing is meant as an economical way of producing a wide range of colours for printing, but is deficient in reproducing certain colours, notably orange and slightly deficient in reproducing purples. A wider range of colours can be obtained with the addition of other colours to the printing process, such as in Pantone's Hexachrome printing ink system (six colours), among others.

For much of the 19th century artistic colour theory either lagged behind scientific understanding or was augmented by science books written for the lay public, in particular Modern Chromatics (1879) by the American physicist Ogden Rood, and early colour atlases developed by Albert Munsell (Munsell Book of Color, 1915, see Munsell colour system) and Wilhelm Ostwald (Color Atlas, 1919). Major advances were made in the early 20th century by artists teaching or associated with the German Bauhaus, in particular Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten, Faber Birren and Josef Albers, whose writings mix speculation with an empirical or demonstration-based study of colour design principles.

Colour mixing

Main article: Colour mixing

 

Additive colour mixing (such as in a computer)

 

Subtractive colour mixing (such as in a printer)

One of the earliest purposes of colour theory was to establish rules governing the mixing of pigments.

Traditional colour theory was built around "pure" or ideal colours, characterised by different sensory experiences rather than attributes of the physical world. This has led to several inaccuracies in traditional colour theory principles that are not always remedied in modern formulations.^[6] Another issue has been the tendency to describe colour effects holistically or categorically, for example as a contrast between "yellow" and "blue" conceived as generic colours instead of the three colour attributes generally considered by colour science: hue, colourfulness and lightness. These confusions are partly historical and arose in scientific uncertainty about colour perception that was not resolved until the late 19th century when artistic notions were already entrenched. They also arise from the attempt to describe the highly contextual and flexible behavior of colour perception in terms of abstract colour sensations that can be generated equivalently by any visual media.^{[citation needed]}

Primary colours

Main article: Primary colour

 

Primary, secondary, and tertiary colours of the RYB colour model

Colour theory asserts three pure primary colours that can be used to mix all possible colours. These are sometimes considered as red, yellow and blue (RYB) or as red, green and blue (RGB).^{[citation needed]} Ostensibly, any failure of specific paints or inks to match this ideal performance is due to the impurity or imperfection of the colourants. In contrast, modern colour science does not recognise universal primary colours (no finite combination of colours can produce all other colours) and only uses primary colours to define a given colour space.^[1] Any three primary colours can mix only a limited range of colours, called a gamut, which is always smaller (contains fewer colours) than the full range of colours humans can perceive.^[7] Primary colours also can't be made from other colours as they are inherently pure and distinct.^[8]

Complementary colours

Main article: Complementary colours

 

Chevreul's 1855 "chromatic diagram" based on the RYB colour model, showing complementary colours and other relationships

For the mixing of coloured light, Isaac Newton's colour wheel is often used to describe complementary colours, which are colours that cancel each other's hue to produce an achromatic (white, gray or black) light mixture. Newton offered as a conjecture that colours exactly opposite one another on the hue circle cancel out each other's hue; this concept was demonstrated more thoroughly in the 19th century. An example of complementary colours would be magenta and green.^{[citation needed]}

A key assumption in Newton's hue circle was that the "fiery" or maximum saturated hues are located on the outer circumference of the circle, while achromatic white is at the centre. Then the saturation of the mixture of two spectral hues was predicted by the straight line between them; the mixture of three colours was predicted by the "centre of gravity" or centroid of three triangle points, and so on.

According to traditional colour theory based on subtractive primary colours and the RYB colour model, yellow mixed with purple, orange mixed with blue, or red mixed with green produces an equivalent grey and are the painter's complementary colours.

One reason the artist's primary colours work at all is due to the imperfect pigments being used have sloped absorption curves and change colour with concentration. A pigment that is pure red at high concentrations can behave more like magenta at low concentrations. This allows it to make purples that would otherwise be impossible. Likewise, a blue that is ultramarine at high concentrations appears cyan at low concentrations, allowing it to be used to mix green. Chromium red pigments can appear orange, and then yellow, as the concentration is reduced. It is even possible to mix very low concentrations of the blue mentioned and the chromium red to get a greenish colour. This works much better with oil colours than it does with watercolours and dyes.

The old primaries depend on sloped absorption curves and pigment leakages to work, while newer scientifically derived ones depend solely on controlling the amount of absorption in certain parts of the spectrum.

Tints and shades

Main article: Tint, shade and tone

When mixing pigments, a colour is produced which is always darker and lower in chroma, or saturation, than the parent colours. This moves the mixed colour toward a neutral colour—a grey or near-black. Lights are made brighter or dimmer by adjusting their brightness, or energy level; in painting, lightness is adjusted through mixture with white, black, or a colour's complement.

It is common among some painters to darken a paint colour by adding black paint—producing colours called shades—or lighten a colour by adding white—producing colours called tints. However, it is not always the best way for representational painting, as an unfortunate result is for colours to also shift in hue. For instance, darkening a colour by adding black can cause colours such as yellows, reds, and oranges, to shift toward the greenish or bluish part of the spectrum. Lightening a colour by adding white can cause a shift towards blue when mixed with reds and oranges. Another practice when darkening a colour is to use its opposite, or complementary, colour (e.g. purplish-red added to yellowish-green) to neutralise it without a shift in hue and darken it if the additive colour is darker than the parent colour. When lightening a colour this hue shift can be corrected with the addition of a small amount of an adjacent colour to bring the hue of the mixture back in line with the parent colour (e.g. adding a small amount of orange to a mixture of red and white will correct the tendency of this mixture to shift slightly towards the blue end of the spectrum).

Split primary palette

The split-primary palette is a colour-wheel model that relies on misconceptions to attempt to explain the unsatisfactory results produced when mixing the traditional primary colours, red, yellow, and blue.

Painters have long considered red, yellow, and blue to be primary colours. In practice, however, some of the mixtures produced from these colours lack chromatic intensity. Rather than adopt a more effective set of primary colours,^[9] proponents of split-primary theory explain this lack of chroma by the purported presence of impurities, small amounts of other colours in the paints, or biases away from the ideal primary toward one or the other of the adjacent colours. Every red paint, for example, is said to be tainted with, or biased toward, either blue or yellow, every blue paint toward either red or green, and every yellow toward either green or orange. These biases are said to result in mixtures that contain sets of complementary colours, darkening the resulting colour. To obtain vivid mixed colours, according to split-primary theory, it is necessary to employ two primary colours whose biases both fall in the direction, on the colour wheel, of the colour to be mixed, combining, for example, green-biased blue and green-biased yellow to make bright green. Based on this reasoning, proponents of split-primary theory conclude that two versions of each primary colour, often called "cool" and "warm," are needed in order to mix a wide gamut of high-chroma colours.^[10][11]

In fact, the perceived bias of colours is not due to impurity. Rather, the appearance of any given colourant is inherent to its chemical and physical properties, and its purity unrelated to whether it conforms to our arbitrary conception of an ideal hue. Moreover, the identity of gamut-optimising primary colours is determined by the physiology of human colour vision. Although no set of three primary paints can be mixed to obtain the complete colour gamut perceived by humans, red, yellow, and blue are a poor choice if high-chroma mixtures are desired. This is because painting is a subtractive colour process, for which red and blue are secondary, not primary, colours.

Although flawed in principle,^[12] the split-primary system can be successful in practice, because the recommended blue-biased red and green-biased blue positions are often filled by near approximations of magenta and cyan, respectively, while orange-biased red and violet-biased blue serve as secondary colours, tending to further widen the mixable gamut.

This system is in effect a simplified version of Newton's geometrical rule that colours closer together on the hue circle will produce more vibrant mixtures. A mixture produced from two primary colours, however, will be much more highly saturated than one produced from two secondary colours, even though the pairs are the same distance apart on the hue circle, revealing the limitations of the circular model in the prediction of colour-mixing results. For example, a mixture of magenta and cyan inks or paints will produce vivid blues and violets, whereas a mixture of red and blue inks or paints will produce darkened violets and purples, even though the angular distance separating magenta and cyan is the same as that separating red and blue.

Colour contrast

See also: colour contrast

In Michel Eugène Chevreul's 1839 book The principles of harmony and contrast of colours,^[13] he introduced the law of colour contrast, stating that colours that appear together (spatially or temporally) will be altered as if mixed with the complementary colour of the other colour, functionally boosting the colour contrast between them. For example, a piece of yellow fabric placed on a blue background will appear tinted orange because orange is the complementary colour to blue. Chevreul formalised three types of contrast:^[13]

• simultaneous contrast, which appears in two colours viewed side by side
• successive contrast, for the afterimage left on an achromatic background after viewing a colour
• mixed contrast, for the afterimage left on another colour

Warm vs. cool colours

The distinction between "warm" and "cool" colours has been important since at least the late 18th century.^[14] The difference (as traced by etymologies in the Oxford English Dictionary), seems related to the observed contrast in landscape light, between the "warm" colours associated with daylight or sunset, and the "cool" colours associated with a grey or overcast day. Warm colours are often said to be hues from red through yellow, browns, and tans included; cool colours are often said to be the hues from blue-green through blue violet, most greys included. There is a historical disagreement about the colours that anchor the polarity, but 19th-century sources put the peak contrast between red-orange and greenish-blue.^{[note 1]}

Colour theory has described perceptual and psychological effects to this contrast. Warm colours are said to advance or appear more active in a painting, while cool colours tend to recede; used in interior design or fashion, warm colours are said to arouse or stimulate the viewer, while cool colours calm and relax.^[15] Most of these effects, to the extent they are real, can be attributed to the higher saturation and lighter value of warm pigments in contrast to cool pigments; brown is a dark, unsaturated warm colour that few people think of as visually active or psychologically arousing.

Colour harmony and colour schemes

 

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Göttingen, 1775, plate III.

 

Ignaz Schiffermüller, Versuch eines Farbensystems (Vienna, 1772), plate I.

It has been suggested that "Colours seen together to produce a pleasing affective response are said to be in harmony".^[16] However, colour harmony is a complex notion because human responses to colour are both affective and cognitive, involving emotional response and judgment. Hence, our responses to colour and the notion of colour harmony is open to the influence of a range of different factors. These factors include individual differences (such as age, gender, personal preference, affective state, etc.) as well as cultural, sub-cultural, and socially-based differences which gives rise to conditioning and learned responses about colour. In addition, context always has an influence on responses about colour and the notion of colour harmony, and this concept is also influenced by temporal factors (such as changing trends) and perceptual factors (such as simultaneous contrast) which may impinge on human response to colour. The following conceptual model illustrates this 21st-century approach to colour harmony:

${\displaystyle {\text{Colour harmony}}=f(\operatorname {Col} 1,2,3,\dots ,n)\cdot (ID+CE+CX+P+T)}$ 

wherein colour harmony is a function (f) of the interaction between colour/s (Col 1, 2, 3, …, n) and the factors that influence positive aesthetic response to colour: individual differences (ID) such as age, gender, personality and affective state; cultural experiences (CE), the prevailing context (CX) which includes setting and ambient lighting; intervening perceptual effects (P) and the effects of time (T) in terms of prevailing social trends.^[17]

In addition, given that humans can perceive around 2.3 million different colours,^[18] it has been suggested that the number of possible colour combinations is virtually infinite thereby implying that predictive colour harmony formulae are fundamentally unsound.^[19] Despite this, many colour theorists have devised formulae, principles or guidelines for colour combination with the aim being to predict or specify positive aesthetic response or "colour harmony".

Colour wheel models have often been used as a basis for colour combination guidelines and for defining relationships between colours. Some theorists and artists believe juxtapositions of complementary colour will produce strong contrast, a sense of visual tension as well as "colour harmony"; while others believe juxtapositions of analogous colours will elicit a positive aesthetic response. Colour combination guidelines (or formulas) suggest that colours next to each other on the colour wheel model (analogous colours) tend to produce a single-hued or monochromatic colour experience and some theorists also refer to these as "simple harmonies".^[20]

In addition, split complementary colour schemes usually depict a modified complementary pair, with instead of the "true" second colour being chosen, a range of analogous hues around it are chosen, i.e. the split complements of red are blue-green and yellow-green. A triadic colour scheme adopts any three colours approximately equidistant around a colour wheel model. Feisner and Mahnke are among a number of authors who provide colour combination guidelines in greater detail.^[21][22]

Colour combination formulae and principles may provide some guidance but have limited practical application. This is due to the influence of contextual, perceptual, and temporal factors which will influence how colour/s are perceived in any given situation, setting, or context. Such formulae and principles may be useful in fashion, interior and graphic design, but much depends on the tastes, lifestyle, and cultural norms of the viewer or consumer.

Black and white have long been known to combine "well" with almost any other colours; black decreases the apparent saturation or brightness of colours paired with it and white shows off all hues to equal effect.^{[citation needed]}

Colour symbolism

Main article: Colour symbolism

A major underpinning of traditional colour theory is that colours carry significant cultural symbolism, or even have immutable, universal meaning. As early as the ancient Greek philosophers, many theorists have devised colour associations and linked particular connotative meanings to specific colours.^[23] However, connotative colour associations and colour symbolism tends to be culture-bound and may also vary across different contexts and circumstances. For example, red has many different connotative and symbolic meanings from exciting, arousing, sensual, romantic, and feminine; to a symbol of good luck; and also acts as a signal of danger. Such colour associations tend to be learned and do not necessarily hold irrespective of individual and cultural differences or contextual, temporal or perceptual factors.^[24] It is important to note that while colour symbolism and colour associations exist, their existence does not provide evidential support for colour psychology or claims that colour has therapeutic properties.^[25]

See also

• Charles Albert Keeley – British scientist and entertainer (1821–1899)
• Color analysis – Process of determining the colors that best suit an individual's natural coloring
• Color mixing – Producing colors by combining the primary or secondary colors in different amounts
• Color science – Scientific study of colors
• Color wheel – Illustrative organization of color hues
• On Vision and Colors – 1816 treatise by Arthur SchopenhauerPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Subtractive color – Light passing through successive filters
• Visible spectrum – Portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye

Notes

1. The traditional warm/cool association of a colour is reversed relative to the colour temperature of a theoretical radiating black body; the hottest stars radiate blue (cool) light, and the coolest radiate red (warm) light.

References

1. MacEvoy, Bruce. "Colour Theory". Handprint. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
2. Shastri, Babulal (April 16, 2025). "Chapter XXIII 'Costumes and Make-up'". Wisdomlib. Motilal Banarasidass. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
3. Smithson, H.E.; Dinkova-Bruun, G.; Gasper, G.E.M.; Huxtable, M.; McLeish, T.C.B.; Panti, C.P. (2012). "A three-dimensional color space from the 13th century". J. Opt. Soc. Am. A. 29 (2): A346 – A352. Bibcode:2012JOSAA..29A.346S. doi:10.1364/josaa.29.00A346. PMC 3287286. PMID 22330399.
4. Kirchner, E. (2013). "Colour theory and colour order in medieval Islam: A review". Colour Research & Application. 40 (1): 5–16. doi:10.1002/col.21861.
5. Marriott, F.H.C. (2014) [1962 (print)], "Colour Vision: Introduction", The Visual Process, Elsevier, pp. 219–229, doi:10.1016/b978-1-4832-3089-4.50021-2, ISBN 978-1-4832-3089-4, retrieved 2025-03-02
6. "handprint: colourmaking attributes". www.handprint.com. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
7. "Traditional and Modern Colour Theory Part 1: Modern Colour Theory". Retrieved 2021-10-15.
8. "3 Basic Primary Colours | Additive and Subtractive Colour Mixing". February 28, 2024. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
9. Baird, Christopher S. "Associate Professor of Physics". Science Questions with Surprising Answers. West Texas A&M University. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
10. Kemp, Will (27 August 2011). "The Hidden Hues of Colour Mixing". willkempartschool.com. Will Kemp Art School. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
11. Short, Susie (21 July 2022). "Working with a Split Primary Color Palette". danielsmith.com. Daniel Smith. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
12. Lucariello, Joan; Naff, David. "How Do I Get My Students Over Their Alternative Conceptions (Misconceptions) for Learning? Applications of Psychological Science to Teaching and Learning modules". APA.org. American Psychological Association. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
13. Chevreul, Michel Eugène (1839). De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs.
14. "color temperature". handprint. 2009-04-19. Retrieved 2011-06-09.
15. Singh, Satyendra (2006-01-01). "Impact of colour on marketing". Management Decision. 44 (6): 783–789. doi:10.1108/00251740610673332. ISSN 0025-1747.
16. Burchett, K. E. (2002). "Color Harmony". Color Research and Application, 27 (1), pp. 28–31.
17. O'Connor, Z. (2010). "Color harmony revisited". Color Research and Application, 35 (4), pp. 267–273.
18. Pointer, M. R. & Attridge, G.G. (1998). "The number of discernible colours". Colour Research and Application, 23 (1), pp. 52–54.
19. Hard, A. & Sivik, L. (2001). "A theory of colors in combination – A descriptive model related to the NCS color-order system". Color Research and Application, 26 (1), pp. 4–28.
20. Garau, Augusto (1993). Color Harmonies. University of Chicago press. p. 7. ISBN 0226281965.
21. Feisner, E. A. (2000). Colour: How to use colour in art and design. London: Laurence King.
22. Mahnke, F. (1996). Color, environment and human response. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
23. Benson, J. L. (2000). Greek Color Theory and the Four Elements. Full text, not including figures.
24. Bellantoni, Patti (2005). If it's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die. Elsevier, Focal Press. ISBN 0-240-80688-3.
25. O'Connor, Z. (2010). "Colour psychology and colour therapy: Caveat emptor". Colour Research and Application

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Color theory.

• Understanding Color Theory by University of Colorado Boulder – Coursera
• Handprint.com: Color – A comprehensive site about color perception, color psychology, color theory, and color mixing
• The Dimensions of Colour – Color theory for artists using digital/traditional media