Color theory

Color theory in the visual arts is a set of principles to guide the mixing of color for specific psychological and physiological responses. Color perception varies among humans, and different cultures may interpret colors differently depending on color conditioning. The variation in perception is even more dramatic among different species. Within nature, more brightly colored species are more likely to possess color vision, with the exception of human beings, who lack bright coloration but have complex physiological processes for color vision. Humans rely on color to warn of danger and use certain colors as symbols to communicate and give instruction. Most people follow color trends without being aware of it or giving any thought as to whether they actually like the popular colors in vogue.

Background

Color theory has shaped how humans use color in art, fashion, and architecture, and it has its own intellectual history. Italian architect, humanist, and writer Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) was among the earliest art theorists. His treatise De Pictura (1435) was written first in vernacular rather than Latin, making it accessible to working-class artists without a classical education, and was highly influential during the Renaissance. Alberti looked at how the eye processes color and how color interacts with different light sources, ranging from candlelight to sunlight. In the 1490s, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) recorded ideas on color in his notebooks.

British scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) argued in Opticks (1704) that white light is made up of the various colors of the spectrum and proposed his particle theory of light. The science of optics offers explanations of wavelength measurement and intensity useful in understanding the color spectrum, also called the visible spectrum, which is the range of electromagnetic radiation that can be seen by human eyes. The visible spectrum can be seen naturally in rainbows or when light passes through a prism.

The visible spectrum consists of the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, with each color corresponding to different wavelengths of light. Whether or not indigo should be included in the spectrum between blue and violet has long been a matter of some debate. In Opticks, Newton listed indigo as one of seven spectral colors, but many argue that it is not distinct enough from either blue or violet to merit special mention. Various explanations have been proposed for Newton's inclusion of indigo. One suggestion is that the meanings of color names have shifted over time, and "indigo" once referred either to a blue-green color or to what is now thought of as blue. Another, more likely explanation is that Newton wanted to divide the spectrum into seven colors so that it would be analogous to the seven-note musical scale.

German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) discussed in his Zur Farbenlehre (1810; Theory of Colours, 1840) how humans perceive the nature of color coming from an experiential source. Whereas Newton examined the science of color, Goethe wrote of the physiological experience of it.

In De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (1839; The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors, 1854), French industrial chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) introduced the concept of simultaneous contrast in painting, where color is used to reproduce nature by separating the effects of light and chiaroscuro that influenced impressionist painters. British architect Charles Locke Eastlake (1836–1906) initiated the Eastlake style, an American version of the British aesthetic movement, with his book Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details (1868), which encouraged the use of lighter styling with purples, pinks, mauves, greens, and yellows. American artist Albert H. Munsell (1858–1918) attempted to classify colors based on the dimensions of hue, value, and chroma in his Atlas of the Color Solid (1915), the precursor to the better-known Munsell Book of Color (1929). In 1919, German architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969) established the Staatliches Bauhaus art school in Germany, which had a tremendous impact on designing products for manufacturing furniture, textiles, and lighting fixtures. German-born artist Josef Albers suggested in his Interaction of Color (1963) that color changes in relation to its juxtaposition to other colors and as it is understood through experience.

Overview

Color is subjective. Color theorists try to differentiate culturally learned color associations from actual biological responses to particular colors. Color represents a small portion of a vast electromagnetic band spectrum that is experienced and sensed within the observer’s brain. It is an illusion of electromagnetic vibration that is part of the human interactive visual process. Color sensation reflects the brain’s interpretation of wavelength signals coming from the eyes and is intangible. Metamerism asserts that two colors that look alike in the sunlight have the capacity to change under different lighting conditions.

Different colors have different cultural symbolism and experiential associations. Colors are defined by the objects with which they are associated, and cultural semantics are tied to societal norms and expectations. For instance, in Western cultures, black has associations with death and mourning and white has associations with purity and cleanliness, while in some East Asian cultures, white is associated with death. Red, the color of blood, is generally associated with passionate emotion. Green has a dual nature associated with both growth and decay.

Marketers exploit the language of color so that package color and design appear to be more important in determining the success of a product than the item’s actual performance. The intensity of a color can have greater significance in creating excitement or arousal than its hue or shade. Marshall McLuhan, in his book Understanding Media (1964), discussed how marketers manipulate color to get consumers to subliminally feel good about what they are buying. Graphic artists employ color theory to catch the eyes of viewers and have long known that contrasting color combinations such as black-on-yellow, black-on-white, yellow-on-black, and white-on-black catch the eye and are retained in memory over a longer period of time.

The principle of familiarity suggests that familiar color schemes are pleasing and easily accepted, whereas the principle of novelty asserts that while people like harmonious color combinations, their attention is quickly drawn to unexpected color combinations. Color schemes are used to plan color arrangement. Achromatic color schemes use only neutral colors such as white, gray, beige, and black. Monochromatic schemes use shades and tints of one color family. Analogous schemes use adjacent hues on the color wheel. Complementary colors are direct opposites on the color wheel, such as red and green, or blue and orange.

Color schemes historically have reflected societal values and emerging technology. In colonial America, color schemes were harmonious with wood hues, using earth tones derived from natural pigments. The first chemical colorant, Prussian blue, was formulated in 1720. Federalist color style of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was more refined and elegant, with gray, yellow, and deep lavender colors combined with white and cream. When Napoleon ruled France, military symbols and his campaign in Egypt renewed interest in classical design using bright greens, yellows, and crimson. Victorian colors were generally somber, while art deco later combined color elements with neoclassicism, orientalism, and exotic elements made fashionable when the Ballet Russe performed in Paris in 1909.

Bibliography

Albers, Josef. Interaction of Color. 50th anniv. ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013. Print.

Alberti, Leon Battista. Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting; A New Translation and Critical Edition. Ed. and trans. Rocco Sinisgalli. New York: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Fehrman, Kenneth R., and Cherie Fehrman. Color: The Secret Influence. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2004. Print.

Homung, David. Color: A Workshop for Artists and Designers. 2nd ed. London: King, 2012. Print.

Kuehni, Rolf G. Color: An Introduction to Practice and Principles. 3rd ed. Hoboken: Wiley, 2012. Print.

McLaren, K. "Newton's Indigo." Color Research and Application 10.4 (1985): 225–29. Wiley Online Library. Web. 9 June 2015.

Munsell Color. Munsell Book of Color: Defining, Explaining, and Illustrating the Fundamental Characteristics of Color. 2 vols. Baltimore: Munsell, 1929. Print.

Rivlin, Robert, and Karen Gravelle. Deciphering the Senses: The Expanding World of Human Perception. New York: Simon, 1984. Print.

Scully, Kate, and Debra Johnston Cobb. Color Forecasting for Fashion. London: King, 2012. Print.

Zuffi, Stefano. Color in Art. New York: Abrams, 2012. Print.