Brief History of Color Theories/The Color Wheel

Artists develop theories of color relationships in order to create frameworks for understanding how colors relate to one another and how colors mix. In many cases, a circle is the convenient format for observing color relationships.

The Color Wheel Our standard color wheel includes twelve steps, made up of three primary colors, three secondary colors, and six tertiary colors (mixtures of primary and secondary colors)

Aristotle Developed a theory of colors based on observing color in nature. He believed color was perceived through combinations of light and dark The primary elements of color were: Sunlight, Firelight, Air and Water

Colors were made by mixing light and darkness: red was a mixture of sunlight and darkness. This explained why the sky turned red at sunrise and sunset—the sun was mixing with the approaching or receding night. His basic colors were red, yellow, blue, green, violet, black, white and brown

Leonardo da Vinci Developed his own palette of basic hues, each hue relating to the natural world. NIGHT AIR WATER FIRE EARTH LIGHT His palette was a spiritual manifestation of the world through paint.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Was the first color theorist to approach color from a scientific, rather than spiritual standpoint. (Mostly. Originally, he observed seven, not six spectral hues, including indigo, possibly basing this on the seven musical tones and the seven spheres of heaven.) Newton created the first color wheel.

Discovered color was a function of light Discovered color was a function of light. Observed the spectral hues when he bent light through a prism. Because his color system was based on light, his ideas were somewhat theoretical (at the time). He was never able to reproduce all his theories through paint (for example, mixing all primaries together to create white) because the pigment system works different than the light system does.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Reacted against Newton’s theories because they didn’t translate to mixing pigments. He theorized that color phenomenon happened in the human eye, rather than in white light.

Goethe observed that under strong midday sun, shadows were black or gray, but that in other conditions, cast shadows were the complement of the hue of light.

This observation was important to the Impressionist painters.

Richard Diebenkorn Wayne Thiebaud And later, to Bay Area Expressionists

Goethe’s models of color relationships are: the six-hue color wheel Which demonstrates primary and secondary colors (depicted as triangles) and complementary relationships (depicted as straight lines.

…and the Color Triangle In this model, primary colors (red, yellow, blue) are the points of the triangle, and secondary colors (orange, yellow, green) are on the inside edge of the triangle. For Goethe, tertiary colors are mixtures of the three colors surrounding them. They are nameless, non specific colors, mixtures of red, violet, and orange, for example.

Otto Runge Attempted a three-dimensional depiction of color, to demonstrate that color was not only a function of hue, but also value and saturation

In his sphere, the equator (center line) was made up of pure saturation colors, and they traveled as tints and shades towards the two poles, which were pure black and pure white.

Johannes Itten Was a teacher at the Bauhaus school in Germany prior to World War II. A professor of Joseph Albers (who studied simultaneous contrast). The Bauhaus teachings are the foundation for modern color theory: Color phenomenon, simultaneous contrast relationships, contrasts of hue, saturation, value.

Shortcomings of the Bauhaus model are that they tend to look at color in a vacuum, without considering it’s relationship to imagery, psychology, or communication. Joseph Albers

Itten’s Model for Color Relationships: The Color Star Itten’s color star is a flattened representation of Runge’s color sphere, allowing the viewer to see all colors, values, and saturation at once. He favors hard, geometric edges to allow us to perceive the effects colors have on one another in their pure forms.

Albert Munsell Expanded on Runge’s three-dimensional color model with his COLOR TREE

Munsell’s system began with 5 basic hues: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. And create a ten-step color wheel

His complementary pairings are: Red--blue/green Yellow--Blue/violet Green—Red/orange And Blue—Orange: the only pairing we recognize from the traditional color wheel. He developed his complementary pairings from after-image observations

In Munsell’s color tree, value is represented along the center axis and saturation is represented across the horizontal axis. The tree is not symmetrical like the rest of our color models, because colors reach full saturation at different values.

Munsell’s color tree was the basis for the expanded color palettes we work from with digital colors as well as industrial colors

Color Schemes The Color wheel is a helpful tool for observing harmonious relationships between colors called Color Scheme.

Monochromatic color scheme One hue, and tints and shades of that hue

Analogous color scheme Colors that lie next to one another on the color wheel

Complementary color scheme A pair of complementary colors---colors that are across from one another on the color wheel

Split-complementary One color, and the colors adjacent to it’s complement.

Triadic color scheme Three Colors that are equally spaced on the color wheel

Quadratic Color Scheme Four colors, equally spaced. Connecting them forms a square

Tetradic Color Scheme Four colors, forming a rectangle. This arrangement is a set of two complementary pairings.