Colors

De Coloribus (c. 300 B.C.)

On Colors (Greek Περὶ χρωμάτων) is attributed to Aristotle, but ascribed to Theophrastus or Strato of Lampsacus by some authorities. Tr. (1913) by T. Loveday & E. S. Forster in The Works of Aristotle (1913) ed. W. D. Ross, Vol VI.

• Simple colours are the proper colors of the elements, i.e., of fire, air, water, and earth. Air and water when pure are by nature white, fire (and the sun) yellow, and earth is naturally white. The variety of hues which earth assumes is due to coloration by tincture... Black is the proper colour of elements in process of transmutation. The remaining colours... arise from blending by mixture of these primary colours.
  • 791^a, 1-13.

• There are many arguments to prove that darkness is not a colour, but merely privation of light...
  • 791^b, 2-4.

• From these primary colours the rest are derived in all their variety of chromatic effects by blending of them and by their presence in varying strengths. ...[M]ixture of white with black ...gives grey. ...[A] dusky black mixed with light gives crimson. ...[A] vivid bright violet is obtained from a blend of feeble sunlight with a thin dusky white. That is why the air sometimes looks purple at sunrise and sunset... So, too, the sea takes a purple hue when the waves rise so that one side of them is in shadow...
  • 792^a, 2-23.

• [W]e must not proceed in this inquiry by blending pigments as painters do, but rather by comparing the rays reflected from the aforesaid known colours, this being the best way of investigating the true nature of colour-blends.
  • 792^b, 15.

• [V]ariations of tint occur: 1) Because colours are introcepted by varying and irregular strengths of light and shade. ...(2) because the colours blent vary in fullness and in effectiveness. ...(3) because they are blent in different proportions. ...(4) Difference of hue may also depend on the relative brightness and lustre or dimness and dullness of the blend. Lustre is simply continuity and density of light... (5) some objects change their colour and assume a variety of hues when polished by rubbing or other means, like silver, gold, copper, and iron, when they are polished...(6) In the case of objects burning, dissolving, or melting in the fire, we find that those have the greatest variety which are dark in colour... (7) Apart from these cases, variety of hue is characteristic of all dark smooth objects, such as water, clouds, and birds plumage. ...(8) Lastly, we never see a colour in absolute purity: it is always blent, if not with another colour, then with rays of light or with shadows, and so it assumes a new tint.
  • 793^a-793^b

• [O]bjects assume different tints ...when seen by firelight or moonlight or torchlight, because the colours of those lights differ somewhat. They vary also in consequence of mixture with other colours, for when coloured light passes through a medium of another colour it takes a new tinge.
  • 793^b, 17-24.

• [L]ight when it reaches the eye may be a blend of many colours, though the sensation produced is not of a blend but of some colour, predominant in the blend. This is why objects under water tend to have the colour of water, and why reflections in mirrors resemble the colour of the mirrors, and we must suppose that the same thing happens in the case of air.
  • 793^b, 27-34.

• Thus all hues represent a threefold mixture of light, a translucent medium (e.g. water or air), and underlying colours from which the light is reflected.
  • 794^a

• Coloration may also be due to a process of tincture or dyeing, when one thing takes its hue from another. Common sources of such coloration are the flowers of plants and their roots, bark, wood, leaves, or fruit, and again, earth, foam, and metallic inks. Sometimes coloration is due to animal juices (e.g. the juice of the purple-fish, with which clothes are dyed violet), in other cases to wine, or smoke, or lye mixture, or to sea-water... In short, anything that has a colour of its own may transfer that colour to other things, and ...colour leaving one object passes with moisture and heat into the pores of another... Furthermore, steeping material to be dyed in different astringent solutions during the dyeing produces a great variety of hues and mixtures, and these are also affected by the condition of the material itself...
  • 794^a 16-33.

• [I]n hair and feathers of every kind, changes always occur either... when the nutriment in them fails, or when, on the contrary, it is too abundant. Therefore the age at which the hair is at its whitest or blackest varies in different cases... But hair is never crimson or violet or green or any other colour of that kind, because all such colours arise only by mixture with the rays of the sun, and further because in all hairs which contain moisture the changes take place beneath the skin, and so they admit of no admixture. ...Thus in birds, as in plants, the maturation of the colours takes place outside the body. So, too, the other forms of animal life aquatic creatures, reptiles, and shell-fish have all sorts and manners of colouring, because in them too the process of maturation is violent.
  From what has been set forth in this treatise one may best understand the scientific theory of colours.
  • 799^a-799^b.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Note-Books (c. 1472-1519; Tr. 1906)

: Arranged and rendered into English with Introductions (1906) by Edward McCurdy. Note: page number links below are to the 1923 edition.

• [T]hings seen through the mist are similar in colour to those which are at a distance...
  • Book II. Nature, Explanation of Why the Sun Seems Larger in the West (A 64 v.) p. 87.

• [T]he blue which is seen in the atmosphere is not its own colour, but is caused by the heated moisture having evaporated into the most minute imperceptible particles, which the beams of the solar rays attract and cause to seem luminous against the deep intense darkness of the region of fire that forms a covering above them. ...As a further example of the colour of the atmosphere, we may take the case of the smoke produced by old dry wood, for as it comes out of the chimneys it seems to be a pronounced blue when seen between the eye and a dark space, but as it rises higher and comes between the eye and the luminous atmosphere, it turns immediately to an ashen grey hue, and this comes to pass because it no longer has darkness beyond it... But if this smoke comes from new green wood, then it will not assume a blue colour, because... it is not transparent... [I]f the atmosphere had this transparent blue as its natural colour, it would follow that wherever a greater quantity of atmosphere came between the eye and the fiery element, it would appear of a deeper shade of blue, as is seen with blue glass and with sapphires, which appear darker in proportion as they are thicker. ...We may also observe the difference between the atoms of dust and those of the smoke seen in the sun’s rays as they pass through the chinks of the walls in dark rooms, that the one seems the colour of ashes, and the other—the thin smoke—seems of a most beautiful blue. We may see also, in the dark shadows of mountains, far from the eye, that the atmosphere which is between the eye and these shadows will appear very blue, and in the portion of these mountains which is in light, it will not vary much from its first colour.
  • Of the Colour of the Atmosphere (Leic. 4 a [R 300]) pp. 126-129.

• But whoever would see a final proof, should stain a board with various different colours, among which he should include a very strong black, and then over them all he should lay a thin, transparent white, and he will then perceive that the lustre of the white will nowhere display a more beautiful blue than over the black,—but it must be very thin and finely ground.
  • Of the Colour of the Atmosphere (Leic. 4 a [R 300]) p. 129.

• So the atmosphere appears blue because of the darkness which is beyond it; and if you look towards the horizon of the sky, you will see that the atmosphere is not blue, and this is due to its density; and so at every stage as you raise your eye up from this horizon to the sky which is above you, you will find that the atmosphere will seem darker, and this is because a lesser quantity of air interposes between your eye and this darkness. And if you are on the top of a high mountain the atmosphere will seem darker above you just in proportion as it becomes rarer between you and the said darkness; and this will be intensified at every successive stage of its height, so that at the last it will remain dark.
  • Of the Colour of the Atmosphere (F 18 r.) p. 129.

• The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which always takes the colour of the thing that it reflects and which is filled by as many images as there are things placed before it. ...And do not after the manner of some painters who when tired by imaginative work, lay aside their task... keeping... such weariness of mind as prevents them either seeing or being conscious of different objects; so that often when meeting friends or relatives, and being saluted by them, although they may see and hear them they know them no more than if they had met only so much air.
  • Book III. Art, 2. The Precepts of the Painter: Painting (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 2 r.) pp. 163-164.

• When such is the condition of night, if you wish to re¬present a scene therein, you must arrange to introduce a great fire there, and then the things which are nearest to the fire will be more deeply tinged with its colour, for whatever is nearest to the object partakes most fully of its nature; and making the fire of a reddish colour you should represent all the things illuminated by it as being also of a ruddy hue, while those which are farther away from the fire should be dyed more deeply with the black colour of the night.
  • Of the Way to Represent a Night Scene (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 18 v.) p. 193.

• There is another kind of perspective which I call aerial, because by the difference in the atmosphere one is able to distinguish the various distances... and if in painting you wish to make one seem further away than another you must make the atmosphere somewhat heavy. ...[I]n an atmosphere of uniform density the most distant things seen through it, such as the mountains, in consequence of the great quantity of atmosphere which is between your eye and them, will appear blue... Therefore you should make the building which is nearest... of its natural colour, and that which is more distant make less defined and bluer; and one which you wish should seem as far away again make of double the depth of blue, and one you desire should seem five times as far away make five times as blue.
  • Of Aerial Perspective (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 25 v.) pp. 213-214.

• An object of uniform thickness and colour seen against a background of various colours will appear not to be of uniform thickness.
  And if an object of uniform thickness and of various colours is seen against a background of uniform colour the object will seem of a varying thickness.
  And in proportion as the colours of the background, or of the object seen against the background, have more variety, the more will their thickness seem to vary...
  • Book III. Art, 3. Perspective and Light and Shade: Of Ordinary Perspective (I 17 v.) pp. 214-215.

• A dark object seen against a light background will seem smaller than it is.
  A light object will appear greater in size when it is seen against a background that is darker in colour.
  • Of Ordinary Perspective (I 18 r.) p. 215.

• The first requisite of painting is that the bodies which it represents should appear in relief, and that the scenes which surround them with effects of distance should seem to enter into the plane in which the picture is produced by means of the three parts of perspective, namely the diminution in the distinctness of the form of bodies, the diminution in their size, and the diminution in their colour. Of these three divisions of perspective the first has its origin in the eye, the two others are derived from the atmosphere that is interposed between the eye and the objects which the eye beholds.
  • Of the Requisites of Painting (E 79 v.) pp. 215-216.

• There are three divisions of perspective as employed in painting. Of these the first relates to the diminution in the volume of opaque bodies; the second treats of the diminution and disappearance of the outlines of these opaque bodies; the third is of their diminution and loss of colour when at a great distance.
  • Of Painting and Perspective (E 80 v.) pp. 218.

• It seems to me that the shadows are of supreme importance in perspective, seeing that without them opaque and solid bodies will be indistinct... as to their boundaries..., unless these are seen against a background differing in colour... [E]very opaque body is surrounded and has its surface clothed with shadows and lights... [T]hese shadows are... of varying degrees of darkness... caused by the absence of a variable quantity of luminous rays; and these I call primary shadows... From these primary shadows there issue certain dark rays which... vary in intensity according to the varieties of the primary shadows... I call these shadows derived shadows... [D]erived shadows in striking upon anything create as many different effects as are the different places... And since where the derived shadow strikes, it is always surrounded by the striking of the luminous rays, it leaps back with these in a reflex stream towards its source and meets the primary shadow, and mingles with and becomes changed into it... In addition... many different varieties of the rebound of the reflected rays which will modify the primary shadow by as many different colours as there are different points from whence these luminous reflected rays proceed. ...[V]arious distances ...may exist between the point of striking of each reflected ray and the point from whence it proceeds, and [it acquires] various different shades of colour... in striking against opaque bodies.
  • Shadow is the Withholding of Light (C. A. 250, r. a.) pp. 219-221.

• [Y]ou should not make the shadows end like stone, for the flesh retains a slight transparency, as may be observed by looking at a hand held between the eye and the sun, when it is seen to flush red and to be of a luminous transparency. And let the part which is brightest in colour be between the lights and the shadows.
  • (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 31 v.) pp. 221-222.

• Shadows become lost in the far distance, because the vast expanse of luminous atmosphere which lies between the eye and the object... suffuses the shadows of the object with its own colour.
  • Of Shadows in the Far Distance (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 20 v.) p. 224.

• When you are representing a white body surrounded by ample space, since the white has no colour in itself it is tinged and in part transformed by the colour of what is set over against it. If you are looking at a woman dressed in white in the midst of a landscape the side... exposed to the atmosphere... since this atmosphere is itself blue, the side of the woman which is exposed to it will appear steeped in blue. ...[A]ll the parts of the folds [of her dress] which are turned towards the meadow will be dyed by the reflected rays to the colour of the meadow; and thus she becomes changed into the colours of the objects near, both those luminous and those nonluminous.
  • How White Bodies Ought to be Represented (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 20 r.) pp. 227-228.

• Of colours of equal whiteness that will seem most dazzling which is on the darkest background, and black will seem most intense when it is against a background of greater whiteness.
  Red also will seem most vivid when against a yellow background, and so in like manner with all the colours when set against those which present the sharpest contrast.
  • Of Colours (C. A. 184 v. c.) p. 228.

• [W]hen a white object is seen in the open air... shadows are blue... in accordance with the fourth proposition—'the surface of every opaque body partakes of the colour of surrounding objects.' ...that part which is not exposed to the sun remains in shadow, and only partakes of the colour of the atmosphere. And if this white object should neither reflect the green of the fields which stretch out to the horizon nor... face the brightness of the horizon itself, it would undoubtedly appear of such simple colour as the atmosphere showed itself to be.
  • Painting (F 75 r.) p. 229.

• The colour of the object illuminated partakes of the colour of that which illuminates it.
  • Of Painting (G 37 r.) p. 229.

• Since... the quality of colours becomes known by means of light... where there is most light there the true quality of the colour so illuminated will be most visible, and where there is most shadow there the colour will be most affected by the colour of the shadow. Therefore, O painter, be mindful to show the true quality of the colours in the parts which are in light.
  • Why Beautiful Colours Should be in the Lights (MS. 2038, Bib. Nat. 33 r.) p. 233.

Opticks (1704)

by Sir Isaac Newton

• Lights which differ in Colour, differ also in Degrees of Refrangibility.
  • Proposition 1, Theorem 1, p. 13.

• [W]ith a Perpendicular right Line drawn cross from one Side to the other, distinguished it into two equal Parts. One of these Parts I painted with a red Colour and the other with a blew. The Paper was very black, and the Colours intense and thickly laid on... This Paper I viewed through a Prism of solid Glass... Beyond the Prism was the Wall of the Chamber under the Window covered over with black Cloth, and the Cloth was involved in Darkness... These things being thus ordered, I found... the Light which comes from the blew half of the Paper through the Prism to the Eye, does... suffer a greater Refraction than the Light which comes from the red half, and by consequence is more refrangible.
  • Experiment 1, pp. 13-14.

• [T]his Light being trajected only through the Parallel Superficies of the two Prisms, if it suffered any change by the Refraction of one Superficies it lost that impression by the contrary Refraction of the other Superficies, and so being restored to its pristine constitution became of the same nature and condition as at first before its Incidence on those Prisms and therefore, before its Incidence, was as much compounded of Rays differently Refrangible as afterwards.
  • Experiment 10, p. 40.

• [T]he Sun's Light is an Heterogeneous mixture of Rays, some of which are constantly more Refrangible then others...
  • Scholium, p. 44.

• [I]n these three Experiments... the Colour of Homogeneal Light was never changed by the Refraction.
  • Experiment 14, p. 53.

• Do not the Rays which differ in Refrangibility differ also in Flexibility; and are they not by their different inflexions separated from one another, so as after separation to make the Colours in the three Fringes... ? And after what manner are they inflected to make those Fringes?
  • Query 2, p. 132.

• Are not the Rays of Light in passing by the edges and sides of Bodies, bent several times backwards and forwards, with a motion like that of an Eel? And do not the three Fringes of colour'd Light... arise from three such bendings?
  • Query 3, p. 133.

• Do not several sorts of Rays make Vibrations of several bignesses, which according to their bigness excite Sensations of several Colours, much after the manner that the Vibrations of the Air, according to their several bignesses excite Sensations of several Sounds? And particularly do not the most refrangible Rays excite the shortest Vibrations for making a Sensation of deep violet, the least refrangible the largest form making a Sensation of deep red, and several intermediate sorts of Rays, Vibrations of several intermediate bignesses to make Sensations of several intermediate Colours?
  • Query 13, p. 136.

Goethe's Theory of Colours (1840)

Tr. with notes by Charles Lock Eastlake, of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre (1810)

• [T]he eye sees no form, inasmuch as light, shade, and colour together constitute that which to our vision distinguishes object from object, and the parts... From these three, light, shade, and colour, we construct the visible world, and thus... make painting possible, an art which has the power of producing on a flat surface a much more perfect visible world than the actual one can be.
  • Introduction, pp. xxxviii-xxxix.

• [C]olour is a law of nature in relation with the sense of sight... an elementary phenomenon in nature adapted to the sense of vision; a phenomenon which, like all others, exhibits itself by separation and contrast, by commixture and union, by augmentation and neutralization, by communication and dissolution: under these general terms its nature may be best comprehended.
  • Introduction, p. xl.

• From time immemorial it has been dangerous to treat of colour; so much so, that one of our predecessors ventured on a certain occasion to say, The ox becomes furious if a red cloth is shown to him; but the philosopher, who speaks of colour only in a general way, begins to rave.
  • Introduction, pp. xl-xli.

• [W]e must begin by explaining how we have classed the different conditions under which colour is produced. We found three modes... three classes... or rather three exhibitions of them all. ...[W]e considered colours, as far as they... belong to the eye itself, and to depend on an action and re-action of the organ; next... as perceived in, or by means of, colourless mediums; and lastly... as belonging to particular substances. We have denominated the first, physiological, the second, physical, the third, chemical colours. The first are fleeting and not to be arrested; the next are passing, but... for a while enduring; the last may be made permanent for any length of time.
  • Introduction, p. xli.

• [L]ight and darkness, brightness and obscurity, or... light and its absence, are necessary to the production of colour.
  • Introduction, p. xlii.

• Next to the light, a colour appears which we call yellow; another appears next to the darkness, which we name blue. When these, in their purest state, are so mixed that they are exactly equal, they produce a third colour called green. ...[T]he intensest and purest red, especially in physical cases, is produced when the two extremes of the yellow-red and blue-red are united.
  • Introduction, p. xlii.

• With these three or six colours, which may be conveniently included in a circle, the elementary doctrine of colours is alone concerned.
  • Introduction, p. xliii.

• [C]olours throughout are to be considered as half-lights, as half-shadows, on which account if they are so mixed as reciprocally to destroy their specific hues, a shadowy tint, a grey, is produced.
  • Introduction, p. xliii.

• [I]f the Newtonian doctrine was easily learnt, insurmountable difficulties presented themselvse in its application. Our theory is perhaps more difficult to comprehend, but once known, all is accomplished, for it carries its application along with it.
  • Introduction, p. xlv.

• Everything living tends to colour—to local, specific colour, to effect, to opacity—pervading the minutest atoms. Everything in which life is extinct approximates to white... to the abstract, the general state, to clearness, to transparence.
  • 586, p. 234.

Letters of a Post-Impressionist (1912)

:Being the Familiar Letters of Vincent van Gough Tr. Anthony M. Ludovici. [Note: quotes below are for the most part, from letters written during his period as an active painter, between 1882 and 1890, the year of van Gough's death.]

• I am at work upon a portrait of our mother; as I could no longer endure the sight of the black photograph. I do not wish to possess black photographs, and yet I certainly wish to have a portrait of our mother.
  • Letter to Theo (August, 1887) p. xxxii.

• Dear Brother, ...Last Sunday I began something which I had had in mind for many a day:
  It is the view of a flat green meadow, dotted with haycocks. A cinder path running alongside of a ditch crosses it diagonally. And on the horizon, in the middle of the picture, there stands the sun. The whole thing is a blend of colour and tone a vibration of the whole scale of colours in the air. First of all there is a mauve tinted mist through which the sun peers, half concealed by a dark violet bank of clouds with a thin brilliant red lining. The sun contains some vermilion, and above it there is a strip of yellow which shades into green and, higher up, into a bluish tint that becomes the most delicate azure. Here and there I have put in a light purple or gray cloud gilded with the sun's livery.
  The ground is a strong carpet-like texture of green, gray and brown, full of light and shade and life. The water in the ditch sparkles on the clay soil. It is in the style of one of Emile Breton's paintings.
  I have also painted a large stretch of dunes. I put the colour on thick and treated it broadly.
  I feel quite certain that, on looking at these two pictures, no one will ever believe that they are the first studies I have ever painted. ...I believe the reason of it is that before I began to paint, I made such a long and careful study of drawing and perspective that I can now sketch a thing as I see it. ...[S]ince I have bought my brushes and painting materials, I have slaved so hard that I am dead tired—seven colour studies straight off! ...I literally cannot stand, and yet I can neither forsake my work nor take a rest. ...[W]hen I am painting things present themselves to me in colour, which formerly I never used to see things full of breadth and vigour. ...I have progressed to the extent that when anything in Nature happens to strike me, I have more means at my command ...for expressing that thing with force.
  • Letter to Theo, pp. 3-5.

• Yesterday evening I was busy painting the gently rising ground in the wood, which is all strewn with dry withered beach leaves. It varied in colour from a light to a dark red-brown, and the cast shadows of the trees fell across it in faint or strongly marked stripes. The difficulty was and I found it very trying to succeed in getting the depth of the colour and the enormous strength and solidity of the ground and I noticed while I worked how much light there was even in the dark shadows! The thing was to render the effect of light and also the glow, and not to lose the depth of rich colour. For one cannot imagine a more magnificent carpet than that deep red-brown ground, bathed in the glow of the autumn evening sunlight, softened by its passage through the trees.
  Beech trees grow here, the trunks of which look bright green in the clear light and a warm black-green in the shade. Behind the trunks, above the red-brown ground one could see the delicate blue and warm gray of the sky—it was scarcely blue—and in front of it a diaphanous haze of green, and a maze of trees with golden leaves. The forms of a few peasants gathering wood crept about like dark mysterious shadows, while the white bonnet of a woman bending to gather a few dried twigs suddenly stood out from the deep red-brown of the earth. ...The white bonnet, the shoulders, and bust of a woman stood out against the sky. The figures were large and full of poetry and, in the twilight of the deep shadows, seemed like gigantic terracottas fashioned in a studio. That is how I describe Nature to you. How far I have rendered the effect in my sketch, I do not know. I can only say that I was struck by the harmony of green, red, black, yellow, blue, and gray. It was quite in the style of de Groux; the effect was like that in the sketch of the "Depart du Consent."
  To paint it was a herculean task. On the ground alone I used one and a half large tubes of white; and yet it is still very dark. I also used red, yellow, brown, yellow-ochre, black, raw sienna and bistre and the result is a red-brown, which varies from a deep wine-red to a delicate pale pink. It is very difficult to succeed in getting the colour of the moss and the effect of the small border of fresh grass which shone so brightly in the sunlight. Believe me, this is a sketch which, if I may say so, people will think something of, for it makes a decided appeal. ...I pressed the roots and trunks out of the tubes direct, and then modelled them a little with the brush. And now they do indeed stand in the soil, and grow out of it, and strike firm roots into it. ...In a sense I am glad that I never learnt to paint. If I had I should perhaps have learnt to overlook such effects.
  • Letter to Theo, pp. 12-15.

• The great doctrine bequeathed to us by the Dutch masters is, I think, as follows: Line and colour should be seen as one, a standpoint which Bracquemond also holds. But very few observe this principle, they draw with everything, save with good colour.
  • Letter to Theo, p. 27.

• [W]hile contemplating Hals, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, and others, I constantly thought of the saying, that when Delacroix paints, it is exactly like a lion devouring a piece of flesh. How true that is! And, Theo, when I think of what one might call "the technique crew" how tedious they all are! ...For is it not exasperating to see the same dodges everywhere... everywhere the same tedious gray-white light, in the place of light and chiaroscuro, colour, local colour instead of shades of colour...
  Colour as colour means something ...That which has a ...really beautiful effect, is also right. When Veronese painted the portraits of his beau monde in the "Marriage at Cana," he used all the wealth of his palette in deep violets and gorgeous golden tones for the purpose, while he also introduced a faint azure blue and a pearly white which do not spring into the foreground. He throws it back, and it looks well in the neighbourhood of the sky and of the marble palaces, which strangely complete the figures; it changes quite of its own accord. The background is so beautiful that it seems to have come into being quite naturally and spontaneously out of the colour scheme. ...The point is to think about a thing, to consider its surroundings, and to let it grow out of the latter. ...I do not wish to argue studying from Nature or the struggling with reality, out of existence; for years I myself worked in this way with almost fruitless and, in any case, wretched results. ...One begins by plaguing one's self to no purpose in order to be true to nature ...But these two methods cannot be pursued together. Diligent study, even if it seem to be fruitless, leads to familiarity with nature and to a thorough knowledge of things.
  The greatest and most powerful imagination has also been able to produce things from reality, before which people have stood in dumb amazement.
  • Letter to Theo, pp. 29-31.

• I will simply paint my bedroom. This time the colour shall do everything. By means of its simplicity it shall lend things a grand style, and shall suggest absolute peace and slumber... The walls are pale violet, the floor is covered with red tiles, the wood of the bed and of the chairs is a warm yellow, the sheets and the pillow are a light yellow-green, the quilt is scarlet, the window green, the washstand is orange, the wash-basin is blue, and the doors are mauve. That is all there is nothing more in the room... As there is no white in the picture, the frame should be white. This work will compensate me for the compulsory rest to which I have been condemned. ...Shadows and cast shadows are suppressed, and the colour is rendered in dull and distinct tones like crape of many colours.
  • Letter to Theo, p. 31.

• I should like to make copies of "The Tarascon Diligence," "The Vineyard, "The Harvest," and "The Red Cabaret," especially of the night café, for its colouring is exceptionally characteristic. There is only one white figure in the middle which will have to be painted in afresh and improved in drawing, although it is good as far as its colour is concerned. The South really looks like this, I cannot help saying so. The whole scheme is a harmony in reddish green.
  I do not need to go to the Museum and to see Titian and Velasquez. I have studied my trade in Nature's workshop, and now I know better than I did before I took my little journey, what is above all necessary if one wishes to paint the South. Heavens! what fools all these painters are! They say that Delacroix does not paint the Orient as it is. Only Parisians—Gerome, etc.—can paint the Orient as it is—is that their claim? It really is a funny thing, this business of painting, out in the wind and the sun. ...[O]ne simply sets to like mad, as if the devil himself were at one's back, until the canvas is covered. It is precisely in this way that one discovers what everything depends upon. And this is the whole secret. ...[O]ne ...introduces something of one's own good cheer and laughter into it.
  • Letter to Theo, p. 34.

• [I]nstead of reproducing exactly what I see before me, I treat the colouring in a perfectly arbitrary fashion. ...What I aim at above all is powerful expression. ...Just suppose that I am to paint the portrait of an artist friend—an artist who dreams great dreams and who works as the nightingale sings, simply because it it is his nature to do so. ...All the love I feel for him I should like to reveal in my painting ...To begin with ...I paint him just as he is, as faithfully as possible still this is only the beginning. ...Now I begin to apply the colour arbitrarily. I exaggerate the tone of his fair hair; I take orange, chrome, and dull lemon yellow. Behind his head, instead of the trivial wall of the room I paint infinity. I make a simple background out of the richest of blues, as strong as my palette will allow. And thus, owing to this simple combination, the fair and luminous head has the mysterious effect, upon the rich blue background, of a star suspended in dark ether. ...But one ought to picture this sort of fellow in the scorching noonday sun, in the midst of the harvest. Hence this flaming orange, like a red-hot iron; hence the luminous shadows like old gold. ...[W]e wish to show that this reading has become part of our flesh and blood.
  I can only choose between being a good and a bad painter. I choose the former.
  • Letter to Theo, pp. 37-38.

• One cannot be at the Pole and at the Equator at once. One must choose one's way; at least this is what I hope to do, and my way will be the road to colour.
  • Letter to Theo, p. 137.

Interaction of Color (1963)

by Joseph Albers

• Significantly, complementaries, though they are the basic color contrast or interval, are... quite vague. ...[T]he compliment of a specific color, when placed in different systems, will look different. ...[A] triad or tetrad of one system will hardly fit into another... [W]e may forget... those rules of thumb of complementaries... and of triads and tetrads... They are worn out.

• Good painting, good coloring, is comparable to good cooking.
  Even a good cooking recipe demands... repeated tasting... And the best tasting... depends on a cook with taste.

• By giving up preference for harmony,
  we accept dissonance to be as desirable as consonance.

• [T]he increase in amount of color... visually reduces distance. ...[I]t often produces nearness -- meaning intimacy -- and respect.

The Psychology of Color and Design (1974)

by Deborah T. Sharpe

• [A]pproximately 90 percent of the adult population is form dominant, color-dominant persons have been referred to as deviates. One of the most widely-held theories... states that since color is a primitive response, the adult color-dominant personality tends to be impulsive, immature, egocentric, and less intelligent... Other theories attribute greater creativity and flexibility to the color-dominant... [I]t is questionable how valid these tests can be in measuring intellectual ability...

• The Pfister Color Pyramid Test was given to evaluate the color preferences of feeble-minded grade school children; it was found that between the ages of six and thirteen there was little variation in... preferences, though a striking preference was noted for red as well as a negative correlation between red and intellectual functioning.
  Color-form perception measures of juvenile delinquents have consistently shown them to be a color-dominant group. ...[O]ther personality measures of this group... have found the delinquents to be controlled by their impulses and weak in ego strength.

• The complementary-harmony school of colorists is based primarily on specific color systems or concepts, namely, the Munsell color system and Itten's color circle, Ostwald's color system... uses a more subjective criterion... Harmony is in the eye of the beholder.
  Opposites on the Ostwald color circle will neither mix into grays nor lend themselves to afterimages... Complementary colors equal harmony equals balance, according to the traditional school... Noncomplementary colors equal assymetry equal tension, according to the modern school. But... these two frameworks do not take into consideration the eclectic approach, which utilizes neither... but, rather, is based on the demands of the space, subject matter, light, sequence of... applications and... interpretation of the overall tasks. ...[A] whole new generation of designers and colorists appears to have heard nothing of these rules. The increasing use of asymmetry... is creating a new design idiom.

• The concept of color harmony by the color wheel is an objective conclusion arrived at by intellectual activity. The response to color... is emotional; thus there is no guarantee that what is produced in an intellectual manner will be pleasing to the emotions. Man responds to form with his intellect and to color with his emotions; he can be said to survive by form and to live by color.

The Physics and Chemistry of Color: The Fifteen Causes of Color (1983)

by Kurt Nassau

• The blue dye indigo is one of the oldest dyes known to man, having been in use for more than 4000 years. Its preparation by complex extraction processes was described in Sanskrit writings, and it was used to dye Egyptian mummy cloth. When Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 B.C., he found that the local Picts ("painted people") decorated themselves with woad, a form of indigo. And who, today, does not know the all-pervading blue jeans, frequently dyed with the same indigo, now manufactured synthetically. While the transition metal colors... can be adequately explained by ligand field theory, the all-encompassing molecular orbital theory is required to explain the color of organic molecules. These include dyes and pigments, both as they occur in nature as colorants in the animal and vegetable kingdoms from which they were first extracted, and also as the triumphs of the synthetic dye industry which have displaced natural dyes almost completely. ...[W]e use the term "colorant" to include all types of organic dyes and pigments involving electrons on more than one atom in organic molecules, while multi-atom color-producing systems involving charge transfer are deferred ...
  • Ch. 6 Color in Organic Molecules, p. 109.

• A crystal of corundum containing a few hundredths of one percent of titanium is colorless. If, instead it contains a similar amount of iron, a very pale yellow may be seen. If both impurities are present together, however, the result is a magnificent deep blue color, that of blue sapphire... The process at work is intervalence charge transfer, the motion of an electron from one transition metal to another produced by the absorption of light energy; this results in a temporary change in valence state of both ions. Such a mechanism is the cause of the blue sapphire and the black and dark colors of many transition metal oxides such as iron oxide magnetite Fe₃O₄. The mechanism is sometimes also called cooperative charge transfer.
  Somewhat analogous charge transfer processes also occur in ligand field situations; this can lead to color even if there are no unpaired electrons to cause the color by... transition mechanisms... [I]t is possible to describe many of the donor-acceptor dyes... as involving charge transfer, although... not commonly used.
  • Ch. 7 Charge Transfer Color, p. 140.

• [S]emiconductors as silicon are distinct from metals, yet the properties of both are readily explained by the same band theory. ...[T]he semiconducting properties of this metalic-appearing silicon and the absence of color and insulating properties of, say, diamond, are both part of a continuous range of materials which unexpectedly includes the red, orange, and yellow colors of medium band-gap semiconductors. ...It is the delocalized nature of the valence electrons, their ability to move freely throughout a piece of metal or semiconductor, which is at the root of the characteristics of these two types of material.
  • Ch. 8 Color in Metals and Semiconductors, p. 155.