For one thing, we pick up as children that the three primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. And when you're mixing finger paints or crayons, that certainly checks out. Then when you're older, at least if you take a physics class, you find out that green is the other primary color, and yellow is one of the secondary colors. It's kind of a shock.
But that's on top of what may be an even stranger phenomenon. The color wheel tells us that red and violet/purple are right next to each other, aptly enough since there's a red component to purple. But red and violet lie at opposite ends of the spectrum. How can this be?
The answer comes down to the difference between sensation and perception. The spectrum is an expression of the frequencies of visible light, which may be sensed by the cones in our eyes. But frequencies aren't something that affects us, at least not in a way we know about. So our perceptual brains modify the information in a way we find more useful and pleasing.
One interesting hypothetical: What if our vision were altered so that we could see a low-frequency color in the ultraviolet spectrum, but not red? I believe it would still fill that niche on the wheel between orange and violet, in place of the absent red. But would it be red? No. For one thing, because of where its higher place on the spectrum, it would present to us as a cool, receding color rather than a warm, advancing one.
2 comments:
I never got out of the first stage of color theory. I understand that red blue and green are the hues that make color televisions and computer screens work but I don't actually believe it. It has to be a hoax. I mean if you mix red and green together the result is brown and not orange as any sensible person would expect. I've also been told that indigo exists but the human eye can't distinguish it either, although I'm pretty sure I know what it looks like - the sky after sunset on a clear night, or shades of the sea at the horizon. I rather enjoy my perceptual brain.
This probably surprises you since I have been known to spend a lot of time painting and generally mucking about in colorful media. To a large extent whatever small talent I may have indulged came to me by accident. That we can see millions of colors in the visible spectrum has always seemed like a wonderful gift we've been given to brighten our embodied time. If there are others outside our current visual awareness then I guess I'll be happy to wait and see.
I like the hair color chart - never thought I'd see schoolbus yellow as a hair color choice anybody would make for themself. One never knows, do one?
Well yeah, it does seem pretty wrong. Even on the spectrum green is there right between yellow and blue, so for some reason just these two primary colors are bunched together. As for indigo, it's basically there for numerology's sake. Isaac Newton placed mystical significance on the number seven, so he was determined the spectrum should have seven colors. Basically it's splitting blue into light and dark shades, which some languages also do.
By accident or planning you found art and it's a great medium (multiple media, but you know what I mean) for you. As for colors outside our range of vision, it's something interesting to think about is all. Recently we've been in the time when the leaves change color. Looking at them I can imagine some being with slightly different eyes seeing a whole different mixture of colors. But do I envy them, or does it make the sight less special. Very much not. If anything I appreciate even more how lucky I am to be seeing what I'm seeing.
Schoolbus yellow is an off-key choice, isn't it? Of course so many people take on weird hair colors from such a young age now I wonder if everyone's just going to get sick of it.
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