Color Guide: Understanding the Use of Color in Art

When light waves strike an object and reflect back to the optic nerve in a human’s eyes, the sensation they perceive is called color. In works of art, artists use color to depict and describe the subject. Artists, especially painters, utilize their knowledge of color to portray mood, light, depth, and point of view in a work of art. Throughout history, there have been numerous iterations of color theory, which is a set of guidelines for mixing, combining, and manipulating the color spectrum.

Sir Isaac Newton developed the first color wheel with seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—in his 1704 book Opticks. In 1810, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe developed a symmetrical color wheel with just six colors (eliminating indigo) that is similar to the one we commonly use today. In the twentieth century, professor Albert Munsell established the Munsell Color System after performing a series of studies identifying the elements of how humans perceive color.

In the Munsell Color System, professor Albert Munsell identified following properties the three elements of color:

• Hue: Hue refers to the color itself, which is distinct from any other color, and represents the name we assign that color such as red, orange, and magenta.
• Value: Value is the darkness or lightness of a hue. When hues are mixed with white, the resulting color will have a lighter value called tints. When hues are mixed with the color black, they have a darker value called shades. The many values of a hue can be shown on a gradient spectrum resembling paint paint swatches.
• Chroma: A color’s chroma refers to the purity of a color. Chroma is related to saturation, with high-chroma colors appearing brighter, and low-chroma colors appearing duller.

The color wheel is a circular diagram that illustrates the relationships between different colors. Here is a brief guide to the colors in the color wheel.

• Primary colors: Primary colors are colors that are combined to make a range of other colors. Traditionally, these are red, yellow, and blue. When mixed, these three primary colors can form many other colors.
• Secondary colors: Secondary colors are the result of mixing two primary colors. In the traditional color model, the three secondary colors are green (yellow plus blue), orange (yellow plus red), and purple (red plus blue).
• Tertiary colors: Tertiary colors are the combination of one primary color with one secondary color. There are six tertiary colors on the traditional color wheel: magenta (red-purple), vermillion (red-orange), amber (yellow-orange), chartreuse (yellow-green), teal (blue-green), and violet (blue-purple).
• Complementary colors: Complementary colors are colors that are found opposite each other on the color wheel. Complementary color schemes include blue with orange, red with green, and yellow with purple.
• Analogous colors: Analogous colors sit next to each other on the color wheel. Analogous color schemes include yellow paired with chartreuse and green; red with vermillion and orange; and blue with teal and violet. The three colors in each pairing share a common hue, so they appear to match.
• Warm colors: Reds, oranges, and yellows are referred to as warm colors.
• Cool colors: Blues, greens, and purples are referred to as cool colors.
• Monochromatic: A color scheme is monochromatic when it only features shades or tints of a single hue.
• Neutral colors: Blacks, greys, whites and shades of beige are often referred to as neutral colors.

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