In the visual arts, color theory is a body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual impacts of specific color combination. There are also definitions (or categories) of colors based on the color wheel: primary color, secondary color and tertiary color. Although color theory principles first appeared in the writings of Leone Battista Alberti (c.1435) and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (c.1490), a tradition of "colory theory" began in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy around Isaac Newton's theory of color (Opticks, 1704) and the nature of so-called primary colors. From there it developed as an independent artistic tradition with only superficial reference to colorimetry and vision science.
Read more about Color Theory: Color Abstractions, Historical Background, Current Status
Famous quotes containing the words color and/or theory:
“To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine color that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents.
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)