Notes on Color

Compiled by Peter Y. Chou (10-18-1993)
(Art-20A Color Class, Foothill College)

Leonardo on Colors
There are six simple colors of which the first is white, although some philosophers do not include either white or black among their number because one is the origin of all color and the other its absence. But as the painter cannot do without them, we shall classify them among the number of colors and say that in this order of simple colors white is the first, yellow the second, green the third, blue the fourth, red the fifth, and black the sixth. We shall put white for the light without which no color can be seen, yellow for earth, green for water, and blue for air, and red for fire, and black for the darkness that is above the element of fire, for there, there is no matter or density that the rays of the sun can penetrate and hence illuminate. Colors that go together harmoniously are green with red or purple or violet, and yellow with blue. Observe in which way a color looks beautiful in nature: when it receives reflections, or when it is illuminated, or when it is in a medium shadow, or when it is in darkness, or when it is transparent. It depends on what the color under consideration is, for different colors will show their greatest beauty in different ways; thus, we see that black is most beautiful in the shadow, white in the light, blue, green, and brown in the medium shadows, yellow and red in the light, gold in reflected light, and lake blue in medium shadows.
— Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Codex Urbinas, 75v-76r
[André Chastel, Genius of Leonardo da Vinci (1961), p.114]

Psychological Color
The next stage was represented by fantasies and dreams showing my patient's wish to submit uncritically to the archetypal powers of the unconscious which she represented in a series of colored pictures. In one she is represented as a leaf floating on a serpentine stream; in another she is seen as a completely passive naked girl suspended in foaming water in a U-shaped container, which was without visible walls, the whole apparently floating in a deep blue watery medium, with nothing to protect her from dissolving into it. This was followed by a picture called The Mirror, in which a circular design of all colors blending with each other in a confusing way was surrounded by a circular frame composed of two interlacing serpents, yellow and green. From experience, I have found that green and yellow as colors represent the fruitfulness of nature and here they show the tendency of the sinister whiteness of death to be transformed into a life-giving image. The many colors, radiating from a central point and mingling with each other, provided an iridescence of color characteristic of the state of rebirth at its moment of inception. In alchemical lore this is referred to as the peacock's tail, or iridescence of color seen in the black chaotic original substance in the alembic as this turns by heat into the next stage of the great work. The change from black or white to all-colors represents the change from death to new life, according to the alternation found in the cycle of nature in its archetypal form. In turn this means that what was dead comes alive if it receives the appropriate treatment in the appropriate container.
— Joseph L. Henderson & Maud Oakes, Wisdom of the Serpent (1963), pp. 35-36
Josef Albers on Red
If one says "Red" (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expecteed that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different. Even if all the listeners have hundreds of reds in front of them from which to choose the Coca-Cola red, they will again select quite different colors. And no one can be sure that he has dound the precise red shade. It is hard, if not impossible, to remember distinct colors. This underscores the important fact that the visual memory is very poor in comparison with our auditory memory. Often the latter is able to repeat a melody heard only once or twice. Though there are innumerable colors— shades and tones— in daily vocabulary, there are oly about 30 color names. In writing, a knowledge of spelling has nothing to do with an understanding of poetry. Equally, a factual identificaiton of colors within a given painting has nothing to do with a sensitive seeing nor with an understanding of the color action within the painting. (pp. 3-5) Usually, we think of an apple as being red. This is not the same red as that of a cherry or tomato. A lemon is yellow and an orange is like its name. Bricks vary from beige to yellow to orange, and from ochre to brown to deep violet. Foliage appears in innumerable shades of green. In all these cases the colors named are surface colors. In a very different way, distant mountains appear uniformly blue, no matter whether covered with green trees or consisting of earth and rocks. The sun is glaring white in daytime, but is full red at sunset. The white ceilings of houses surrounded by lawns or the white-painted eaves of a roof on a sunny day appear in bright green, which is reflected from the grass on the ground.
— Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (1975)