The history of color classification can be divided into two large periods: the first - from prehistoric times to the 16th century. and the second - from the 17th century. to the present day.

Primitive (and today's “primitive”) peoples identify colors with the most valuable substances for them and vital (according to their concepts) elements - blood, milk, fire, earth; they correspond to red, white and black. This triad retains its main significance for a long time.

The attitude of primitive man to color was based on mythologism. It should be noted that one of the important features of the mythological thinking of primitive peoples is ambivalence (that is, the designation by the same word, term of opposite concepts) and polysemanticism.

In primitive cultures, white is the color of good, an image of good, holiness, purification, good luck; used in funeral rites (the deceased, passing into the other world, becomes a god), white animals and birds are considered sacred.

An equally honorable place in the culture of primitive peoples belongs to the red color. Red is a symbol of energy, life, strength; the color of kings, gods, priests; most commonly used in medical magic (amulets, birds and animals); color of protection and intimidation (coloring of warriors). The red color, along with positive features, is also characterized by negative aspects (ambivalence); so red blood can be pure when it comes to life, good, and unclean, if it is associated with murder, witchcraft, etc.

Positive and life-affirming (mostly) white and red are opposed by black, depicting darkness, decay and death, which means evil, misfortune, illness. At the same time, the black color among some "primitive" peoples (Ndebu) is a symbol of love and a happy marriage, since the latter are associated with night and darkness, while marriage is understood as a kind of death, when a man associates himself with a woman and plunges into the underworld. but the result is a new birth.

The hypothesis about the inferior color vision of ancient and "primitive" peoples is groundless. So the aborigines of the Bismarck archipelago have exceptionally sophisticated color vision, they distinguish, for example, the following shades of black: kotkot - shiny black, the color of a crow; lyutane is just black to black; tovoro - black color of charred flour tree nut; luguba - black mud of swamps in thickets of mango trees; dep - black paint obtained from burning the resin of the canary tree; utur is the color of charred betel leaves mixed with oil.

In the first period of antiquity, when agriculture and cattle breeding became the main source of material wealth, and the main gods were the sun (or sky), as well as the earth and the plants growing on it, the yellow color of the earth (among the Greeks and Chinese) joined this triad, green color vegetation (among all peoples) and the blue color of the sky (among the Chinese and Egyptians). Among the ancient peoples, the question of the classification of colors was solved in close connection with the question of the structure of the cosmos, the world of gods and people; all the most valuable and significant was marked with some color, and these colors were considered basic.

In ancient China, a remarkable monument of wisdom is the Yi Ching, the Book of Changes. It consists of 64 hexograms - combinations of six lines (dashes) located one above the other, and there are two types of such lines: solid and interrupted. Each hexogram encodes a certain cosmic or life situation that characterizes any stage or stage of the world process (creativity, rise, concentration, decline, end, etc.). In general, the sequence of all 64 hexograms (supplemented by short texts) reproduces the grandiose and complex drama of the universe, in which the main characters are heaven, earth and man; the main forces are light and darkness, activity and passivity, masculine and feminine principles; the main elements are water, wind, fire, thunder. In China, hexograms "Yi Ching" and their constituent parts - trigrams - were considered the beginning of painting.

In ancient China, all elements, seasons, cardinal points, planets and substances had their own colors. There were five main colors: green / blue, red, white, black, yellow.

White color in ancient China and Japan symbolizes the collection of rice, death, mourning. Red was for the upper class; black and yellow are for common people. At the same time, the color of the imperial palaces was notable for its diversity: here one could see both "blinding" saturated colors, and refined graceful gray, woody, terracotta with bright inclusions.

Under the influence of the teachings of Tao ("Tao Te Ching"), brilliance and full color give way to monochrome and achromatic ink painting ("five colors dull eyesight"), clarity is replaced by nebula, formlessness ("great perfection looks like imperfection").

No less developed and consistent than in China, the doctrine of color was created in ancient India. It is presented mainly in the Upanishads, as well as in the epic poems "Mahabharata", "Ramayana" and in the vast Buddhist literature. In the classification of colors, there are three main colors: red, white and black; the main elements and life principles are painted in these colors. Even food (eaten) is divided into three substances: red - heat, physical energy; white replenishes spiritual energy, black - toxins to be removed from the body.

The Mahabharata sets out the norms of female beauty. One of the provisions of the canon says: a beautiful woman should have five things red:

Palms and lobes, soles and lips,

Your footprints that fans love.

In addition, the whiteness of the face and body, the blackness of the hair and eyes, and the gold of jewelry constitute the obligatory “coloristic standard” of an oriental woman (and not only in India).

The philosophy of the Vedas and Buddhism condemned the luxury, richness and colorfulness of clothing and jewelry. Adepts of some teachings related to Buddhism (Jains, Ajviks) generally denied clothing and walked “clothed in air” or in white garments. The "anti-aestheticism" of monks and hermits did not have much influence on the fine arts; it only set off and emphasized the luxury and splendor of Indian culture.

The Near and Middle East is the birthplace of the first civilizations, the source of the culture of Europe and Asia. In the culture of the peoples of the region, a stable symbolism of flowers has developed.

White is a divine color everywhere. The one closest to white gold is a symbol of radiance and incorruptibility, like the sun.

Red was also sacred. The Egyptians revered the red lotus - a symbol of the blood shed by Osiris in the name of the prosperity of Egypt. Among the Persians, Sakas (Scythians) and other peoples, red was revered as the color of fertility and love.

Black symbolizes darkness, evil and sin, is the color of the devil.

In the Middle East, blue (or cyan) is one of the main favorite colors. Blue and blue were the colors of the sky, the abode of the supreme god - the Sun. Green was no less appreciated - the color of Osiris, the cereal god who dies and resurrects every year.

In the era of antiquity, the science of color is going through its "philosophical" stage. In the Hellenic era of ancient culture, the mythologism of thinking is gradually becoming obsolete, science begins to supplant religion, social relations become more and more complex, and other grounds for the classification of colors appear.

Colors are divided into noble and low, cultured and barbaric, dark and bright; a division into colors of architectural polychromy and painting colors is also introduced. Ancient scholars classify colors on the basis of the mythological tradition (according to the colors of the elements, light and darkness), however, ancient science for the first time raises the problem of the physical essence of color, tries to explain the process of sight and color perception. Ancient scientists continue and develop the idea that emerged in the East about the involvement of the eye to external light and color. Phenomena such as the dependence of color on lighting (Lucretius, Aristotle), reflexes, two ways of mixing colors, the influence of colors on each other (Aristotle) \u200b\u200bwere noticed and described. But the Greeks did not yet know the law of complementarity, and the reason for the formation of colors was the form of atoms of matter (Democritus, Lucretius) or the mixing of light and darkness in different proportions (Aristotle).

Medieval culture in the Near and Middle East develops under the sign of Islam, introduced by the Arabs at the beginning of the 7th century. The main book of Islam, the Koran, sets out not only the dogmas of faith, but also the beginnings of philosophy, ethics and aesthetics, reflects views on light and color, their place and meaning in life.

In the Arab East, the thinking of an orthodox Muslim is holistic, has no clear antinomies (except for "believer" - "unbeliever"), the Qur'an does not distinguish between earthly and heavenly, material and spiritual. Light in the Qur'an is considered as the creation of the one god Allah and at the same time as his visible embodiment and symbol.

The color preferences of the peoples of the Middle East are evidenced by numerous descriptions of paradise. Paradise is the ideal and ultimate goal of a Muslim, a reward for the labors and hardships of earthly life. Neither the Christian nor the Buddhist paradise has such a clear "layout", such concrete visibility and plasticity. There rather the spirit rejoices in some otherworldly joys, here the body and senses are pleased. Paradise life for a Muslim is not much different from the "luxurious" life on earth. It was not uncommon for the Arabs to create large and small models - a kind of paradise; we can say: everything that their culture has created is guided by the model - the Garden of Eden - and reproduces all its essential features.

People in paradise are dressed in silk clothes: "adorned with ... bracelets of gold and pearls", they recline on couches, "the lining of which is made of brocade." Four dark green paradise gardens are sprinkled with two springs, in these gardens - “fruits, not depleted and not forbidden, and palms and pomegranates; lotuses, devoid of thorns, and talch, hung with fruits, "the righteous and paradise houris are reclining on beautiful carpets and green pillows.

The carpet is a metaphor for the Garden of Eden. Carpet weaving is a universal and ubiquitous category of Muslim art, and flowery and patterning are the main sign of carpet weaving. This sign can be seen in the polychromy of the Kaaba (the main temple of Mecca), in the intricately ornamented pages of the Koran, in metal jugs and fabrics.

White color is a sign of divinity, purity, spirituality; at the same time, gray hair is a symbol of the approaching death, the color of the shroud of the deceased, the color of leprosy and lichens, an eyesore.

Gold symbolizes light, shine, sun, incorruption, life and health (the first victim of Allah was a yellow cow); at the same time, yellow - "suffering from colic", rust on copper, food from the zakkum tree (a mythical hellish tree, whose red-hot fruits are fed to sinners).

Red is the color of the sun and fire, the color of blood, which means life. God himself appears to the prophet Musa from the fire on Mount Tur (Sinai). Saint Ibrahim was "baptized" in the fire. He entered a blazing fire, which immediately turned into a garden blooming with scarlet roses.

White, red and yellow are sacred colors involved in light. But the darkness created by Allah is also good; therefore, in the East, the colors of the shadow are valued and loved: blue, light blue, purple.

Blue is the color of the night "when it thickens"; blue gives rest to vision after a bright sunny day, hides the secret of the divine celestial substance. The oriental man is ready to place "blue in blue and again blue in the play of blue, with subtle rhythmic patterns revealing the divine color everywhere, on all surfaces of the walls" (F. Wright). Blue and light blue colors were appreciated for the effect of their calming effect on the psyche (legend, the story of K. Petrov-Vodkin "Samarkandia").

Purple is more mystical than blue, close to the end of the spectrum, the light in it is about to go out; in violet, two opposites are combined - blue and red, this is the most complex and "ambiguous" color.

Black is the color of the earth itself, "the first of the planets," "among the virtues of blackness is that ink is obtained from it, with which the words of Allah are written." In the Middle Ages in the East, black was valued much higher than in Europe. Black has negative connotations if it is associated with evil deeds, with sin.

Green is in the middle of the spectrum, there is no brightness of light, depth of darkness, vital heat and mortal cold, it is, as it were, intermediate, middle (green plants have roots in the ground, and leaves in the sky). Green color in the culture of Islam has no negative meanings.

Gray and brown are completely negative in the East; are muffling and darkening, respectively, of white and yellow. A happy world for a Muslim is associated with green, an unhappy world with gray. The brown color in the Quran is the color of death and decay (Allah "brought out the pasture", and then "made it brown litter").

In terms of color culture, Japan occupies a special place among other countries of the medieval East. The main and most significant colors in Japan are white, red, green, purple, violet, black. In ritual clothing, cult architecture and utensils, they are taken in a relatively pure form, but in secular court culture they become more complex and muted.

It is noteworthy that in the colorism of medieval Japanese culture there are few blue and blue colors. Despite the fact that in neighboring China, blue has long been loved and revered (the color of the masculine yang), the Japanese have not adopted the love of blue.

Only starting from the 17th century. rich blue colors appear in Japanese painting (in the 19th century, Hokusai, as it were, takes revenge for a thousand years of abstinence and introduces a lot of blue into his graphics). In the 17th century Kabuki theater, blue is the color of villains, ghosts, and devils.

In medieval Europe, the problems of color classification were considered through the prism of the Christian religion and its dogmas. Colors are subdivided into "divine" and "godless"; the first are the main, revered and beautiful, the rest are secondary or completely despised (for example, gray and brown).

White is a symbol of light, holiness, purity ... In iconography, white is the color of the clothes of saints, apostles, angels (later angels were depicted in blue). The white shroud of the dead is a sign of man's initiation into the divine order.

Red or fiery symbolizes divine energy, life-giving warmth, the blood of Christ, the love of God for humanity, the love of believers. In clothes, red is usually combined with blue or white.

The symbolic meanings of red and magenta are similar, but red is considered more "earthly"; in purple, blue is added to red (ie, divine, transcendental), which makes it more "heavenly", sophisticated, complex.

Gold and yellow are "frozen sunlight"; gold is also a sign of wealth and power. The mentioned colors were used in iconography mainly for writing backgrounds, lights, halos. It is noteworthy that from the 12th century. yellow is interpreted as the color of treason, lies, venality, shamelessness, bad intentions (Judas is dressed in yellow).

Blue is the most "transcendent", immaterial, mystical color, a symbol of an incomprehensible mystery, eternal divine truth, the sky as the abode of heavenly forces. In Christian color symbolism, blue is devoid of ambivalence.

Green is a symbol of the earthly life of Christ, his humane mission (in ancient cults it symbolizes the resurrection, spring renewal), opposes the "royal" - purple, gold, blue. However, green also has negative aspects: it is the color of the devil's eyes and scales.

Of the previously mentioned primary colors, the most unpopular is black - the opposite of light, a symbol of darkness, death and hell, disbelief and sin, “a sign of sorrow” (often replaced by dark blue and dark brown). At the same time, black symbolizes the mortification of the flesh, a sign of humility and rejection of worldly joys, the color of the clothes of the clergy and monasticism (the prelates of the Roman Church are dressed in purple).

Gray and brown are completely negative. Gray is the color of beggarly rags, a symbol of rejection from the Christian world, not a color, but its absence. Brown is interpreted by theologians as "the most disgusting color." In gray and brown, there is neither divinity nor anti-divinity (as in black).

The culture of the Middle Ages as a whole is antinomical, built on contrasts and contrasts. In medieval painting, colors are often "taken in pairs": gold with blue, red with green, red with blue, white with black.

The Renaissance science of color absorbed everything that was discovered in previous centuries: the teachings of Greek philosophers, the medieval symbolism of light and color, the achievements of optics.

The general Renaissance picture of the doctrine of color is variegated and eclectic. Of the vast literature of the Renaissance, of particular interest are the works of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), closely related to the practice of fine arts. The artist did not separate art and science: “Those who fall in love with practice without science are like helmsmen who set sail without a rudder or a compass, for they are never sure where they are going ... The master whose work is ahead of his judgment is pitiful; that master is advancing towards the perfection of art whose works are surpassed by judgment. "

Leonardo da Vinci introduces a "practically painterly" color system based on the painter's minimal palette. The artist identifies six simple colors: white, yellow, green, blue, red and black.

The basis of harmony for Leonardo is contrast, that is, the juxtaposition of opposite colors, at the same time the artist introduced into painting "sfumato" - the muffling of all colors, as it were, with a soft atmospheric haze that unites them.

Until the beginning of the 17th century. the classification of flowers was built on the basis of cult mythology, as well as some private-practical points.

In the 17th century. the situation is radically changing: Isaac Newton introduces the natural-scientific (physical) basis for the classification of colors, namely the spectrum of white light, in which seven "simple" spectral colors stand out and one is purple, formed by mixing the extreme colors of the spectrum. Based on the spectrum, a color wheel was built, which turned out to be a very convenient system for technical and scientific purposes, in particular for calculating the results of mixing colored rays (adjective mixing).

Newton showed that the colors of various objects or environments depend on their ability to reflect, absorb or transmit certain "rays".

The phenomenon of color has found physical ground, but has lost its direct connection with cosmic entities. Now the reunification of color with the cosmos needs philosophical reflection, the broken connections need to be restored by building “unifying theories”. In this sense, Newton's aesthetic theory of the connection between color and music is interesting. Seven colors of the spectrum, according to his teachings, correspond to seven notes of the musical octave, so the spectrum contains the same inner harmony as in the musical octave, and there is a relationship between individual colors that allows you to obtain harmonious combinations of colors (Louis Castel's "color organ").

The spectral system of color classification, introduced by Newton, has become the basis of color systematics up to the present day.

Achievements of the 18th century in the field of the physical foundations of light and color are modest, but during this period two independent branches of color science arose: physiological optics and the doctrine of the psychological effect of color.

The great Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov (1711-1765) entered the history of physiological optics (the science of the laws of vision) as the author of the hypothesis about the three-component nature of color vision. Its essence boils down to the fact that in the organ of vision there are only three color-perceiving apparatus, giving excitement of three kinds - red, blue and yellow; from the mixing of these basic excitations, sensations of all colors are obtained (their equal mixing gives the sensation of white; the absence of excitements is perceived as black).

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe emergence of all colors from the original three was suggested to Lomonosov by the experience of painters receiving all the necessary shades of colors from the three main ones, namely red, blue and yellow.

At the end of the 18th century. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) proposed a new way of classifying colors - according to the physiological principle; the color wheel built by him consists of three pairs of contrasting colors. The base of the circle is a triangle of the main colors, but these are not the colors of the spectrum, but the most common paints of artists - red, blue and yellow.

Thus, in the systematics of color, Goethe proceeds partly from natural-scientific observations (the phenomenon of color induction), partly from the generalization of the practical experience of painters (mixing colors).

Thanks to the works of Philip Otto Runge, the color system acquired a third dimension and entered the space. The German artist built a "color ball" in which spectral and achromatic colors were combined. Color has formed its own autonomous and closed "universe".

In the 19th century. thanks to the works of G. Helmholtz, the question of the main colors is clarified - they turned out to be red, green and blue, which in adjective mixtures give all the other colors of the spectrum in any saturation. Physiological optics adopted this triad as the main one. The same colors turned out to be the main ones in all cases where the adjective mixing of colors takes place: in printing, pointillist painting, weaving, later in color cinema, television, theatrical and decorative lighting.

But the triad of basic colors - red, yellow and blue - has not lost its significance either. They formed the basis of the color wheel, which painters, printers and all those who obtain color by mixing paints continued to use. Color systems have differentiated and specialized for each branch of science or industry.

In the 20th century. the process of differentiation and specialization of sciences and production continues. New color systems appear, spatial bodies in the form of a double cone (Ostwald, Rabkin), a spiral figure (Munsell), polyhedrons with rounded and sharp edges (Yustova, Kuppers); various color circles are being built, color atlases are being developed. Color in science and technology in the 20th century sometimes loses its visual qualities and turns into a system of numbers: modern colorimetry does not "look" at color, it calculates it. The division into primary and secondary colors has lost its relevance almost everywhere. Only in some areas of activity where fast and unmistakable color recognition is required (heraldry, signaling, coding), the main colors have retained their positions.

General information about color

Color science Is a complex science of color, which includes a systematized collection of data from physics, chemistry, physiology, aesthetics and psychology.

Physics teaches that color phenomena are based on light waves of various lengths, that they are refracted, reflected and absorbed. Different absorption of light waves causes different colors of objects.

With the help of chemistry, it became possible to make paints based on the study of the composition and structure of dyes.

Psychophysiology has found explanations for the emotional effect of flowers.
Aesthetics studies the laws of harmonization (color matching), which explain to us why we like some colors, while others make an unpleasant impression.

Color science studies the basic characteristics of color, primary, composite and complementary colors, color contrasts, color mixing, color and harmony of color combinations, and much more.

The science of color originated a long time ago. The countries of the Ancient East had their own color symbols, which influenced the color culture of Europe and Asia.

In the era of antiquity, color was first seen as a category of aesthetics. Back in the 4th century BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle tried to explain the origin of color and different color phenomena. In the Middle Ages, cognition of color occurs in the mainstream of metaphysical religious teachings.

Prominent artists and theorists of the Renaissance: Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472), Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574), Albrecht Durer (1471 - 1528) wrote about color in their treatises on painting. Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci discover the laws of the interaction of color and light, visual perception, color induction (this is a color change under the influence of a different color), offer a new interpretation of color aesthetics. Leonardo da Vinci in his "Treatise on Painting" gives such information about color, which are of great practical importance for the artists of our time. “He formed a color range of six colors, tied them to natural elements: white - light, yellow - earth, green - water, blue - air, red - fire, black - darkness. For each individual color, harmonious colors were found and stable color chords were thought out, for example, purple, red, pale violet harmonize with green. Leonardo da Vinci defined harmoniously contrasting colors: white - black, blue - yellow, red - green. It was then that the science of color actually originated.

Color was investigated by such luminaries of science as Newton (1642 - 1727), Lomonosov (1711 - 1765), Helmholtz (1821 - 1894). Lomonosov discovered the three-color basis of vision. Goethe (1749 - 1832) wrote a special work "The Doctrine of Flowers".

The idea of \u200b\u200ba six-color color series was interpreted and developed in their own way by F. Runge, A. Schopenhauer, W. Adam, E. Delacroix, Van Gogh, V. Kandinsky and others.

I. Newton lays the "physical" foundation of color science. He conducted an experiment with the refraction of a ray of light through a prism, identified seven colors of the spectrum and freed the colors from a specific symbolic attachment. Each of the seven colors becomes an independent element of the harmonic system - depending on the conditions, the color can acquire one or another state and emotional characteristic. Later, the French scientist Roger de Piel argues that color, not drawing, is essential for painting.

MV Lomonosov proposed a hypothesis of three-component color vision. He drew attention to the fact that our eye has three color-sensing receivers and always requires their joint activity, that is, color balance is necessary for our eyes.

The eye perceives not colors, but the wavelength of which these colors are composed and all the variety of colors perceived by the eye is due to the subjunctive mixing of the three main above colors.

How does a person perceive colors? Take an apple for example. In complete darkness, the apple has no color. In order to gain color perception, we need a light source.
Light reflected from the surface of the object enters the eyes,

Figure 2 - Three-component color vision

information about it is transmitted to the brain, which perceives the color. An apple is red because its surface reflects the red component and absorbs the rest of the light spectrum.

Major discoveries in the field of color took place in the 20th century. On their basis, lasers, holography, computer graphics are created. The results of scientific research are more and more purposefully used in color science, teaching painting, and influence the creativity of artists of various directions (cubism, kinetic art, etc.)

“Color is the leading principle, organizing space, capable of evoking an active emotional reaction in the viewer. Perceiving a color is not just about seeing it. Color affects our mood, well-being. By causing physiological reactions, it affects the body as a whole and the vital activity of individual organs. Of course, the strength of the impact of color on different people is different. At the same time, the temperament and state of mind of a person is of great importance. A person perceives color not only with the eye, but also with the skin. This conclusion was made by the founder of Russian psychology A.N. Leontiev and confirmed by modern research. " Knowledge of the basics of color science is necessary for many specialists who, by the nature of their creative and industrial activities, deal with flowers, paints, colors, ornaments.

In their daily work, not only visual artists and industrial workers, architects, designers, decorators, decorators, but more recently cinema workers, advertising specialists, photographers and many others are faced with colors.

This knowledge helps building decorators, artisans and consumer goods professionals to understand the many processes associated with flowers. Various phenomena that we encounter on a daily basis in nature and practice.

The study of color science enables specialists to expand and deepen their knowledge, improve their skills.

“A thorough study of the great artists who were masterful in color led me to the firm conviction that they were all familiar with the science of color. The color theories of Goethe, Runge, Bezold, Chevreul and Hölzel were of great importance to me. If we want to get rid of subjective dependence, then this is possible only through the knowledge of the objective fundamental laws of colorʼʼ

Color is one of the most powerful means of informational, emotional and aesthetic impact. He is engaged in a number of scientific disciplines, each of which studies color from the side of its interest.

Physicsinterested in the energetic nature of color and the possibility of measuring it, physiology - the process of perceiving light radiation by a person and converting it into color, psychology - the problem of color perception and its impact on the psyche, its ability to evoke various emotions. In color measurement, an important role is played by psychophysics - a science that studies the relationship between physically measurable stimuli * and the sensations caused by these stimuli. Analysis of the categorization of color in the structure of the subject's consciousness ͵ the reasons and patterns of the existence of color meanings, the rules for their generation and functioning are the subject of psychos-semantics colors .

The history of color classification can be divided into 2 large periods - from prehistoric times to the 16th century and from the 17th century to the present day (for details, see the books of LN Mironova).

Primitive and modern primitive peoples identified colors with the most valuable substances and vital elements for them. These are fire and blood, milk, earth and correspond to them red, white and black. This triad has retained the meaning of the main one. The famous English ethnographer, researcher of the culture of African peoples Victor Turner stated: ʼʼ ... among the most ancient symbols created by man belong three colors - red, black and white, associated with the products of the human body ... Three colors associated with the strongest and most ancient human experiences of pain and pleasures are the basis of the primary classification of the worldʼʼ.

Then the yellow color of the earth (among the Greeks and Chinese), the blue color of the sky (among the Chinese and Egyptians) and the green color of vegetation (among all peoples) were added to this triad. In the Hellenistic period of ancient culture, other methods of classification appear - colors are divided into noble and low, cultural and barbaric, dark and bright.

The development of culture has led to the complexity of color classification. In medieval Europe, where the basis of life was the Christian religion and its dogmas, colors were subdivided into divine and godless. In Christian mysticism, heaven is expressed in blue, hell in red, and earth in yellow. Gray and brown are despised. During the Renaissance in Europe, both ancient and medieval color classifications are used.

Development of the science of color. The Renaissance science of color absorbed everything that was obtained by previous centuries: the teachings of the materialists of Ancient Greece, the metaphysics of Aristotle, the mysticism of Plato, the medieval symbolism of light and color - the optics of Alhazen and Vitello. At the same time, the rudiments of objective physical and optical knowledge about color and color vision appeared, understood and developed only centuries later. These are the works of Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Vasari, Filecia, Telaezio, Ficino, Rayme, Laplacezo.

Scientists who have contributed to the science of color.Scientists - physicists, chemists, physiologists, mathematicians, psychologists, as well as practitioners engaged in dyeing fabrics or engraving, artists, poets, philosophers, ethnographers, linguists - have contributed to the development of the science of color.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) laid the foundation for modern concepts of the physical nature of color and the exact terminology for color. , explaining the physical nature of color using precise terminology. Having discovered the relationship between the refraction of light and color, he was the first to try to systematize the world of colors. Newton discovered that a ray of white light can be decomposed into its constituent colors (Figure 2.1).

Fig. 2.1. Newton's experiment

He called the resulting continuous series of colors spectrum , described the order of the colors in it and gave them the names: red, orange, yellow, green-green, blue, indigo, purple... Please note that these are not separate colors͵ but color areas. It is believed that Newton introduced seven names by analogy with seven notes in music. We remembered this order from school times as: to every abouthotnik fwants snat , gde fromwalking fadhan (when changing the name indigo in Russian blue) . He was the first to arrange the colors of the spectrum in the form color wheel(fig. 2.2).

The concept of the color wheel has had a huge impact on the development of the science of color (color systematization) and its application in practice.

Fig. 2.2. I. Newton's color wheel

Until the middle of the 19th century, it was not possible to combine the conflicting theories of the doctrine of color. Newton argued that the combination of all spectral colors gives white, artists referred to the fact that the combination of pigments of different colors gives a dark gray color.

But in 1852 ᴦ. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Helmholtz (1821 - 1894) - the largest German scientist in the field of physiology, physics and mathematics found the reason for this discrepancy of views. He managed to get white light by mixing not all colored rays, but all two light fluxes: a yellow-blue pair or a red-green pair. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, he came up with the concepts of additive and subtractive color mixing.

He called the process of adding multi-colored streams of light "additive mixing". Additive color mixing can be demonstrated on the basis of mixing (addition) of light fluxes of three basic colors: red, green and blue... These are primary additivecolors.

Figure 2.3 Additive color addition

Fig. 2.4 Subtractive color addition

Primary subtractive colors are: yellow, purple and blue... Two triads of colors (named after the first letters of the English color names, respectively, RGB and CMY) form a full six-color color wheel, which is widely used in modern technology. It turned out that it corresponds to the color wheel proposed by Goethe (see below Fig. 2.5). This circle, due to the objective nature of color, should not be composed of other colors.

The discovery of two types of mixing had a tremendous impact on the entire subsequent development of the science of color and on the practical application of color in modern computer technology. Monitors and scanners can use an additive color system because they are emissive or emitting devices — they can add red, green, and blue light to darkness. Printers and printing machines reproduce colors on paper and other materials, that is, they deal with reflected light. For this reason, printers use subtractive colors such as cyan, magenta, and yellow. These colors are additional *to additive. In the model of additive synthesis, combinations of primary additive and primary subtractive: blue and yellow, green and magenta, red and cyan, selected in a certain ratio, give white.

The emergence of a consistent image, a decrease in the saturation of a bright red color after prolonged observation, Helmholtz explained by fatigue of the retina. To accurately characterize color, he suggested using hue, saturation, and lightness (brightness). Helmholtz used Thomas Young's idea that color vision is caused by excitation of 3 types of receptors in the optic nerve and brought it to the idea of \u200b\u200baddition curves. Knowledge of the color addition functions made possible what is now called "spectrophotometric color measurement". Subsequently, the work of Koenig, Kohlrausch, Schrödinger, Luther, Goering, von Chris, Rösch, Dieterici led to the possibility of color measurements.

One of the first studies of the remarkable physicist James Clarke Maxwell was work on the physiology and physics of color vision and colorimetry (1852-1872). In 1861ᴦ. Maxwell was the first to demonstrate a color image obtained from the simultaneous projection of red, green and blue transparencies onto a screen, thereby proving the validity of the three-component theory of color vision and at the same time outlining the ways of creating color photography. He created one of the first instruments for the quantitative measurement of color.

The German physiologist Ewald Goering (1834–1918) made an enormous contribution to the teaching of color, dividing it into physical, physiological and psychological areas. He himself studied the processes of adaptation and experience in assessing color in changing conditions, color memory and color constancy. Unlike his predecessors, Goering believed that the main colors are not three, but four colors. He operated with pairs of complementary colors: yellow - blue and red - green, and believed that there are three substances in the retina, each of which gives the impression of complementary colors. The sensation of yellow and red occurs during the decomposition of the color-sensitive substance, and green and blue - as a result of its recovery. To these two pairs is added a black-white pair.

The chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) is remembered primarily for his color theory ͵ although he was a chemist and was awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He laid the foundation for methodology (research on the development of science and planning scientific work with the aim of making it more intensive) and was engaged in the normalization of the organization of science on an international scale. At his own expense, he founded the institute for the organization of mental labor. Of his 45 books, 16 are devoted to the teaching of color, and 5 to painting. But he began to study color at the age of 61. He was the founder of Die Farbe magazine. His color system (he was the creator of the Color Harmony Manual) was widely used in pre-war Germany.

To characterize color ͵ in contrast to Helmholtz characteristics, Ostwald suggested using the proportion of absolute (full, pure) color the proportion of white and the proportion of black. The sum of these values \u200b\u200bfor each color is one. These characteristics were subsequently used in other color systems.

Science and art are engaged in color... Over the past two centuries, the scientific aspects of color perception have been the subject of interest not only for scientists, but also for artists, musicians and writers. As he said. One of the most remarkable founders of the science of color was David L. Mac Adam ʼʼAlmost everyone who contributed to the science of color was obsessed with an interest in color in art. The use of objective methods ... stemmed from the inherent difficulties of color and its application, which they were passionate about solving.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe is a scientist, poet, humanist, author of The Study of Color (1810 ᴦ.), One of the implacable opponents of Newton's theory. Goethe's scientific interest in color is inspired by the natural optical phenomena and coloristic traditions of the Renaissance in painting, which he encountered during his first trip to Italy (1786-1788). Goethe considered all the phenomena associated with color from the standpoint of the impact of color on a person. He distinguished between the effect on the human body (physiological) and the effect on his inner world (psychophysiological). The study of the effect of various color impressions on the psyche allowed him to be the first to present them in the form of a clear system. The basis of his theory and system was the presence of two opposite poles - light and darkness. Goethe noticed that after long-term perception of a color in the eye, an additional color is evoked in the form of a sequential image. He explained the sequential image by the natural reaction of the body to the received irritation. Conclusion - balance, harmony is achieved with the help of complementary colors. He called the combination of opposite colors in a circle harmonious, the combination of related (neighboring) colors - inharmonious, and the combination of distant neighboring colors - characteristic. He built a color wheel, but the sequence of colors in it is not a closed spectrum, like Newton's, but a color relationship consisting of two triangles, or three pairs of complementary colors. He believed that ʼʼ the rainbow has been incorrectly cited so far as an example of color integrity: it lacks the main color pure red purple " . His color wheel consisted of six colors: yellow, cyan, magenta, green, blue-violet, yellow-red (Fig. 2.5). ʼʼ With these three or six colors, which are conveniently arranged in the form of a circle, the only elementary teaching about color deals with. All the rest, endlessly varying shades are already more likely to the applied field, relate to the technique of the artist, painter…ʼʼ ... Goethe proposed to unite color phenomena in a single circle, the connections in which turned out to be not accidental, but regularities - stable. This pattern is not realized in every circle. Opposing colors in the circle were chosen in such a way as to be complementary to each other. Goethe said that diametrically opposite colors are exactly those that mutually evoke each other in the mind of the viewer.

Goethe's empirical approach made it necessary to recognize the extreme importance of inclusion in the full color wheel non-spectral purple in color. Magenta has its rightful place in all modern color systems.

Fig. 2.5 Goethe's color wheel

Goethe treated flowers as a visible expression of feelings - emotions and divided them in relation to each other as follows: characteristic, harmonious, characterless and weak. The most harmonious colors are, those that are located opposite each other, at the ends of the diameters of the color wheel. It is they who call each other and together form the integrity and completeness, similar to the completeness of the color wheel.

Unlike his symmetrical circle, Newton's color wheel, with seven colors and unequal angles, did not show symmetry and interdependence, which Goethe regarded as significant features of color.

Errors in mixing purple with red and the long use in teaching practice as the three primary colors - red, blue and yellow - could have been caused by the fact that Goethe called the `` red '' we are used to `` yellow-red '', and purple - `` red '' (ʼʼ One must imagine a completely pure red color, perfect, dried carmine on a white porcelain saucer. We have called this color more than once, due to its high dignity, purple ... this is the highest of all color phenomena arises from the meeting of two opposite ends(spectrum) who gradually prepared themselves for the connection " .

The theory of induction, created by Goethe, was the first to explain the phenomenon of color harmony by a scientific method. He noticed that any color generates in the organ of vision a reaction of resistance to this stimulus coming from outside. The phenomenon of auto-induction occurs: the appearance of a color ͵ opposite to the observed one. So, red gives rise to green-green in the organ of vision (requires green-green), yellow requires violet, blue - orange. Now it became clear why in painting red requires green and blue requires yellow.

Goethe also considers other attributes of color͵ connecting them with human emotions. He introduced a list of "plus", which includes such colors as yellow and yellow-red, carrying light, strength, warmth and "minus", for example, blue, which is identified with shadow, cold, weakness, longing.

What Goethe blamed - the artistic method, subjectivism, allowed the great German poet to consider the subtle interconnections between color and the human psyche. The metaphor of the "luminous soul of man" was convincingly confirmed in the work of Goethe. In his teaching, the correct provisions regarding the psychological impact of color ͵ coexist with incorrect ideas about the physical nature of light. So, he believed that white light is a single whole and is indecomposable.

Philip Otto Runge (1777 - 1810) - an outstanding painter of the romantic school, a contemporary of Goethe. Their views coincided. He proposed to represent the whole variety of colors not in the form of a color wheel, but in the form of a ball (for more details, see the section “Color systematization”).

W. Turner (1775-1851) was interested in the works of Isaac Newton, studied Goethe's book on color and created some compositions on its basis.

Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) was actively involved in the problems of color and its laws all his life. Delacroix in his works applied the principles gleaned from the books "The Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colors" ("De la loi du contraste simultaneous des couleurs et de l" assortiment des objets colores considere d "apres cette loi dans ses rapports avec la peinture"), 1839 ᴦ. and "Colors and their application in industrial art using chromatic circles" ("Des couleurs et leurs application aux arts industriels al" aide des cereles chromatique "), 1864 ᴦ., Michel-Eugene Chevreul (1786-1889) - famous a French chemist, member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and manager of a dyeing plant at a tapestry-enamel in Paris.

His research has had a tangible impact on the development of the science of color. One of the basic principles of his theory: bright, contrasting colors͵ taken in reasonable proportions do not change their shade, but, on the contrary, make each other clearer, more juicy. When two similar colors are taken in small quantities and spread over the surface, the result is an almost new color - already dull and unattractive. Working with dyes and dyeing led him to the idea of \u200b\u200bstudying the mutual influence of colors. How should the colors be mixed? When do colors harmonize and when do they contrast? The results of his research had a great influence on the improvement of the artistic and aesthetic value of products, not only at the Gobeléin manufactory, but also at other factories in France. Thanks to the achievements of Chevreul, the quality of color printing on fabric and paper, the production of maps, mosaics and even decorative gardening improved.

Based on the principles of his theory, the Impressionists developed their approach to color, including the use of the entire gamut of paints without mixing, the separation of the local color from the color colored by light and the arrangement of the smallest dots of pure tone next to each other in such a way that these tones are mixed in the eye viewer, created the third color. This chemist developed the laws of color harmony, which are still accepted today. Οʜᴎ served as the basis for the development of pointillism. He was interested in problems arising from the interaction of colors on a surface. He found that the effect of simultaneous color contrast and color shifts is greater, the closer in size the compared colors and the closer they are to each other.

Later, the artist Josef Albers and representatives of the op-art school, who were looking for ways to increase the brightness of color, showed interest in Chevreul's books.

Many artists got acquainted with the theory of color from the books of authors who simplified Chevreul's work and included concepts that are applicable in painting. One of these authors was Ogden Nicholas Rood (1831-1902), an American physicist, artist, and teacher who sought to build a bridge between science and art. In his book Modern Chromatics, 1879, he explained many concepts that were still unknown to many artists: different types of color mixing, color characteristics, etc.

The neo-impressionists Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1863-1935) were deeply influenced by Ogden Rude's book and applied their knowledge to the creation of their canvases.

Johannes Itten (1888-1967), Swiss artist, theorist of new art, the largest researcher of color in art and one of the leading teachers of the famous Bauhaus, developed the theory of color contrasts. In his book The Art of Color, he examines the patterns of color contrasts, color harmony, and color design. It is written on the basis of observations of color in nature and works of art from different times and peoples.

Josef Albers (1888-1976), artist and color theorist͵ one of the leaders of geometric abstraction, a member of the Bauhaus school of art and industrial design, paid particular attention to the interaction and relativity of color perception. He determined that based on certain situations, the same color can be perceived as two different shades. In 1963, the master published the main theoretical work "Interaction of Colors", where he outlined his ideals of a sterile-pure form as an extremely important fundamental principle of creativity. He had a great influence on the development of op-art and post-pictorial abstractionism.

Kandinsky V.V. (1866 -1944), Russian artist, art theorist and poet, one of the leaders of the avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century, teacher of the Bauhaus. Especially famous became his course "Color", in which he proposed associations between primary colors and basic geometric shapes: yellow - triangle, red - square and blue - circle. Kandinsky taught the theory of color from the history of the development of various color systems to the psychology of color perception and the specifics of working with “non-colors” - black and white.

Albert H. Munsell (1858-1918), artist and teacher at the Massachusetts School of Art, became interested in a method for teaching children about color. Based on the fact that music is equipped with a system by which each sound is determined by pitch, intensity and duration, I used a system based on hue, lightness and saturation to denote color. For many decades, this system, which bears his name, was widely used in the United States, where its designations were incorporated into US government standards and the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM). Munsell's designation is the basis for all Japanese color standards, and the British Standards Institute uses it in the standards to indicate the color of paints. Until now, the Munsell system is used in scientific research as a model for a uniform color space.

It should be noted the work of Russian scientists in the area of \u200b\u200bcolor. The first ideas of the three-component color vision were expressed by our great scientist M.V. Lomonosov in his "Word about the origin of light" a new theory of colors representing, July 1 day 1756 ᴦ. spoken

The cause of light, according to Lomonosov, is the “vibrating” (oscillatory) movement of the ether particles. Ether consists, as Lomonosov thought, of particles of three kinds, differing from each other in their size. Three kinds of particles of the ether can combine and bring three kinds of particles of matter into "rotational" (rotational) motion. In this case, ʼʼthe first magnitude ether is combined with salt, the second magnitude with mercury, the third magnitude with sulfuric ... matter ʼʼ

One eye also consists of the same matter. Through the "one eye" we see colors "due to the fact that the" aetheric particles "adhere to the joint particles of the original matter, the body of the constituents. So, according to Lomonosov, a different degree of excitement of three different color-sensing “matter of the bottom of the eye” lies in the basis of our vision of all the colors of the surrounding world.

“Finally, I find,” Lomonosov formulates the main idea of \u200b\u200bhis theory of colors, “that from the first kind of ether comes the color red, from the second yellow, from the third blue. Protruding flowers are born from the mixing of the firstʼʼ. That is, in his opinion, the main colors are red, yellow and blue.

Russian scientists of the XX century - colorimetrists and lighting technicians: N.D. Nyberg, S.V. Kravkov, G.N. Rautian, L.I. Demkina, N.T. Fedorov, M.M. Gurevich, V.V. Meshkov, S.O. Maisel, EB Rabkin and many experts in color measurements in various industries have made a great contribution to the science of color and its applications.

The head of the Russian school of colorimetry is Yustova Elizaveta Nikolaevna. All her life (97 years) until the very last days she devoted to colorimetry. Author of fundamental research and definition of the basic physiological system RGB visual receivers of the eye and characteristics of their spectral sensitivity. Developed new original tables for detecting color vision defects, a set of metrological tools for organizing color services in the country, exemplary colorimetric equipment. The solution to the fundamental problem of determining the spectral sensitivity of the human eye, brilliantly performed by her, is given in the famous physics course by Richard Feynman. Her motto: юLove in life - ϶ᴛᴏ vector.
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Interaction between receiver and transmitter. One person radiates love and the other accepts it. Colorimetry is also love. Love eyes for color! ... as for colorimetry, now I can't imagine life without it. There is only one such science in the world: it cannot live without a living person, because the main measuring device, the original instrument of colorimetry, is ʼʼ our eyeʼʼ.

Color science

The science of color, including knowledge about the nature of color, primary, composite and complementary colors, basic color characteristics, color contrasts, color mixing, coloration, color harmony, color language, color harmony and color culture.

At the moment, there are three relatively independent approaches to the definition of the concept of "Color". These are I. Newton's mechanistic approach E. Hering's phenomenological approach and Goethe's aesthetic-phenomenological approach. An intermediate position between the latter two is occupied by the point of view of a number of psychologists who study the effects of Color on a person. Modern scientists, probably revealing the latter meaning, say that color is a characteristic function of perception, conveying expressiveness and allowing one to acquire certain knowledge about an object.

This research is only interested in the approach to color from the point of view of the artist.

Color

One of the properties of objects in the material world, perceived as a conscious visual sensation. One or another color is "assigned" by a person to objects in the process of their visual perception. The perception of color can partially change depending on the psychophysiological state of the observer, for example, increase in dangerous situations, decrease with fatigue.

Color serves as a means of communication, self-expression. The Science of Color Science consists of several sections. Some of them are closely related to the field of physics, in others our visual perceptions are investigated, in the third, a classification of colors is developed, and the laws of color harmony are established.

Artists are mainly interested in those sections, familiarity with which helps to observe and depict the phenomena of reality. Here, only the most brief information necessary for a novice artist is given.

The main condition for visual perception is light. In the dark, the world is unknowable to our eyes. The light of the sun is considered to be white. In reality, it has a complex color composition, which is revealed when a beam of light is passed through a glass prism. The spectrum obtained in this way contains a number of colors, gradually passing one into another.

Depending on the special equipment, a spectrum of larger or smaller sizes can be obtained, but the sequence of colors and their transitions are always the same. At one end of the spectrum are violet and at the other, red.

The colors of the rainbow are the spectrum that we observe in natural conditions (refraction and reflection of sunlight in raindrops scattered in the air).

The group of red, orange, yellow and yellow-green colors is usually called warm (by similarity to the color of the sun, fire, etc.), and bluish-green, blue, blue and purple colors are called cold (by similarity to the moonlight, ice etc.).

This division is arbitrary. Each color can have different shades and, in combination with others, appear warmer or colder. For example, a red with a slight touch of blue will be colder than an orange-red; the more there is a golden yellow admixture in the green, the warmer its shade; lemon yellow is colder than golden yellow, etc. The concept of warm-cold color ratios enriches our observations of nature and the possibilities of the language of painting.

There are no white and gray colors in the spectrum. White and gray colors make up a special group. You can also add black ones (which are also absent in the spectrum). Whites, grays and blacks are called achromatic, and all others are chromatic. The degree of difference of chromatic color from achromatic of the same lightness is determined in color science by the term color saturation. Artists usually use the words “color saturation” to denote its sonority and depth.

Lightness (or luminosity) is also a property of color. Light colors include yellow, pink, blue, light green, etc., dark colors include blue, purple, dark red, etc. Each color, of course, can be lighter or darker. The intensity of the color depends on both saturation and lightness (often artists, not quite accurately, use the terms intense and saturated color as unambiguous).