PRIME: TOWARDS
A COLOUR THEORY, continued
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My
pupils successfully created their own colour circles,
merging the process colours, primary yellow
with magenta;
magenta
with cyan,
and cyan
with yellow;
to reveal in the mixtures, various oranges,
reds,
blues
and greens;
and above all, that elusive
violet, instead of a
muddy brown.
Further, they were not confused by the information
received from other areas of the curriculum. |
It
would appear, that my experience may not
be uncommon, as shown in the writing of
José M. Parramón, a strong proponent of
Thomas Young‘s Colour Synthesis as modified
by Hermann von Helmholtz, who wrote in
the prologue of his book (footnote
11.)
on the subject of Colour Theory:
"
When I began to
study colour, I found to my surprise and
astonishment, that most, if not all, books
published on colour theory still talked
about the spectrum of seven colours that
still included indigo.
They failed to take into account that
colour photography and television had
demonstrated, physically and chemically,
by means of the additive and subtractive
synthesis of colours, that there existed
only three primary colours and three secondary
colours, six in all. It is, therefore,
impossible in theory or in practice to
have a seventh colour. I also discovered
that many writers still think of orange
as one of the primary pigment colours.
However, it has already been demonstrated,
not only by photography and television,
but also by photo-mechanics and graphic
Arts, that subtractive synthesis does
not consist of the mixture of yellow
blue and
orange, but
of the mixture of
yellow, blue
and crimson.
Crimson is a light red colour scientifically
and technically known as magenta, unnamed,
was adopted by photographers and graphic
artists when they print in full colour,
with just three colours and black. " |
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