I’m taking a course in Color Theory and never thought it would incorporate history, biology, and physics. One of the sites below shows a time-line of color, from prehistoric times to now. I never realized how much the availability of color and the media (oil, egg tempera) impacts art. It makes sense that art would be influenced by the available tools, but I had not made the connection. Yellow ochre has been around since prehistoric times but cadmium red became available in the early 1900’s.
I have a BS in Biology, so I knew how Rods and Cones allow us to see color and shades, but just learned there are three different types of Cones, each react to different wavelengths of color. Also, we cannot perceive the edges of objects where object and background have the same luminance. The third link has a nifty tool that shows how this works.
This stuff may not be as fascinating to others, but I’ve always been the type of person who likes to understand the “why” and “how” of the world around us. Hope you enjoy the links.
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