PRISMATIC COLOR
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hues because they result from the mixture of the three primaries, red, green, and violet-blue.
In comparing these two color lists, we see that the “indigo” and “orange” of Sir Isaac Newton have been discarded. Both are indefinite, and refer to variable products of the vegetable kingdom. Violet is also borrowed from the same kingdom; and, in order to describe a violet, we say it is a purple violet or blue violet, as the case may be, Just as we describe an orange as a red orange or a yellow orange. ‘Their color difference is not expressed by the terms “orange” or “violet,” but by the words “red,” “vellow,”’ “blue,” or “purple,” all of which are true color names and arouse an unmixed color image.
(91) In the nursery a child learns to use the simple color names red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. When familiarity with the color sphere makes him relate them to each other and place them between black and white by their degree of light and strength, there will be no occasion to revert to vegetables, animals, minerals, or the ever-varying hues of sea and sky to express his color sensations.
(92) Another experiment accentuates the difference between spectral and pigment color. When the spectrum is spread on the screen by the use of a prism, and a second prism is placed inverted beyond the first, it regathers the dispersed rays back into their original beam, making a white spot on the floor. This proves that all the colored rays of light combine to balance each other in whiteness. But if pigments which are the closest possible imitation of these hues are united on a painter’s palette, either by the brush or the knife, they make gray, and not white.
(93) This is another illustration of the behavior of pigments, for, instead of uniting to form white, they form gray, which is a
