Spectrum. Color circle

The color wheel will help you figure out how tones interact with each other: their construction; simple, effective color schemes. A photo.

Itten's color wheel is a model of the interaction of shades with each other: separation by primary and secondary colors, by wavelength, into cold and warm tones, and also builds the order of combination.

The color wheel was invented as a tool for working with paints for beginners. This little picture showed the parent properties of the primary colors: yellow, blue, and red. The triangles on the sides of the central figure are child tones. So green is the result of mixing yellow with blue, and orange is red with yellow, in turn magenta is the result of red with blue. The shell, in the form of a circle, describes the spectrum (the dependence of color on the light wave): from red (the longest wave) to violet (the shortest), the connection between its two ends is purple, which has no wave. It turns out that the purple tone combines positive and negative infinity, thereby describing the biological feature of the relationship of color with the human eye: if red and purple hit the retina at the same time, we see phantom purple.

Color wheel colors

However, the color wheel is a flat (in the literal sense of the word) representation of the overall color model, we are not limited to 12 colors, but use thousands and thousands of shades. The full model looks like a ball, where the shades of the color wheel are the equator, and the poles are white and black:

And the spread will already contain information about the interaction of shades in the color ball: from pastel to dark tones.

Inside this ball there is an axis: from white to black - medium gray. This allows any section of the ball to see a gradient from gray to light or dark tones of any color.

If we imagine not an exaggeratedly segmented ball, but with an iridescent gradient, then all possible shades will fit into it.

Circle of color combinations

Despite the fact that the tool was developed a long time ago, its practical application is still relevant. It not only gives an idea of ​​​​color and the construction of shades, but also teaches how to combine them effectively.

The color combination circle has a set of color schemes.

Bicolor harmony of complementary colors. If you mix these colors on the palette, they will give a dirty brown tint, but in theory, when mixed, they should be gray. These shades are the most contrasting to each other, sometimes they look defiant. Such combinations are often used in art to achieve more vivid images.

Extremely remote couples. This combination is bright, but softer, unlike complementary colors. It is more acceptable for clothes and interior.

Adjacent and similar colors do not form a contrast, but can maintain harmony. They are used to emphasize the main shade or as an addition to multi-color harmony.

Triad combination on the color wheel begins with similar shades, which, like two similar ones, do not create contrast, but maintain harmony.

Classical triad and contrast triad- this is a scheme of a three-color combination along the color circle according to the principle of a triangle: equilateral and acute. The most beautiful combinations can be created on the principle of acute, but equilateral gives soft, balanced combinations.

There are 4 options for a four-color combination on the color wheel:

This is a four-color contrasting harmony: it was created on the basis of the contrasting triad and is its close relative. Such combinations are catchy, impressive.

Four color classical harmony a relative of harmony based on an equilateral triangle. It is softer, but full in tone.

Square Harmony and Rectangular Harmony- these are four-color combinations, like two rectangular ones, have the same dependence. Determining colors using a square gives a softer gamut than a rectangular method.

Six color harmony created using the shape of an equilateral hexagon. This is a complex combination that is very difficult to pick up on your own, so the usefulness of this tool is obvious.

Compiling combinations is a rather difficult job, and not everyone, even people professionally associated with color, can build an ideal harmony in their heads that would suit them in all respects. Therefore, in order to work with color in any conditions, there is a cardboard tool -.

If we take into account the color ball, then the color wheel itself can contain many shades, for which the principles of compatibility along the classic circle will be relevant.

Chapter 2. Color

2.1. Spectral colors. Basic color characteristics

Spectrum - the sequence of colors into which the light flux passing through the prism is decomposed. First obtained by I. Newton.

achromatic - White, black, and all shades of grey. This spectrum includes rays of all wavelengths equally, and the energy of the individual rays that make up this mixture is the same.

Chromotic colors - all spectral and many natural. Colors that differ in different chromaticity (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, purple).

Semi-chromatic colors are earth colors, i.e. colors mixed with achromatic colors.

Color characteristics belong to the field of physics and represent qualitatively and quantitatively measured light stimuli that can cause physiological processes in the human body and through them - various mental, emotional reactions. Therefore, the concepts of lightness, hue, saturation, color temperature can also be considered as basic concepts from the field of vision psychology.

lightness or tone

Any colors and shades can be compared by lightness, that is, to determine which of them is darker and which is lighter. Lightness is a quality inherent in both chromatic and achromatic colors. Any chromatic color can be compared in lightness with an achromatic color.

Lightness is a feature that defines a color as light or dark. In the color wheel, yellow has the highest lightness, and violet has the lowest lightness.

Different variants of paint of the same color, but strengthened or weakened, are called shades or tones. Hue refers to the amount of light reflected by a surface.

Hue is the amount of light in a given color.

Hue is the degree of saturation of light, and lightness is an inherent quality of any color.

A simple and clear description of lightness in relation to color was given by Ostwald, a German scientist who studied color, who believed that the lightness of each colorful spot depends on two components - on the lightness of achromatic gray, which is in all colors, and on the own lightness of color rays. It can be said that the color of the same color can be lighter and darker without changing colors. Alberti wrote about this: "The admixture of white does not change the genus of the color, but creates its varieties."

The difference in lightness gives and creates a sense of volume.

Color tone

What artists, and even ordinary people, call color, in color science is called color tone.

Hue color - the quality of color, in respect of which this color can be equated with one of the colors of the spectral or magenta.
Hue is the quality of a color that allows it to be named (red, blue, etc.). It is measured by the wavelength of the radiation that dominates the spectrum of a given color. Achromatic colors have no hue.

Saturation

Color saturation - the degree of difference between a chromatic color and an achromatic color of equal lightness, measured by the number of discrimination thresholds n from a given color to achromatic. In everyday speech, saturation is described by the words: dull, pale, strong, weak. For artists: dense, thick.

Darkening or lightening a color - lowering its saturation. By whitening the color, we make it less colored, pale, and by darkening, we muffle it. Psychologically, bright, pure, intense colors are always perceived as lighter than dull, faded ones.

To a certain extent, saturation also depends on the hue. The colors of pure paints (spectral) also have different saturation. Yellow is the most saturated, while red and blue are less so. When bleached, yellow paint retains its yellowness longer than others. If we take into account that when red is whitened, we get pink, which, becoming lighter, acquires a cold tint, then we can say that with a change in lightness and saturation, some changes in color tone occur.

Saturation and purity of color

Often saturation and color purity are interpreted as synonyms. Purity of color in color science is understood as the absence of impurities of other colors or their shades in a particular color. Only three are considered pure colors in the spectrum: red, yellow, blue. These colors are called primary or primary. Color purity is more of a psychological concept than a physical one: “not pure” orange can also be represented in the spectrum by waves of a certain length.

color range

This is a sequence of colors that have at least one characteristic in common, while others change naturally from one color to another. Color series have their own names, depending on what characteristics change in them.

1) A series of decreasing purity and increasing brightness. This series is done by whitening, i.e. adding white to the spectrum.

2) A series of decreasing saturation (muting, mixing chromatic paint with equally bright gray)

3) A series of decreasing brightness and decreasing saturation (blackening).

4) Row by color tone. This is a mixture of two neighboring spectral colors (and within no more than 1/4 of the interval of the light circle).

Color temperature

An interesting attempt to group colors in the category of "warm and cold". Considering the spectral circle given to us by Isaac Newton, we divide it into warm and cold parts.

The red-orange part of the spectrum does contain more thermal energy than the blue-green part of the spectrum, and it has been experimentally established that positive emotions make us more sensitive to red and yellow, and negative emotions to blue. In fact, the difference between a cold color and a warm one is, of course, the most common. In nature, color temperature is often determined by the state of the atmosphere, lighting, season, our well-being, age, gender, mood, education, and many other factors.

The terms "warm" and "cold" carry little information regarding pure color shades. For example, red is warm and blue is cold. Pure yellow also seems cold, because it is light.

R. Arnheim proposed his theory, which seemed very interesting to many. He believed that the effect of color perception is created not by the main color shade, but by a color that has a slight deviation from the main one. Therefore, any color in its color tone can be cold or warm. Rather, we can talk about "warmer - colder", i.e. about shades of color when compared with "neutral" pure. This leads to an unexpected result: reddish-blue is warmer than bluish-red.

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The colors of the spectrum, starting with red and passing through shades opposite, contrasting with red (green, cyan), then turn into purple, again approaching red. The proximity of the visible perception of violet and red colors is due to the fact that the frequencies corresponding to the violet spectrum approach frequencies that are exactly twice as high as the red frequencies. But these last indicated frequencies themselves are already outside the visible spectrum. Therefore, we do not see the transition from violet back to red, as happens in the color wheel, which includes non-spectral colors and where there is a transition between red and violet through magenta hues.

The practice of artists clearly showed that many colors and shades can be obtained by mixing a small amount of colors. The desire of natural philosophers to find the fundamental principles of everything in the world, analyzing the phenomena of nature, to decompose everything into elements, led to the selection primary colors. Primary and secondary colors are usually illustrated using color wheel (Fig. 7.3).

It has been found that optical mixing of certain pairs of colors can give the impression of white. Complementary colors (mutually complementary or opposite ) name pairs of colors,

Rice. 7.3.

optical mixing of which leads to obtaining achromatic color (white, gray or black). In the RGB triad of primary colors "red - green - blue" additional are respectively "cyan - magenta - yellow". That is, primary and secondary colors in RGB look like this:

• red and cyan red – cyan ) (cyan - blue-green color);
• green and purple green – magenta ) (purple or magenta - between raspberry and lilac);
• blue and yellow colors blue – yellow ).

The radiations that make up additional colors can have a different spectral composition (the phenomenon of metamerism). On the color wheel, which is built on the principle of RGB, these colors are placed in opposition, so that the colors of both triads alternate.

Color wheel colors

In the RGB system (red - green - blue), colors are divided into 12 primary tones: 3 primary colors, 3 additional to the primary and 6 more intermediate tones (Table 7.1).

Colors in the system RGB

Table 7.1

When mixing complementary colors, achromatic colors are obtained:

• at additive mixing (typical for mixing streams of light), the result is white;
• at subtractive mixing (subtraction of spectra, typical for mixing different pigments) - gray or black.

Thus, the combined action of light fluxes, causing a sensation of the corresponding spectral and additional to the spectral colors, is white. Complementary colors are mixed colors, since their sensation is caused by the joint action of monochromatic rays, which separately give their spectral colors. Primary and secondary colors are also called primary and secondary flowers.

In the RYB system, where the main triad is red - yellow - blue, the concepts and ratios of primary and secondary colors are different:

• Red Green;
• yellow - purple;
• blue - orange.

Non-spectral colors

In addition to spectral, there are many non-spectral colors (magenta hues, etc.). Colors are also divided into chromatic and achromatic (white, grey, black).

Let's list non-spectral colors:

• shades of gray (achromatic colors);
• any color obtained by mixing a color with shades of gray, such as lilac, formed by mixing purple and white;
• purple colors;
• mixed colors, such as brown, ocher, etc.

achromatic colors

Shades of gray (in the range of white - black) are called achromatic (from Greek. a is a negative particle and chroma- color), i.e. colorless flowers. The absence of color is understood not as the absence of color as such, but the absence of a color tone, a specific shade of the spectrum. The brightest achromatic color is white, the darkest is black (Fig. 7.4).

Each color sensation in a person can be represented as the sum of the sensations of these three colors (the so-called “three-component theory of color vision”). It has been established that reptiles, birds and some fish have a wider area of ​​perceived optical radiation. They perceive near ultraviolet radiation (300-380 nm), blue, green and red part of the spectrum. When the brightness necessary for color perception is reached, the most highly sensitive receptors of twilight vision - rods - are automatically turned off.

Spectrum colors and primary colors

A world-famous physicist once conducted one interesting experiment: he installed a trihedral prism in the path of an ordinary sunbeam, as a result of which it decomposed into 6 primary colors. It is worth noting that the scientist was initially able to distinguish only 5 segments from them, but then he decided that he would divide this beam by as many as seven, so that the number was equal to the number of notes. However, after this color spectrum was folded into a circle, it turned out that one of the shades needed to be removed, and blue became the victim. So until now, from a scientific point of view, there are only 6 basic tones in nature, but each of us knows, even using the example of a rainbow, that among them one can see the seventh.

Breaking down the spectrum

To understand what a color spectrum is, let's try to divide it into two parts. The first will contain primary colors, the second, respectively, secondary. In the first group we will include such tones as red, yellow and blue. They are basic and, when properly combined with each other, form all the others. Among them, in turn, we call orange, purple and green. The first can be obtained by mixing red with yellow, the second with red with blue, and the third with yellow and blue. Against the background of all that, it becomes clear why the color spectrum has left the blue tone. You can get it simply by mixing blue with white, which already makes it a minor tone.

A more complex version of the spectrum

Modern scientists distinguish not 6, but 12 segments in the color spectrum. Among them there are not only primary and secondary tones, but also tertiary ones, which fill the space of the circle between the first two categories. This third group includes red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet and red-violet. Such an expansion tells us that the color spectrum is a whole scope for various combinations that can form incredible shades. For example, blue-green in a certain consistency with white gives the most fashionable shade of the season - turquoise. And red-violet also, in combination with white paint, forms lilac, mysterious and enigmatic.

Initial tones

Surely you know that all the above colors are chromatic, that is, having a bright shade, fill. Along with them, there are achromatic tones, which consist of white, black and all shades of gray, from very light to extremely dark. Thanks to them, the modern color spectrum is becoming much wider, and it is already filled with not even 12 shades, but much more. The original depicts a circle consisting of 12 segments. Each of them includes 8 more, or even more shades, which, as they approach the center, become lighter and lighter. This effect is achieved by mixing the original color with white. In the example that was given above, we pointed out that even the tertiary tone of the spectrum can be diluted with white and thereby changed beyond recognition.

The influence of color on our lives

In order not to go into those banal demagogies that tell us about the allegedly hidden influences of one color or another on the behavior and psyche of a person, we note only briefly that they seem closer to us, and the cold ones, as if pressed into something, move away from the gaze. Thanks to this effect, you can manipulate the visual effects in the room, create profitable advertising and perform various other operations. It is also important to note that the color spectrum can tend not only to white (as described above), but also to dark. Similarly, we can dilute any segment of the circle, both primary and tertiary, with black or any shade of gray, as a result of which they will become either richer and even brighter, or darker. This fact is also important to consider when creating various projects both in the interior and in other areas of life.

What do we people see?

It is generally accepted that the color spectrum visible to a person is all the primary, primary colors - red, blue and yellow, as well as the multiple variations that are formed from them. Thus, this is a circle of tones, which does not consist of 12 * 8 segments, but much more. Our eye is able to recognize shades of different lightness, moreover, their characteristics in our understanding change depending on many external factors. From a purely scientific point of view, the red wave has the longest wavelength. Therefore, we see yellow, ocher, orange and, accordingly, all shades of red best of all. As you approach purple, all colors gradually lose their wavelength.

Conclusion

In fact, the color spectrum is a mystery of nature. We humans see it only partially. Even based on experiments carried out on many birds, one can be sure that they see much more shades of colors familiar to us, and at the same time their picture before their eyes is more colorful than ours.