Color wheel

Color wheel, diagram used in the visual arts to represent the colors of the visible spectrum and their relationships to each other. The colors are arranged systematically in a circle, with each hue falling usually into one of three categories: primary, secondary, or intermediate. In fields such as painting, fashion, film, and design, artists use the color wheel to assemble color schemes and visualize how colors appear beside each other.

There are a number of color wheels, each representing a different color system. Color systems are based on three primary colors from which all other colors in the system can be produced. The set of colors produced from the primary colors is known as the color gamut. Although elementary school students are typically taught that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, there is in fact no set standard of primary colors; any three colors can be assigned as primary colors to create a color system. However, there are sets of primary colors that are more effective—that is, produce a more extensive color gamut—than others. A couple of the best known are the subtractive color system and the additive color system.

The traditional painters’ color wheel is one example of the subtractive color system. Its primary colors are red, yellow, and blue (hence, it is also called the RYB color model, after the first letter of each primary color). The colors are called primary because they cannot be created by combining other hues. Any two of the three primary colors can be mixed to produce the secondary colors: green (made by combining yellow and blue), orange (yellow and red), and violet (blue and red). Mixing a primary color with an adjacent secondary color creates an intermediate color. In this model, the intermediate colors are vermilion (red-orange), amber (yellow-orange), chartreuse (yellow-green), teal (blue-green), indigo (blue-violet), and magenta (red-violet).

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If all the colors of the RYB color model were combined, theoretically, they would create black. This is because colorants, such as pigments or dyes, selectively absorb and reflect light to create color. For example, a yellow pigment absorbs blue and violet wavelengths while reflecting yellow, green, and red wavelengths. Blue pigment absorbs primarily yellow, orange, and red wavelengths. If the yellow and blue pigments are mixed, green will be produced, since it is the only spectral component that is not strongly absorbed by either pigment. In a sense, the yellow and blue pigments take color away from each other, leaving only a green color; hence, the RYB color model is also called a subtractive color system.

Digital artists and those working with colored light use the RGB color model, an additive color system named for its primary colors red, green, and blue. The RGB color model has a larger color gamut than RYB, and it works in the same way that the human eye detects light—by adding wavelengths of red, green, or blue together to create all other visible colors. It is thus considered more accurate than the RYB color model in modern color theory. Additive mixing can be physically demonstrated by using three slide projectors fitted with filters so that one projector shines a beam of saturated red light onto a white screen, another a beam of saturated blue light, and the third a beam of saturated green light. Additive mixing occurs where the beams overlap (and thus are added together). Where red and green beams overlap, yellow is produced. If more red light is added or if the intensity of the green light is decreased, the light mixture becomes orange. Digital displays that emit light, such as computer monitors or televisions, use the RGB color model to produce images.

The placement of colors on a color wheel indicates important visual relationships. Colors of similar hue are grouped together, with warm colors (such as red, vermilion, orange, amber, and yellow) on one side and cool colors (including green, teal, blue, and violet) on the other. Colors that are side-by-side on the wheel are called analogous colors and are often used in paintings to evoke a mood or in design to create a sense of cohesion and harmony. Colors in direct opposition to each other, such as red and green on the RYB wheel, are called complementary colors. When viewed side by side, two complementary colors will appear brighter and more vivid than they would on their own or beside an analogous hue. The complementary color of a primary color will always be a secondary color and vice versa. The complement of an intermediate color will always be another intermediate color.

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Isaac Newton was the first to arrange colors into a wheel; the illustration appeared first in his 1704 book Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light. During his famed prism experiments, Newton discovered that by refracting sunlight onto a wall, white light was made of seven visible colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He then organized the seven hues into a wheel in the order that they appeared.

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In the wake of Opticks, other scientists, artists, and writers composed color wheels and theories of their own, including English entomologist Moses Harris, whose color wheel in The Natural System of Colours (1766) shows a variety of colors produced from red, yellow, and blue; and German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who argued in Theory of Colours (1810) that color is a result of light and darkness interacting—though modern physics does not accept this theory. Others cataloged colors in a variety of shapes, including a starburst (George Field; 1841) and a spherical system (Albert H. Munsell; 1915). The myriad of color wheels and diagrams through the centuries shows that the effort to systematize the seemingly boundless array of visible colors always leaves room for improvement.