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Yellow
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A circular RYB color wheel divided into twelve segments, showing a progression of colors from red, orange, and yellow to green, blue, and violet.
A close up image of a digital color-picker, showing shades of greens, yellows, reds, pinks, and blues.
J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam, and Speed—the Great Western Railway A Venn diagram of the RGB color model shows overlapping red, green, and blue circles. Where the circles overlap, secondary colors magenta, yellow, and cyan appear, with white at the center where all three mix, illustrating additive color mixing. A Venn diagram of the RYB color model shows overlapping red, yellow, and blue circles. Their intersections create secondary colors: orange, green, violet, and black at the center where all three overlap.
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A circular RYB color wheel divided into twelve segments, showing a progression of colors from red, orange, and yellow to green, blue, and violet.
Color wheel The RYB color model is being illustrated on a color wheel.

Yellow

color
Written by
Tanya Kelley
Tanya Kelley is an adjunct professor of German and Spanish at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where she received her Ph.D. in Linguistics and History of Science. Her dissertation was titled World...
Tanya Kelley
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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Yellow, in physics, light in the wavelength range of 570–580 nanometres, which is in the middle of the visible spectrum. In art, yellow is a colour on the conventional colour wheel, located between orange and green and opposite violet, its complementary colour.

A close up image of a digital color-picker, showing shades of greens, yellows, reds, pinks, and blues.
Who Created the Color Wheel?For centuries, people believed that all colors were a mixture of black and white. How did we learn otherwise?
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Yellow is a basic colour term added to languages often before or after green, following black, white, and red. The word yellow derives from Old English geolu (also spelled geolwe) and Proto-Germanic gelwaz. One of the first written records of the term in English is from the Old English “Leiden Riddle” (900 ce): “Uyrmas mec ni auefun uyrdi créftum, / Tha thi geolu godueb gaetum fraetuath” (“Worms did not weave me with the skills of the Fates, / Those that decorate fine yellow cloth”).

J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam, and Speed—the Great Western Railway
J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam, and Speed—the Great Western RailwayRain, Steam, and Speed—the Great Western Railway, oil on canvas by J.M.W. Turner, 1844; in the National Gallery, London.

Pigments for yellow have come from yellow ochre, lead tin oxide, the mineral orpiment from arsenic sulfide, and artificial chemical compounds. A popular 19th-century story suggested that the yellow paint called Indian Yellow, which was favoured by such artists as J.M.W. Turner, was made from the urine of cattle fed exclusively on mango leaves in India.

Artist paint brushes and watercolor paintbox on wooden palette. Instruments and tools for creative leisure. Creative background. Paintings art concept. Painting hobby. Back to school. Top view.
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More Art and Colors Quiz
A Venn diagram of the RGB color model shows overlapping red, green, and blue circles. Where the circles overlap, secondary colors magenta, yellow, and cyan appear, with white at the center where all three mix, illustrating additive color mixing.
1 of 2
RGB color modelDiagram of the RGB color model, an example of the additive color system, showing how colors mix.
A Venn diagram of the RYB color model shows overlapping red, yellow, and blue circles. Their intersections create secondary colors: orange, green, violet, and black at the center where all three overlap.
2 of 2
RYB color modelDiagram of the RYB color model, one example of the subtractive color system, showing how colors mix.

In addition to the colour wheel, various other colour systems have been used to classify yellow. Before the invention of colour photography, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (1814) was frequently used by scientists attempting to accurately describe colours observed in nature. In that book the so-called tint “Gamboge Yellow” is compared to the “Wings of Goldfinch,” “Yellow Jasmine,” and “High-coloured Sulphur.” In the Munsell colour system—adopted in the early 20th century to standardize colour, usually for industry—one of the many variations of yellow is identified as 5Y 9/18.

Tanya Kelley