Color study is a subject that interests various disciplines and is such a vast and complex topic that it would be impossible to trace the key elements to be included in a guide. This is what we deduce from reading the essay Cromorama 2017 by R. Falcinelli, a text that introduces us to the vast and fascinating world of color.

The book explains how, starting from the Renaissance, the idea of wanting to create a precise nomenclature, following a mathematical order, has not proven to be the most adequate method to know every aspect of it. However, every scientific or technological discovery of each era, starting from there, has been crucial to deepen its mechanisms and has laid the foundations for the new theories to follow. This is why the topic involves countless disciplines today, from the arts to physics, to the most recent neurosciences.

In the beginning, color was assimilated by different eras in infinite ways, subjected to mystical, moral or purely economic hierarchies. In the Renaissance, for example, pigments were very expensive. This is because materials such as Lapis Lazuli were extracted from different parts of the world and the transformation into pigment required a long and complex process, often influenced by popular beliefs that also attributed miraculous powers to them. Lapis lazuli was drunk and was sold in some pharmacies of the time. In this context, beliefs, pagan-esoteric, about the miraculous effects of some colors grow. In fact, in the medical field, some colors are associated with four different temperaments, or even, in astrology, links are created between the color of the planets and the temperament of men. Even in technique, it is certain that mixing black with white gives gray, but for the time being, red is still the middle shade between the two neutral colors.

Newton and Goethe's different theories

Falcinelli invites us to reflect on a substantial difference between the ancient and modern world. The ancient world is not made of flat colors as we know it today, it is a world made of off-whites, beiges and ecru.

The difference between ancient and modern also becomes almost linguistic, because not being able to catalog all the colors of the spectrum in antiquity, man must have acted by associations through the matter that surrounds him.

It was during the Enlightenment in the middle of the 18th century that the need to create a list of colors arose, also due to the new theories of Newton published in Theory of Color in 1704 and the attitude of this era of wanting to create a standard for everything. Today we know that from the decomposition of light from the prism experiment we can count an indefinite number of colors, but it is customary since that time to count only seven colors, as in the rainbow. Newton also discovered that by superimposing the decomposed light of different prisms, different gradations can be obtained. To represent this discovery, he conceived a chromatic spectrum arranged on a circular diagram, where the union of the two extremes gives rise to magenta.

The circular organization of colors also represents an innovative concept; no one had ever organized colors in a circle before then. The arrangement will then give rise to numerous subsequent theories inviting us to establish relationships between colors based on this arrangement.

Thus, almost two centuries later, it is Goethe, who dedicates no small amount of attention to color in his work, to criticize Newton's discoveries. He defines his theory as too abstract, leaving some skepticism among the 19th century public. His discoveries will however be of great value to the artists who will refer to his ideas and will leave fertile ground for the field of neuroscience that does not yet exist in his era.

In The Theory of Color (1810), Goethe proposes an experiment. He says to put a pencil in the center of a white sheet of paper and illuminate it with a candle at dusk. Now the candlelight that gives an orange color to the sheet and the twilight light show a shadow of a bright blue, a product posthumous to the vision of the person looking at it because if we isolated the shadow of the pencil, looking at it from the hole of a cylindrical cardboard, we would notice a gray color. Demonstration of the fact that there are after-image tints. Goethe thus defines a chromatic circle of the aforementioned tints, defining them as complementary.

Thus, while Newton's theory explains the causes by giving us a mathematical datum that we can search for in color, Goethe's analysis focuses on the effects and on why we see things in a certain way.

It is no coincidence that in 1824 Michel Eugène Chevreul, inspired by Goethe's work, applied these concepts in his work and published a work entitled De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colors) in which he expounds his theories on the way in which colors seen together can influence each other. His discoveries are fundamental for understanding the way in which colors interact with each other and for developing principles of chromatic harmony useful in art and design. He also created a new color nomenclature using numbers, and introduced the use of graduated color wheels to order them.

In 1810, Otto Runge developed a three-dimensional geometric representation of color. In this work, Runge organizes the colors on a sphere to illustrate the relationships between them. His "color sphere" is based on the three parameters of color: hue, saturation, and lightness.

The Invention of Synthetic Dyes

Something was about to happen that would definitively change our culture: the invention of the first synthetic dye in 1856 by William Henry Perkin (1838-1907).

From this moment on, color could be used to dye fabrics, and the result would be more efficient than a dye of the past which, unlike a synthetic one, would have faded after a few washes. Color ceases to be a luxury good and becomes a consumer good.

The dye created by Perkin, however, is mauve, so what to do to create all the others? Falcinelli explains to us that mixing colors could be considered illegal in the past, so much so that Hans Tollner received a fine from the authorities in 1386 for having dyed some garments green using blue and yellow. With the advancement of technologies, however, we wonder what the right colors can be to create all the other shades. We wonder what to call them: simple, primary, main, elementary.

The entomologist and engraver Moses Harris proposed a wheel in the 1700s based on three colors from which everything else is generated, which becames the model for artists to come.

Trichromacy and Color Printing

The idea of trichromy became the basis for Jacob-Christoph Le Bon (1667-1741) to create color prints from three engraved copper plates, one for each primary color: red, yellow, and blue. This is the principle with which we still print today and an idea for the physicist Thomas Young (1773-1829), who, inspired by Le Bon's work, began to wonder if human vision also works by mixing colors like the painters of the time: red, yellow, and blue. A hypothesis that would be confirmed about a century and a half later thanks to the research of Helmholtz and Hering.

The idea of the trichromatism of blue, yellow, and red became a fairly widespread concept from the mid-1800s onwards and was assimilated as correct in the educational context up to the present day. Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg made it an absolute model of their style, as did the artists who revolved around the magazine "De Stijl". Finally, it was at the Bauhaus that teachers such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Johannes Itten brought it into their teaching, influencing our entire era.

However, with technological progress, it was realized that the important concepts are those of color superposition to create mixtures and to make, let's say, economy; trichromatism remains one of the many solutions but not the only one that will be used by industrialists.

This is demonstrated by the invention of lithography in 1796 by Alois Senefelder which, combined with Le Blon's idea, led to the birth of the first chromolithographs in 1837, the prototype of modern offset printers. In 1935, the four-color standard was established with the introduction of cyan. Also in the world of film production, we have the first color film: Becky Sharp. Technicolor uses three black-and-white films, each filtered with three colors: red, green, and blue, to shoot in color.

The speculations on trichromy do not stop there. Artists use it as a tool to find the most suitable combinations in this number of colors, those that seem aesthetically more correct to them than others. Today, graphic and fashion manuals all refer to Itten's studies on color, which, starting from the nineteenth-century circle of primary colors, focus on the interaction that colors have with each other, working within the circle to highlight the combinations between groups of three or four.

Establishes relationships between colors by developing a theory that individual hues can be represented on a grayscale scale based on the light they reflect.

Establishes relationships between colors by developing a theory that individual hues can be represented on a grayscale scale based on the light they reflect. States that in a composition with different amounts of light, to be harmonious, the sum of the grays should be balanced.

However, all these theories are self-referential because we know very well that certain combinations work according to the context of the time in which they are formed and have no scientific value.

The romantic idea about color was the most accurate: Color is in our brains

We have to wait until 1959, a century and a half after the intuitions of Thomas Young, to have the first scientific confirmations that confirm in a way the hypotheses of Goethe; that is, that color is not something that is out there but is constructed inside our head. In this year there is a very famous experiment, done by the two Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologists David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, which shows what happens in the head of a cat when we try to show it slides. The experiment consisted of controlling the brain responses to the change of image, but the two noticed that the neuronal responses occur when the edge of the slide crosses the screen and not when the animal sees the image represented. In short, we deduce that the brain works by opposites (surely to economize the metabolism of the cells) and that it is interested not so much in things themselves but in their discontinuity, in all those points made of light or chromatic contrasts.

Visual Receptors and Color Processing

In the same year, the first conference was held that confirmed the presence of three types of receptors in the visual apparatus: the cones that our eye uses to send information to the brain. These would intercept the waves contained in the visible spectrum, precisely the frequencies of blue, green, and red. For example, when we observe yellow, our brain receives double information that would say "if there is yellow, there is no blue." So there are also some colors that we can see only thanks to the post-processing done by some cells in the V4 area of the brain, which are responsible for controlling the amount of light we have around us. Brown, for example, if isolated from the rest of the colors would always appear yellow to us otherwise. While if we see it next to other colors, V4, by controlling the brightness, returns the shade of brown. A mechanism that helps us, for example, when we enter a room and turn on an incandescent light. V4 calculates the surrounding light in less than 25 milliseconds, so we are able to immediately recognize the white color of the walls without having to think about it.

This causes us to perceive a flicker if we superimpose two shades of the same brightness. 

These ratios are useful for creating relationships between colors, and are concepts that have innovated painting and illustration in the past. Leonardo used the technique to break up color in his aerial perspectives, Tiepolo created contrasts using things close to the subject, and Drew Struzan, who created the poster for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, returned a vibrant image that makes us curious about a surely adventurous and exciting plot.

The Seven Types of Tonal Contrast

In this regard, in order for a composition to work, following the formula coined by J. Itten, we can refer to seven possible tonal contrasts.

1. Contrast of Quantity

This contrast occurs when a small amount of one color is contrasted with a large amount of another color. This can be achieved by using a light color against a dark background, or vice versa.

2. Contrast of Pure Colors

This contrast occurs when two or more pure colors are placed next to each other without any intermediate shades. This can create a very striking and vibrant effect.

3. Contrast of Quality

This contrast occurs when two or more colors of the same hue are used, but with different levels of saturation. This can create a more subtle and sophisticated effect.

4. Complementaries and Simultaneity Contrast

This contrast occurs when two complementary colors are placed next to each other. This can create a very dynamic and eye-catching effect.

5. Warm and Cold Contrast

This contrast occurs when warm and cool colors are placed next to each other. This can create a sense of balance and harmony.

6. Chromatic Contrast

This contrast occurs when colors of different hues are placed next to each other. This can create a very lively and playful effect.

7. Contrast of Pairs

This contrast occurs when two colors are placed next to each other that are not necessarily complementary, but that create a pleasing visual effect when placed together.

In conclusion, in order to be understood in a holistic sense, color needs to be framed in all the fields in which it is present, especially in the social and psychological spheres. In the era of mass society, the improvement of industrial production techniques has promoted a model of society accustomed to chromatic abundance. However, we continue to respond to models and preconceptions that sometimes reflect more cultural influences of the past than innovations of the present. One example is the propensity to favor certain types of color palettes over others.

Today, the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and ABS (a thermoplastic polymer), introduced around the late 1950s, certainly favors the large number of objects that are designed with various colors. The material makes it possible to personalize manufactured objects that were previously made in shades of gray and were extremely bureaucratic. Classic examples are typewriters and IBM computers.

Companies like Macintosh, in the 1960s and 1970s, introduced us to a new way of experiencing consumption by creating a strong identity behind a product. Olivetti, in the same years, also presented the Valentine typewriter, designed by Ettore Sottsass. The materials with which these new products are manufactured have their own colors, so they are not printed.

These are the years of Woodstock concerts, sexual liberation, the Red Spring in Europe, and imagination in power. It is at this moment that we begin to identify with objects. We begin to make associations between the colors of commercialized objects with their function and quality, recognizing them by category. In the semiotic field, the pragmatics of color is defined, that is, our aptitude to create relationships with colors that assume a precise meaning when used within culturally defined worlds. For example, we can talk about the herbal taxonomies of cosmetic products or even the role of color in the food industry, where care must be taken to calibrate the saturation of the yellow of butter or margarine in order to distinguish them.

These are just some of the social, economic, and technological practices of this era that do nothing but standardize color. Falcinelli invites us to reflect on this aspect by reminding us that color is not only a perception or a quality of things, but a psychological category that exists together with the way of producing it, spreading it, and narrating it.