What You Should Know About Color

This is the continuation of the artistic study that Miss Salwa Rawda began in a past issue of "The Woman's Voice," and with it the Miss concludes this technical study of the nature of colors in painting.

And now that we have learned the source of these colors, it has become easy to know their number. All we need do is break up these rays — just as the sun's rays are broken when they pass through the rain at a certain angle and produce the rainbow. If we pass them through a triangular prism, or through the beveled edge of a mirror, we find that they are composed of six colors: yellow, orange, red, green, blue, and violet.

As for white, it is the sum of these color waves — that is, when they all blend together they give white. And black is the disappearance of all these colors. The compound pigments we know, however, have a property other than that of radiation: they absorb all the waves of light except their own color, and if they are mixed with one another they give a neutral color — that is, gray — instead of giving white.

That is why we wear white in summer, because it reflects all the rays and prevents the heat from seeping into our bodies — while we cannot wear black, because it absorbs all the sun's rays and draws their heat to us.

We said that the original colors resulting from the breaking-up of the sun's rays are six — but these six colors branch out from three principal ones: yellow, blue, and red, which cannot be obtained by mixing other colors.

The secondary colors are a blend of equal quantities of two primary colors.

Green is a blend of yellow and blue. Orange is a blend of red and yellow. And violet is a blend of blue and red.

We can obtain tertiary colors if we mix the primary colors in unequal quantities.

These, then, are the colors from which all the known colors branch out.

Colors by their nature are divided into cold and warm.

- Blue, bluish violet, and their neighbors are among the cold colors.

- Red, orange, and their neighbors are among the warm colors.

- As for green, it is a neutral color that becomes warm if mixed with yellow and cold if mixed with blue.

Cold colors by their nature are associated with distance, while hot colors are associated with nearness. Thus we find that blue and violet occupy the sky, the sea, and faraway places — and we likewise find that a nearby mountain appears yellow and red, while if we move away from it we see its color change to a bluish violet.

From this rule we can make things appear near or far by means of colors.

And we can make the area of a room appear larger than it is by painting the walls in receding colors.

Colors and the Seasons

To spring belong blue, greenish blue, and green.

To summer belong green, yellowish green, and yellow.

To autumn belong orange, red, and reddish violet.

To winter belong bluish violet and blue.

The Effect of Color on the Human Soul

First — man tires of the six primary and secondary colors more than he tires of seeing their ramifications.

Second — he is stirred and affected by the sight of the warm colors,

and is rested and calmed by the sight of the cold colors.