Color

Color affects us directly by modifying our thoughts, moods, actions, and even our health. Although the impact of color is substantial, we are often unaware of its effect. Psychologists, as well as designers of schools, offices, hospitals, and prisons, have acknowledged that colors can affect work habits and mental conditions for better or for worse. People surrounded by expanses of solid orange or red for a long period of time often experience nervousness and increased pulse and blood pressure. In contrast, some blues have been shown to have a calming effect, with blood pressure, pulse, and activity rates dropping to below normal levels. Most of us have favorite colors, and many prefer different colors for different things. Such color preferences are one way we express our personal differences. When given a choice, most of us choose to wear and live with those colors we find particularly appealing. Leading designers of everything from clothing and cars to house-wares are well aware of the importance of individual color preferences, and spend considerable time and expense to determine color choices for their products. Most cultures use color symbolically, according to established conventions. Leonardo da Vinci seen; yellow for earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness."' Some painters of the past found color so dominating that they avoided pure, unmixed colors to enable viewers to see the essence of the subject without being distracted. In China and Japan, traditional painters have often limited themselves to black ink on a white surface. Prior to the twentieth century, pure bright colors were seldom used in Western art. The French impressionist painters and their followers led the way to the free use of color we enjoy today

What we call "color" is the effect on our eyes of light waves of differing wavelengths or frequencies. When combined, these light waves make white light. Individual colors are components of light.

The phenomenon of color is a paradox: it exists only in light, but light itself seems colorless to the human eye. All objects that appear to have color are merely reflectors or transmitters of the color that must be present in the light that illuminates them.

In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light is composed of all the colors of the spectrum. He found that when the white light of the sun passes through a glass prism, it is separated into the bands of color that make up the visible spectrum. Each color has a different wavelength and travels through the glass of the prism at a different speed. Red, which has the longest wavelength, travels more rapidly through the glass than blue, which has a shorter wavelength. Rainbows result when sunlight is refracted and dispersed by the spherical form of raindrops, producing a combined effect like the glass prism. In both cases, the sequence of spectral colors is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.