color theory
Sign in to saveAlso known as colour theory
principles to describe the practical behavior of colors
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- theory
Show 4 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:Color theory
- Commons category
- Color theory
- is the study of
- color
- Stack Exchange tag
- graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/tags/color-theory
via Wikidata · CC0
~27 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's color wheel from his 1810 Theory of Colours
Color theory, or more specifically traditional color theory, is a historical body of knowledge describing the behavior of colors — namely in color mixing, color contrast effects, color harmony, color schemes and color symbolism. Color theory and color science both study color and its existence. Traditional color theory tends to be more subjective and have artistic applications, while color science tends to be more objective and have functional applications, such as in chemistry, astronomy or color reproduction. However, there is much intertwining between the two throughout history, and they tend to aid each other in their own evolutions.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “color theory” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.