Development of the idea of simple colors in the 16th and early 17th centuries

Abstract

AbstractThe development of the idea of simple or fundamental colors in Western culture from classical Greece to the early 17th century is shown, with particular emphasis on writers in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Four streams of thought are found: (1) Aristotle's seven colors, congruent with seven tastes and seven tones, thus symptomatic of an underlying general harmony; (2) Four‐basic‐color sequences where colors are emblematic of the four classical elements; (3) Spectral sequences; (4) Three simple chromatic colors between white and black, based on colorant mixture. In the late 16th century seven‐color sequences came to represent categorical sequences, in addition to shorter fundamental color sequences. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 92 – 99, 2007