Secondary colors.
The colors in a color system which arise through mixing the primary colors.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Prism.
A glass body with triangularly arranged surfaces which can separate sunlight into its spectral colors.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Prismatic colors.
Another term for spectral colors.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Spectral colors.
The colors which become visible when sunlight is allowed to pass through a prism.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Spectrum.
Neutral (white) light is composed of radiation of all the wavelengths between 380 nm. and 760 nm. If a white ray of light passes through a prism, its components will be deflected to varying degrees by the process of diffraction. A band of light will become visible, possessing the colors of the rainbow and known as the spectrum. The spectrum begins with red and the long-wave end, changes through yellow and green at its medium-wave center, ending with violet at the short-wave end. This physical spectrum continues at its infrared and ultraviolet ends, although the radiation there is invisible to us.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Successive contrast.
The afterimage of a succession of optical impressions will appear as the reverse image of the fixed color. This afterimage will therefore show the complementary color, and successive contrast can thus be used to determine this color. If, for example, we first observe blue rings on a red background, and then look at a white background, we will see a complementary after-image of the previously observed arrangement of colors, namely yellow rings on a greenish background.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Tertiary colors.
The colors of a system which arise through mixing secondary colors.
—Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
a specific hierarchy
“The two American linguists Brent Berlin and Paul Kay established that not all languages possess the same number of basic color names. A short word which was neither further separable nor in use as a description of a material was accepted as being a basic name. Yellow and green thus count as basic names, but not dark yellow or turquoise. Of almost one hundred different languages investigated, none had less than two nor more than eleven such basic names.
More exact evaluation reveals how the corresponding color vocabulary of a language appears to conform to a certain sequence. If a language only has two color words, these will be black (or dark) and white (or bright). Red will always be the first chromatic word to be found in addition to these two. The fourth basic name is then either green or yellow, and a language with five expressions for color exhibits the sequence black, white, red, green, and yellow. Blue appears only in sixth place, with brown seventh. Up to this point, there has been a specific hierarchy; beyond it, color vocabulary is supplemented by the quartet of violet, orange, pink, and gray in an arbitrary order.”
—from Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
the colored picture on a television screen
“[The term] phosphorescence . . . comes from the Greek phosphoros meaning morning star or Venus. It could also be translated literally as carrier of light. The light effect known as phosphorescence occurs when energy delivered in the form of an electron beam is captured by substances on the screen (molecules) and then released in the form of light.
The colored picture on a television screen is actually produced by three different light-absorbing and light-carrying molecules concentrated in triple rows of tiny patches each approximately 0.2 mm. in diameter. When they glow, a particular type of additive light mixinga so-called partitive mixtureis made, using the three colors red, green, and blue (RGB).”
—from Color Systems in Art and Science, edited by Klaus Stromer, translated from the German by Randy Cassada, 1999.
Looking into the Creek
“The way the soul is with the senses and the intellect is
like a creek. When desire weeds
Grow thick, intelligence cant flow, and soul creatures
stay hidden. But sometimes
the reasonable clarity runs so strong it sweeps the clogged
stream open. No longer weeping
and frustrated, your being grows as powerful as your wantings
were before, more so. Laughing
and satisfied, the masterful flow lets creations of
the soul appear. You look
down, and its lucid dreaming. The gates made of light
swing open. You see in.”
—Rumi (12071273), Looking into the Creek, translated by Coleman Barks. From The Soul of Rumi, 2001.