“As far as we know, the first scientific contemplation of color began with the work of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who recorded that light was a necessary component of ordinary color perception. It was his contention that all objects impose a quality of “blackness” on the white light that falls on them and that it is the qualitative aspect of this blackness, in relation to the white light, that makes for color differences. He considered the blackness to be a form of contamination that blocks out the colors not seen. Aristotle’s theory stood until the seventeenth century and the beginning of scientific inquiry.”

—Joseph H. Krause, The Nature of Art, 1969.