colour wheel

colour wheel, a diagram used in the visual arts to represent the colours of the visible spectrum and their relationships to one another. The colours are arranged systematically into a circle, with each hue usually falling into one of three categories: primary, secondary, or intermediate. In fields such as painting, fashion, film, and design, artists use the colour wheel to assemble colour schemes and visualize how colours appear beside one another.

There are a number of colour wheels, each representing a different colour system. Colour systems are based on three primary colours from which all other colours in the system can be produced. The set of colours produced from the primary colours is known as the colour gamut. Although elementary-school students are typically taught that the primary colours are red, yellow, and blue, there is in fact no set standard of primary colours; any three colours can be assigned as primary colours to create a colour system. However, there are sets of primary colours that are more effective—that is, produce a more extensive colour gamut—than others. A couple of the best known are the subtractive colour system and the additive colour system.

The traditional painters’ colour wheel is one example of the subtractive colour system. Its primary colours are red, yellow, and blue (hence, it is also called the RYB colour model, after the first letter of each primary colour). The colours are called primary because they cannot be created by combining other hues. Any two of the three primary colours can be mixed to produce the secondary colours: green (made by combining yellow and blue), orange (yellow and red), and violet (blue and red). Mixing a primary colour with an adjacent secondary colour creates an intermediate colour. In this model, the intermediate colours are vermilion (red-orange), amber (yellow-orange), chartreuse (yellow-green), teal (blue-green), indigo (blue-violet), and magenta (red-violet).

If all of the colours of the RYB colour model were combined, theoretically they would create black. This is because colorants, such as pigments or dyes, selectively absorb and reflect light to create colour. For example, a yellow pigment absorbs blue and violet wavelengths while reflecting yellow, green, and red wavelengths. Blue pigment absorbs primarily yellow, orange, and red wavelengths. If the yellow and blue pigments are mixed, green will be produced, since it is the only spectral component that is not strongly absorbed by either pigment. In a sense, the yellow and blue pigments take colour away from one another, leaving only a green colour; hence, the RYB colour model is also called a subtractive colour system.

Digital artists and those working with coloured light use the RGB colour model, an additive colour system named for its primary colours red, green, and blue. The RGB colour model has a larger colour gamut than RYB, and it works in the same way that the human eye detects light—by adding wavelengths of red, green, or blue together to create all other visible colours. It is thus considered more accurate than the RYB colour model in modern colour theory. Additive mixing can be demonstrated physically by using three slide projectors fitted with filters so that one projector shines a beam of saturated red light onto a white screen, another a beam of saturated blue light, and the third a beam of saturated green light. Additive mixing occurs where the beams overlap (and thus are added together). Where red and green beams overlap, yellow is produced. If more red light is added or if the intensity of the green light is decreased, the light mixture becomes orange. Digital displays that emit light, such as computer monitors or televisions, use the RGB colour model to produce images.

The placement of colours on a colour wheel indicates important visual relationships. Colours of similar hue are grouped together, with warm colours (such as red, vermilion, orange, amber, and yellow) on one side and cool colours (including green, teal, blue, and violet) on the other. Colours that are side-by-side on the wheel are called analogous colours and are often used in paintings to evoke a mood or in design to create a sense of cohesion and harmony. Colours in direct opposition to one another, such as red and green on the RYB wheel, are called complementary colours. When viewed side by side, two complementary colours will appear brighter and more vivid than they would on their own or beside an analogous hue. The complementary colour of a primary colour will always be a secondary colour and vice versa. The complement of an intermediate colour will always be another intermediate colour.

Isaac Newton was the first to arrange colours into a wheel; the illustration appeared first in his 1704 book Opticks. During his famed prism experiments, Newton discovered that by refracting sunlight onto a wall, white light was made of seven visible colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He then organized the seven hues into a wheel in the order that they appeared.

In the wake of Opticks, other scientists, artists, and writers composed colour wheels and theories of their own, including English entomologist Moses Harris, whose colour wheel in The Natural System of Colours (1766) shows a variety of colours produced from red, yellow, and blue; and German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who argued in Theory of Colours (1810) that colour is a result of light and darkness interacting—though modern physics does not accept this theory. Others catalogued colours in a variety of shapes, including a starburst (George Field; 1841) and a spherical system (Albert H. Munsell; 1915). The myriad of colour wheels and diagrams through the centuries shows that the effort to systematize the seemingly boundless array of visible colours always left room for improvement.