Pure Color.—A color corresponding- in purity with (or, in the case of material colors, closely approximating to) one of the spectrum colors.
Broken Color.—Any one of the spectrum colors or hues dulled or reduced in purity by admixture (in any proportion) of neutral gray, or varying relative proportions of both black and white ; also produced by admixture of certain spectrum colors, as red with green, orange with blue, yellow with violet, etc. These broken colors are far more numerous in Nature than the pure spectrum colors, and include the almost infinite variations of brown, russet, citrine, olive, drab, etc. They are often called dull or neutral colors.
Fundamental Colors.—The six psychologically distinct colors of the solar spectrum; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet.
Primary Colors.—Theoretically, any of the spectrum colors which cannot be made by mixture of two other colors. According to the generally accepted Young-Helmholtz theory, the primary colors are red, green, and violet ; orange and yellow resulting from a mixture of red and green, and blue from a mixture of green and violet. There is considerable difference of opinion, however, as to this question, and further investigation of the subject seems to be required; at any rate, authorities fail to explain why red may be exactly reproduced (except as to the degree of luminosity) by a mixture of orange and violet, exactly as yellow results from mixture of red and green or blue from green or violet, green being, in fact, the only spectrum color that cannot be made by mixture of other colors.[1]
- ↑ J. J. Mullet found that a mixture of the orange and violet rays of the spectrum produced a whitish red (Rood, "Modern Chromatics," p. 129). The author of the present work, without being at the time aware of this, produced an absolutely pure red (but of reduced intensity) by mixture of either orange and violet (orange 63.5, violet 36.5 percent. =red 85+white 15 per cent.), or from orange and the violet-red which is complementary to green (violet-red 51, orange 49 per cent.) , the latter equaling red 89 + white 11 per cent; the mixtures being made on a color wheel with Maxwell disks representing the pure colors of the present work. The red resulting from either of these mixtures on the color-wheel is far purer than the blue resulting from mixture of green and violet, and incomparably more so that the yellow resulting from mixture of either red and green or orange and green. Consequently, if the same results would come from mixing orange and violet light, it is difficult to understand how red can be a primary color according to the accepted definition.
