Pixels And Art Glossary

[Gil]

For the most time all light we had was based on fire, which falls on the red side of the spectrum, thus the "warm" and "cold" dichotomy. When we exclude modern light sources such as "cold" LEDs and computer screens then we can apply the general rule that lit areas are "warmer" and unlit areas are "colder", because during day the red wavelength of indirect sunlight gets absorbed by the atmosphere, and during night we have the red, fire based, light source.

Then why is a hot flame blue and a colder frame red?

The 'color temperature' idea is similar but more or less reversed -- based on the visible appearance of stars and their relative temperature, AFAIK.

But the hotter a star is, the more blue it is?

[API-Beast]

@Gil: We humans usually don't have access to blue fire, so our psychology and intuition says red = hot, blue = not hot. We don't compare red fire to blue fire, we compare red fire to the coldness of the (blue-ish) winter night.

[Ai]

The 'color temperature' idea is similar but more or less reversed -- based on the visible appearance of stars and their relative temperature, AFAIK.

But the hotter a star is, the more blue it is?

Which matches up with what you said. If you look at the linked chart, you see it goes red yellow white blue; this is as the temperature rises from 1000K to 10000K (usually temp is given in Kelvin for color temperature.)
(BTW, the quote above is of me, not Mr Beast)

I do agree with Mr Beast though. Red and yellow represent temperatures of burning material we can see close up without being flash vaporized

[Gil]

BTW, a blue flame does not flash vaporize you, a bunsen burner burns blue for example and you can hold your hand close to it without even getting burned. Cigarettes get up to 1100K (900° C) and they don't flash vaporize your nose

According to wikipedia, warm/cold colors seems to be a pretty recent thing (18th Century), so at the time, they must've had access to blue flames already. It's more a point of landscapes being blue if they're cold, red/yellow if they're hot apparently.

[Ai]

BTW, a blue flame does not flash vaporize you, a bunsen burner burns blue for example and you can hold your hand close to it without even getting burned. Cigarettes get up to 1100K (900° C) and they don't flash vaporize your nose

Yep, I was actually thinking of that example as I was composing that text. Not sure what I was thinking.. probably 'eh, close enough for government work.'

[0xDB]

Added entry for Color. Decided the scientific color theory is not as immediately interesting for picking colors in art as a theory based first on human emotions and human observers, human perception is. The scientific color theory (wavelengths, etc.) works independent from human perception and does not attribute human emotional interpretations to colors.

The video linked to below (51m15s) documents where the idea of light/darkness, warmth/cold as perceptual, emotional attributes to some ranges of color came from.

Color

----------------------------------------------
Yellow and Blue form the basis of all colors
in the color wheel.

A colored fluid in either color will intensify
different depending on the depth of the fluid.

Yellow to red is associated with the
properties of light and warmth.

Blue to violet is associated with the
properties of darkness and cold.

Colors opposite of each other in the wheel
are called complementary colors.

These perceptual concepts of colors differ
from the scientific color theory which is fully
independent of a human observer.
----------------------------------------------
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmhSXTMTtJM "Light Darkness And Colours - A Fascinating Journey Through The Universe Of Colours" 51m15s
further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Colours
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory
----------------------------------------------

edit: Also added "further reading" links to some of the already finished entries.

[0xDB]

I think warm/cold are descriptive words for a type of sensation/feeling. Color corresponds to wavelengths of light, and the wavelengths are more or less intense for blue verses red, etc.. blue bounces more easily than red, so red feels more intense because it hits more directly. It may not be warm in temperature sense, but using that terminology is a way of translating the sense into something understandable I guess. There might be a better word for it?

Maybe terms could be "emotional color temperature" and "scientific color temperature".

[Cure]

about color-
warm and cool aren't quite so black and white. there are warm and cool yellows, warm and cool purples, it's all relative really. yellow might be associated with sunlight, but not light generally, the light could be any color (you see blue secondary light sources overused a lot, for instance). I don't understand the "red/yellow are the basis of all colors bit", the additive primaries are red, green, and blue. subtractive primaries are red, yellow, blue (or cyan, magenta, yellow).

[0xDB]

I understood Goethe's observations as mood/emotion based, at least from what was shown in the video I linked (have not read his book on it). As I understand it, it's an emotional color system, concerned with human perception and interpretation of color, attributing human emotions to colors.

How a color is produced from primaries is not what the "yellow and blue form the basis" is about. I believe when he placed yellow(light in the sense of "not heavy or bright/cheerful" not as in light source) and blue (darkness in the sense of "heavy mood") as the "basis" he did not mean as the basis to mix colors but as the basis to establish two opposites in human emotion.

[0xDB]

I might need to read his book. Color Mixing from primaries will be explained in a different entry.