Artist Created Every Color You Can Think Of

[Still Waters]

Thanks to Pantone, the contemporary authority on all things color, we have a way of documenting the chromatic flow -- all 2,100 hues it's gleaned from the visible ends of the rainbow. But artists have been recording the depths of color for much longer than Pantone's lifespan, mixing and melding pigments to create the violets, turquoises and ambers we ogle in art history books.

http://www.huffingto..._n_5283522.html

[theotherguy]

So, no matter what color I think of, no matter how saturated I think it, it's been documented in this book? Every single variation of light and shadow is one of only 2,100? This, more than almost anything else on this site, I doubt.

Edited May 13, 2014 by theotherguy

[Skep B]

Well, really think about it.

its a spectrum of light, a spectrum meaning it has a beginning and an end. and it starts off with a base of 3 colors and black and white.

There's only so many combinations you can make that would be entirely original.

[theotherguy]

Looking out the window right now, at twilight, I see a soft lavender I've never seen generated by a prism fading into a pale orange. While both of these shades probably are noted in the book, is every single intermediary shade in the fade represented?

[Skep B]

Looking out the window right now, at twilight, I see a soft lavender I've never seen generated by a prism fading into a pale orange. While both of these shades probably are noted in the book, is every single intermediary shade in the fade represented?

It's math though, if you assign the first 3 colors and black and white their own number, then acknowledge that there's a certain point we cant see due to darkness (pitch black) and a certain point all color is washed out (pure white).

so there is a point where it begins and ends and all color is held in between and you have only 3 actual colors to start off with to make all the others off of.

Also, you're saying you've never seen them, but that's just based on your memory and you're specifically noting it right now. a year from now if you see it again, you'll probably not remember it.

[Alaric]

The ability to perceive/ describe a color depends entirely on the presence of the word for/ concept of the color being present in a person's vocabulary. If you were to show the color pink (a combination of red and white) to a people with no word/ concept for pink... they would simply call it red.

[Rlyeh]

Humans can see a lot more colors than 2,100

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/JenniferLeong.shtml

[Sundew]

I love color. Especially the bright, gaudy colors of the tropics, whether alone or in striking combinations like a Heliconia flower or some coral reef fish that looks like Picasso or Van Gogh could have chosen its palette. Sadly, however, we humans only have three color receptors to see our world, birds have at least four meaning they see colors we cannot, bees and other insects see into the ultraviolet, which we are also blind to, but the world must really look interesting to the mantis shrimp. I believe it has something like 16 different color receptors in its compound eyes. We cannot even imagine what the world must look like through this creature's eyes.