Traditional and Modern Colour Theory

[Note added July 2023: The term "traditional colour theory" is employed here for colour theory based on the concept that red, yellow and blue are the three "primary colours" that form the ultimate components of other colours, characterized as "secondary" and "tertiary", as seen expressed in what is widely known as the "traditional colour wheel" (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22tr... ). This concept, sometimes known as the "RYB colour model" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_col..., was overturned as a scientific theory by Helmholtz and others in the mid-19th century, but persisted in some art education texts including Johannes Itten's highly influential "The Art of Color" (1961), and is prevalent today in the majority of mainstream accounts of art and design colour theory. The contrasting term "modern colour theory" is employed here for colour instruction that is informed by this mid-19th century revolution in our scientific understanding of colour, with the works of Rood, Munsell, Ostwald and others given as examples.

Over the last half century the term "traditional colour theory" has been used in quite different senses depending on which theories of colour were being contrasted as non-traditional, making it important to pay attention to usage in order to avoid arguments at cross purposes (see http://www.huevaluechroma.com/1110.ph...) and misdirected criticisms. Thus I note for example that Dr Zena O'Connor has more recently employed the term "traditional colour theory" in a very different sense to that employed here (e.g. O'Connor, 2023, https://aic-color.org/resources/Docum..., to include, in addition to works of red-yellow-blue colour theory, the works of Rood, Munsell, Ostwald and others that in this presentation are taken to typify "modern colour theory". It should be clear therefore that the criticisms expressed in this presentation are directed at only part of the disparate array of practical colour instruction deemed by O'Connor to comprise "traditional colour theory", and only insofar as that instruction is actually based on the RYB colour model].

A webinar presented by Dr David Briggs for the Colour Society of Australia, NSW Division, on July 15, 2015, based on two-pages newly added to his website "The Dimensions of Colour":
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/112.php
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/113.php
Please see these pages of the website for citations to the points raised here and links to further discussion.

For more on the Colour Society of Australia and its activities, please see:
  / csa.nsw  
http://www.coloursociety.org.au/

Colour training in the arts today is curiously divided between traditional and modern colour theory. Traditional colour theory characteristically begins with the concept of three primary colours identified as red, yellow and blue, and reflects an understanding of colour that prevailed in the early nineteenth century. Modern colour theory in contrast rests on the legacy of the late 19th century revolution instigated by such figures and Helmholtz, Maxwell and Hering, and reflects a profoundly different understanding of the nature of colour. Since the 1960s and 70's however, traditional colour theory has had a renewed and dominant influence on art education in many educational institutions, even at tertiary level. The webinar will contrast the fundamental nature and conceptual framework of colour in modern and traditional theory, with particular reference to the primary source behind the revival of the latter, "The Art of Color" by Johannes Itten (1961).

Dr David Briggs is the Chairperson of the NSW Division of the Colour Society of Australia. He is a painter and a teacher of drawing and painting, and is the author of an extensive website on modern colour theory, The Dimensions of Colour. He currently teaches at the National Art School, the Julian Ashton Art School and the University of Technology, Sydney. His course "Understanding and Applying Colour" is now available as a term of eight 3-hour live online classes through the National Art School
(https://sites.google.com/site/djcbrig...)