February 23 2026

On the Origins of Colour

In our previous gathering, The Use and Abuse of Categorization, we discussed the ramifications and limitations of applying definitive categories within a variety of contexts. This week we further the conversation to address an often-overlooked topic - Colour.  The ancient 'theory' of colour, developed by Aristotle, held that all colours were mixtures of light and darkness. In this view, light is considered the actuality of the transparent, whereas darkness is treated as the absence of light. In the Seventeenth century, Isaac Newton experimentally split sunlight into a spectrum using a prism and wrapped the resulting colours around a flat-plane circle with each colour representing a specific frequency/wavelength. He contended that the colour we experience arises from the way an object absorbs or reflects the different frequencies/wavelengths and that colour is not an intrinsic quality of the object itself. These ideas have led to the mundane notion of red, yellow, and blue as primary colours of which secondary and tertiary colours emerge as admixtures. This theory has been buttressed in more recent times by the discovery of three distinct cones in the human eye; small, medium, and long, sensitive to different frequencies/wavelengths. Contrary to this experimental understanding of light, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe suggested that yellow and blue were primary colours. Taking a more experiential and physiological approach, he proposed that colour arises from the interplay of light and darkness, not just light alone, and that colour is deeply and widely related to perception and emotion. So what really is included? And what is the relationship between energetic current 'light' and spatial stillness 'darkness' in the perception of colours? Does colour emerge from the mutual inclusion of vibrancy and translucence? In today's discussion, let's explore the physical, psychological, and symbolic implications of colour.

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