In increasingly abstract scenes, colours were applied in free painterly strokes - and again, were not selected to represent nature but to express the emotions it evoked in the artist. Meanwhile, Matisse’s contemporaries across Europe - but in Goethe’s native Germany particularly - were busy founding the related Expressionist movement. They didn’t use a colour wheel to choose them - but their stirring, colour-popping choices form part of a new, expressive and mystical mood in the arts that was in part indebted to Goethe. He and his friend André Derain painted the above portraits of one another to announce their new radical use of colour. Before he created the cut-outs currently at Tate Modern, Henri Matisse co-founded what was pejoratively termed Fauvism - meaning the wild beasts - a new use of colour that was bright, non-naturalistic and, well, wild. Then a French painter came along and tipped tradition on its head again. One you've established this in your mind, it becomes much easier to recreate the color or mix it further.In the late 19th century, the Impressionists used Newton’s lessons to recreate scenes of modern life defying tradition, they started with a bright white canvas and used contrasting strokes of pure colour to create a prismatic effect of light playing on haystacks and water lilies. Here are a few examples of how you can look at a color closely to decide which is the Dominant Hue. On the other hand, pure Black, pure White and Pure Grey do not contain a Hue.

Neutrals also contain a Hue depending on their originating color. Indeed this clarifies that the mixture began with the Primary Yellow, and gradually added the Secondary color Green. 'The color has a Yellow Hue, leaning strongly toward Green.' What if a color is truly an in-between Tertiary such as a Yellow/Green where neither Yellow nor Green dominate? Obviously you could describe it as a Yellow/Green Hue and you wouldn't be wrong.īefore long you'll find it easy to identify the Hue more specifically. You'll begin to drill down and impress yourself, by describing the color something like this: But what about more complex colors we want to duplicate in our artwork or projects? How to Talk Like a Color Pro In the photo at the top of the page, you obviously know the Hues right away.

Think of the Hue as one of the six Primary and Secondary colors.In other words, the underlying base color of the mixture you're looking at is either Yellow, Orange, Red, Violet, Blue or Green. Hue refers to the origin of the color we see.

Primary colors in color wheel