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Are Black and White colours?

Posted by midjam • 10/26/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: colour, question

Yes I spelt colours with a U in proper english

Reply and i`ll tell you the anwser if you don`t know it.

User Comments

10/26/08

Sonnenblumen

BnW are Monochromes which AFAIK are technically not colours?

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10/26/08

LGramlich

It depends on your standpoint. For example, color in the light spectrum (where "white" is a combination of all colors,) is a wholly different thing than color in the paint spectrum (where "white" is an absence of all color.)

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1. 10/26/08
  
  Sonnenblumen
  
  Not sure, is it not possible to mix paint and/or light to create a white colour/light?
10/26/08

jafabrit

As a painter yes they are but if you want to get all technical no white is not a colour, black is.

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10/26/08

midjam

Black is the absence of colour and White is every colour

When our eyes see black, it means every color in the light specturm is being absorbed by the black object, and no colors are being reflected back into our eyes, that's why it is the absence of color.

When we see white, none of the colors in the light specturm are being absorbed by the object, and instead they are all being reflected back into our eyes. So basically every color is white, and the absence of color is black. But this is only when working with light. With paint, it's almost an opposite story.

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1. 10/27/08
  
  SweetViolet
  
  Only with respect to light.
  
  If you take a paint pot and combine the colours of the light spectrum, white is definitely not going to be your result.
10/26/08

dosox

Look thru a prism.. If you see Einstein & Newton. Black is not a color.
If you don't see them White is a Color.
Because Einstein and Newton are called as Monochrome.

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10/26/08

sisterofmercy

Apparently they're not colours, but I think they are.

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10/26/08

filosofia

When you're talking about light, then white is the sum total of all the colours, and black is the absence of colour.
When you're talking about pigment, it's the other way around.
But since they are both used in pictures, photographs, paintings, graphics etc, on a par with all the other colours, then you have to say, yes they are colours.

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10/27/08

JudithHeartSong

Yes, for painters this answer is different than the answer you might give.... this will bring the artists out of the woodwork.

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