On Vision and Colors from a prism, however, the production of white can be demonstrated by using a mixture of colored light from each of the three main pairs of complementary colors: red – green, orange – blue, or yellow – violet. White can be produced from two complementary opposite colors when both of the external causes of the colors excite the same retinal place at the same time. Newton claimed that white could be produced by the aggregation of his seven prismatic colors. He erroneously considered color to be in light instead of in the eye. White is the result of the combination
Complementary colors by many artists today, the primary colors were considered to be red, yellow, and blue, and the primary–secondary complementary pairs are red–green, blue-orange, and yellow–purple. In the traditional representation, a complementary color pair is made up of a primary color (yellow, blue or red) and a secondary color (green, purple or orange). For example, yellow is a primary color, and painters can make purple by mixing of red and blue; so when yellow and purple paint are mixed, all three primary colors are present. Since paints work by absorbing light, having all three primaries together results in a black or