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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

So this article is very much like the term, in that its quite nebulous. Even the definition that has been in the lead is terrible. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of brief yet satisfying definitions of color theory. Namely, what is the differentiator between color theory and color science? This author offers a compelling description, but without much congruent literature:

I am especially interested in the conflict between the two distinct but related fields that both operate under the term ‘color theory’: Artistic color theory, which is concerned with the visual effects of color combination in the fine arts, and scientific color theory, which describes the nature of color through increasingly complex but precise color models.

Most definitions of color theory I see seem to be include both the decidedly "artistic" side (color harmony, color scheme, bits of color psychology), and any "old" scientific attempts to characterize a unifying theory of color (color mixing, Goethe, Young, etc.). What qualifies as old seems to be anything before the Schrödinger's unification of trichromatic and tetrachromatic theory in 1925 and publishing of Munsell's first Book of Color in 1929, when we really entered the modern age of color science. Curious in feelings on this, or any other proposals for how color theory can be better defined (for the purposes of guiding this article, anyway), and whether there is any such thing as modern color theory or if its all traditional color theory?? Curran919 (talk) 14:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to make dramatic changes to the organization and content of this and other color-related articles. A bunch of them are (and always have been) a mess. I'd recommend narrowing the scope here to relatively "artistic" questions about color harmony etc. – leaving detailed technical discussions about how the eye works, how pigment mixing works, etc. to other pages – but trying to do so in a way which avoids the pseudoscientific nonsense described by many sources intended for artists, and is clear to distinguish between facts and preferences / arbitrary choices. I'm not sure what books would be valuable as sources here, but as a website to look at, let me recommend http://handprint.com/HP/WCL/wcolor.html –jacobolus (t) 16:22, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jacobolus I'm definitely okay with making some bold changes without consensus, but I still need some input on HOW to do this one... Handprint is a good resource that I remember reading years ago. How do you feel about using it as a source though? Its definitely more authoritative and comprehensive than most of the color theory books out there. After some more reading through it, I'm gonna think about focusing this on Traditional Color Theory, as handprint nicely contrasts to color science. How do you feel about a page move to "traditional color theory"? I'm conflicted. Curran919 (talk) 20:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's self-published, unfortunately I'm not sure if handprint qualifies as a "reliable source" by Wikipedia's strict standards. But I think it provides a lot of good guidance, since MacEvoy is careful to sort out nonsensical received wisdom from empirically validated claims. –jacobolus (t) 20:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend keeping something at least at the title color theory. Plausibly the material from traditional color theory could be merged. –jacobolus (t) 20:30, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a wide ranging collection of 100's of pieces of good information. The lead is terrible, but I wouldn't know how to fix it.....to create a summary of a wide ranging collection of 100's of pieces of good information. North8000 (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2026 and 30 April 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Horsethesnail (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Rodo3599 (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Coming to this a few years after @Jacobubus and @Curran919 had a good discussion under "needs direction", I see that quite major improvements were made, including excellent work by @Curran919, but the article still has a long way to go.

My big-picture concept of how it could be organized to be clearer would be to broadly have three sections:

1. History: chronology

2. History: historical concepts

3. Current approaches in visual arts, design, and psychology.

A lot of the discussion after the history section how mixes historical, discredited concepts with current approaches. So I think separating them could be valuable. Ccrrccrr (talk) 11:40, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]