I wanted to deal with light directly rather than with paint.
James TurrellRead
If you take blue paint and yellow paint and you mix them, you get green paint. But if you take blue light and yellow light and mix them, you get white light. This is a shock to most people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mixing colors in paint and light yields different results, emphasizing the variance in perception.
This quote by James Turrell highlights the fundamental difference between additive and subtractive color mixing. In the world of pigments, combining blue and yellow results in green due to the way colors absorb and reflect light. Conversely, mixing blue and yellow light creates white light, illustrating the principle of additive color mixing and revealing how our perception of color can be surprising and counterintuitive.
Themes
ColorLightArtPerceptionPainting
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about color theory, you might say: 'As James Turrell pointed out, mixing blue and yellow light gives you white light, which surprises many people.'
More from James Turrell
All quotes →It is only when light is reduced that the pupil opens and feeling goes out of the eyes like touch.
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I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin - and I mean, we are literally light-eaters - to then affect the way that we see.
James TurrellRead
In many cases, if we knew what it would take, we might have thought twice about it, so it's often wonderful that we don't have hindsight.
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There are different stages when you fly. The first stage is the dollhouse effect, seeing everything on Earth like it's a model. Suddenly, all of your concerns seem very small.
James TurrellRead
Space has a way of looking. It seems like it has a presence of vision. When you come into it, it is there, it’s been waiting for you.
James TurrellRead
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