The retina of the eye has 3 types of cones that are responsible for our color perception (blue, green, and red). So, is the brain like an artist’s palette such that mixing of these 3 basic colors produces the rangeof colors that we perceive? No, not in the same sense that an artist would mix colors. But, the brain does have some work to do. It compares cone activity across the visual scene to calculate color, rather than “mix” color. Depending on the background, the other colors surrounding a particular color, the light striking the image, a color may be perceived differently.
A raging debate ensued regarding what the true color of the dress really was. In reality, it came down to how your brain perceived the color of the dress.
This poses a challenge for artists as the perception of the colors can change as a painting develops and the white canvas gets filled in. The color initially applied to the canvas when wet will look different when dried. It will also vary at different times of the day. When a painter, such as Henri Matisse, leaves regions of unpainted canvas between painted regions, he is protecting the original intent of the color, so that it doesn’t change by influence of background colors. In contrast, Paul Cézanne, a post-impressionist painter who built form with color, used visual cues as the paint was applied to the canvas to inform the development of the colors. The visual system of the brain is responsible for the optical illusion that colors look different depending on their surroundings. So, while I think my son’s shirt is blue and he argues that it is purple, who’s right? Both of us because color is a construct of the brain.
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