"Absolute black does not really exist. But like white, it is present in almost every color, and forms the endless variety of grays -- different in tone and strength. So that in nature one really sees nothing else but those tones or shades.
"There are but three fundamental colors -- red, yellow, and blue; 'composites' are orange, green, and purple. By adding black and some white one gets the endless varieties of grays – red gray, yellow-gray, blue-gray, green-gray, orange-gray, violet-gray.
"It is impossible to say, for instance, how many green-grays there are; there is an endless variety. But the whole chemistry of colors is not more complicated than those few simple rules. And having a clear notion of this is worth more than 70 different colors of paint -- because with those three principal colors and black and white, one can make more than 70 tones and varieties. The colorist is the person who knows at once how to analyze a color, when it sees it in nature, and can say, for instance: that green-gray is yellow with black and blue, etc. In other words, someone who knows how to find the grays of nature on their palette."
(Quote source: Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo van Gogh, 31 July 1882.)
"There are but three fundamental colors -- red, yellow, and blue; 'composites' are orange, green, and purple. By adding black and some white one gets the endless varieties of grays – red gray, yellow-gray, blue-gray, green-gray, orange-gray, violet-gray.
"It is impossible to say, for instance, how many green-grays there are; there is an endless variety. But the whole chemistry of colors is not more complicated than those few simple rules. And having a clear notion of this is worth more than 70 different colors of paint -- because with those three principal colors and black and white, one can make more than 70 tones and varieties. The colorist is the person who knows at once how to analyze a color, when it sees it in nature, and can say, for instance: that green-gray is yellow with black and blue, etc. In other words, someone who knows how to find the grays of nature on their palette."
(Quote source: Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo van Gogh, 31 July 1882.)