Light-Dark contrast

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Light-dark contrast is a primary optical contrast that contributes significantly to image tension and forms a visually stark polarity. Black and white, blue and yellow, or a combination of the darkest achromatic color and the lightest chromatic color are obvious examples. However, the interaction of colors with varying brightness can also produce other visual effects. For example, light areas appear larger than identically sized dark areas because the light area outshines the dark area. This is called irradiation. In addition, dark objects appear heavier than light ones, and light bodies appear closer to us than dark ones. Arranging the colors correctly, such as placing yellow before black, creates a convincing three-dimensional image effect. If one includes all this in the weighting of the colors, then one can arrange them according to their brightnesses by numbers. Goethe established these relationships in his theory of colors, which we can now explain through the varying sensitivity of cone receptors: Yellow corresponds to 9, Orange to 8, Red to 6, Violet to 3, Blue to 4, and Green to 6.

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