Why does the visible light spectrum combine to make white instead of black like the color wheel in art class?

Question

Aren’t they both just visible light hitting our eyes??

In: 0

Answer 1

The color you see is based on the stimulation of cells in your retina from various wavelengths (colors) of light. When you add multiple colors of light together, it stimulates all the different color receptors in your eye and your brain sees this as white.

Paint appears a certain color because it absorbs most other wavelengths of light and just reflects those of the color that the paint is. When you blend paints, you increase the amount of wavelengths it absorbs and reduce the amount of wavelengths it reflects until it doesn’t reflect much light at all. When your eyes get very little or no light input from an area of your vision, your brain interprets that as black.