Talk:Primary color/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: ArnabSaha (talk · contribs) 07:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

• A lot of close paraphrasing. 2 links with more than 95% Violation. But it also seems like a backward copy.
• There are small small grammatical/spelling issues everywhere. Like articles, determiners etc missing.
• Somewhere Color-space written with hyphen, somewhere without.
• MoS issues are prominent.
• Things mentioned in the lead isn't covered in the body.
• Avoid citation in lead as per WP:CITELEAD.
• Lack of wikilinks.
• Now coming to the biggest issue. The article is unsourced at multiple parts. "Subtractive mixing of ink layers" section is unsourced. Other areas like "show how the additive mixing...", "The exact colors chosen for...", "Organizations such as Fogra...", "The color of light...". As per GA criteria, each and everything needs to be sourced properly.
• In the citations, the paras aren't required. Just provide page numbers of the books and other materials.
• A citation has parameter issue.
• Avoid using blogs as sources as tehy aren't considered reliable.
• The last image is eating up into the Reference section. Use Template:Clear in the 2nd last section.
• Any external links?

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far. Thank you for your work so far.  Saha ❯❯❯ Stay safe  12:29, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

@ArnabSaha: I think these are really great suggestions. Shoring up cites rooted out some presumed facts being wrong. I've partially implemented corrections some but clarification on 'lack of wiki links': there seem to be a lot of them to my eyes (though I added more). I may be missing some, but every single notable name is wiki-linked, as are color space terms, even terms like 'bird' etc. Where is this suggestion coming from? Is there any guideline to suggest that providing quotes in citations is not desirable? For many of the claims in this article, it seems quite sensible to pull out the quote support the claim directly. As for sourcing, for claims like "Organizations such as Fogra...", these seem tricky. I've added a url ref to Fogra (since there is no wp page), but the other organizations have wp pages that support the claim that they publish color standards. Is the wiki link not enough to support the claim in sentences like these? To be sure, handprint is source that is cited extensively in this article (this entire article could mapped inside handprint), it wouldn't be correct to characterize it as a blog. It's a rather exceptional (and accessible) color science resource that is used by others. The two cites that are having problems with year formatting seem to be tricky...e.g. the bibliographic info for Newton's ref seem to be spread across two years "1671/2"...if you have any suggestions to fix that would be great. Many thanks for your review efforts.Maneesh (talk) 03:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The RYB POV problem

@ArnabSaha: The article as massaged by Maneesh still has a serious POV problem in the way it tries to only denegrate and demote the "traditional" RYB primaries. I made a small step in a good direction by factored out some of the criticism into a subsection in Primary_color#Red,_yellow,_and_blue_as_primary_colors_in_art_education. Readers who are not into color science come here expecting to see something about the "color theory" primaries of red, yellow, and blue, but all they get is RGB and CMY and criticism of the loonies who don't know enough of "color science" to relegate "color theory" to the dustbin. As a color scientist myself, I think there's more to color than colorimetry and color science, but Maneesh pretty much denies that in his very POV editing, which I have fought on and off over the last years. We need to resolve this before getting to GA status. I haven't had the energy to keep fighting him, but see the article history for my many attempts if you want to get an idea of the disconnect. Dicklyon (talk) 01:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I've added most of the RYB material (sourced quite well) under the history section. No sense in rehashing what we've already discussed but this is an invitation to anyone to take a look at see how one would represent "red, yellow and blue as the primary colors" more fairly to suggest sources that they would add and where the associated claims would go. Maneesh (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The trouble is not that what you say is well sourced, but that what you say is strongly slanted to the POV that RYB is no good. There's no neutral discussion of traditional color theory, which you've reverted every time I tried to move in that direction. We can't get to GA until we include a fair representation of the traditional RYB primaries. Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I've already said this here, probably many times but I am entirely skeptical that "traditional color theory" means anything outside a very vague notion of "red, yellow, and blue are primary colors". The material in this history section is a very detailed look at "red, yellow, and blue are primary colors" attributing specific people in specific times representative of high quality underlying sources across color science and art history. Even low quality claims/sources about "red, yellow, and blue are primary colors" are presented neutrally in "art education". The quality of such claims is easily assessed against the claims that come from higher quality sources in the article. There is no disparagement from the article text, the disparagement comes from WP:RS like Munsell (rightly so!). I can't think of any mention of "traditional color theory" in the high quality comprehensive sources that support this article from authors like Gage, Shamey, Kuehni, Mollon, Fairchild etc. Briggs and MacEvoy use "traditional color theory" to give a name to the bubbling tar pit of incoherent reasoning about color we can easily find in low quality sources . None of the sources that I know in that tar pit are at all encyclopedic. "Traditional color theory" isn't the tool of painters who use "realistic color"; this type of painting is a craft and, as Gage explains, vague theories of color (seldom put forth by painters) are not easily reconciled with the craft. I really don't believe one can represent "traditional color theory" at the same level of quality/support/coherence as the material that is here, but I am happy to leave you to it. I've mostly added what I've wanted to add here. If there is a serious disagreement between whatever "traditional color theory" material is there after a month or so, we can open an RfC or something to try and resolve. Maneesh (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The traditional color theory has RYB as conceptual primaries, and sometimes makes claims about mixing all colors, but yeah, that part of it is weak compared to what color scientists have figured out about how to make large gamuts with three primaries. Still, it's so big out in the real world, as a concept, that if all we do is say who disparages it, that's not neutral. I will add some stuff, working from the recent O'Connor overview paper. Dicklyon (talk) 01:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but it's wrong, so let's get over it. RYB are NOT primary colours because of basic human biology. 142.188.188.167 (talk) 06:47, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The problem with this stance is it completely ignores the fact that primary colors are also an artistic concept, not just a scientific one. This isn’t just an article about primaries in color science, it’s about primary colors, in general, which (as the article currently states) includes multiple different models depending on context/usage.

There are certainly debates within even the art world about whether or not RYB is the better subtractive model compared to CMY across various mediums, but regardless of accuracy from a color science perspective or personal opinions of various artists, there’s no question that RYB has a significant place as a primary model from an art perspective (both historically and in modern common practice), so that makes it relevant for inclusion.

It would be like insisting a section on curvilinear perspective doesn’t belong on the Perspective (graphical) page (or should only be mentioned in criticism, not in the context of its usage in art) just because it technically doesn’t accurately depict what human eyes see. Catfrost (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

And RYB is currently treated just as a bit of History, in a subsection of that section. I argue that it's still very much a current concept; some evidence for that is the frequency with which readers correct RGB to RYB all over the place. The existence of modern color science does not make traditional color theory go away. Dicklyon (talk) 01:16, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you Dicklyon. And thanks for the elaboration. It helps a lot to learn for future reviews.  Saha ❯❯❯ Stay safe  17:37, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

RYB still sticks around because of poor education, and substituting yellow in paints so colours mix more predictably. Just because lots of people are mistaken, doesn't mean it's valid. RGB are the primary colours, period. That's how our eyes see the world, hence why they are the primary colours. 142.188.188.167 (talk) 06:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Again, this completely ignores the concept of primaries in art. Unless you want to argue for subdividing this article into 2 different articles: Primary color (art) and Primary color (science) (which feels totally unnecessary to me) you’re arguing for excluding an entire highly relevant usage case (color as an artistic concept, not just a scientific one). Catfrost (talk) 23:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I've started a section at Primary color#Traditional red, yellow, and blue primary colors. Comments and improvements are welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 00:57, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Dicklyon has introduced a "Traditional red, yellow, and blue primary colors" section after complaining that the article is not neutral on that regard and that I was preventing him from adding that material. I have abstained from editing for about a month to address his grievances and to ensure he has enough time to add and improve the material without interference. Unfortunately, the new section is very problematic, isn't integrated in a sensible way and seems rooted strongly held misconceptions. Many of the points below have been made before (multiple times) on this talk page and easily understood by reading the key sources that are, and have long been, in the article..

Other editors now need to now critically assess the claims in the section that Dicklyon has added. This debate has been long running, with few other participants and there should be a consensus to settle the matter for a time. Historical claims of "red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors" ("RYB primaries") are described in detail in the article outside the section that has been added in a WP:NPOV, accurate way that is representative of what you can find in WP:RS from both art history and color science. "RYB primaries" is either a matter of notable historic claims or a widely held misconception found in "art education" materials since the 18th century or so which typically have little coherence or consistency on these ideas. There is no other legitimate way to frame "RYB primaries" outside of those general perspectives that are represented and supported in this article.

"RYB primaries" is not (and has never been) a notable heuristic of any tradition of painting practice that involves mixing large diverse gamuts of color (what is done in "realistic" painting). Such painting is a craft (with little documentation about the process behind it relative to its prominence). The historical claims about primaries in general, mostly by non-painters, vary and are difficult to reconcile with what is known about the craft (Gage's "Fortunes Of Apelles" is a comprehensive high quality source that supports this). The idea that it is well known that one can paint realistic paintings with just a few pigments (not just "RYB primaries") is covered under "Mixing paints in limited palettes". It is also covered appropriately since I can't think of a notable realistic painting that was made with "RYB primaries" as we seldom know the identities of all the pigments that were used in a particular painting. You might mention Piet Mondrian or Kadinsky, but they are using "RYB primaries" descriptively.

The "Color Mixing Guide" now shown in the article does not say what the caption of the associated figure says (WP:CHERRYPICKING, WP:STICKTOSOURCE). The cover suggests (but does not claim) that "all known colors" can be mixed from three "RYB primaries". The color plate only makes the claim that red, yellow, and blue (apparently shown as cyan, magenta and yellow in at least in some editions) were used to mix the modest set of "all colors in this "color chart"" (not "all known colors" as the caption claims). What does this source actually say about "all known colors"?:

With the following colors at hand all known colors may be obtained. Lemon yellow, which is of greenish hue; yellow of orange hue; red with orange hue; red which has a bluish cast. Blue with a reddish tone, also blue with a leaning toward green. A liberal supply of white and some black which does not contain blue.

It doesn't even list the pigments...rather odd given the book doesn't seem to be a lot more than a list of pigments. These vaguely specified primary colors are exactly *not* pure "RYB primaries" and they include white and black. WP:BLUESKY that you can't mix the most chromatic single pigment reds, yellows and blues from such pigments. This sort of inconsistency and incoherence is emblematic of muddy color thinking in low quality sources and has been long recognized as such. I don't think there is a WP:RS that tells us what inks were used in the color plates of any edition of "Color Mixing" (in this article: "...the red and blue pigments used in illustrative materials such as the Color Mixing Guide..."), the article should not speculate on their identity (WP:OR).

The O'Connor paper cited and entry that is quoted in this section is telling simple fibs, quite obvious to anyone with mere familiarity with the basics of what is known about color. The section tries to pass off the idea that the RYB system, whatever it is, and "traditional color theory" are synonyms. Was the O'Connor source read thoroughly? The paper defines "traditional color theory" explicitly in this quote ( WP:CHERRYPICKING, WP:STICKTOSOURCE):

"Traditional colour theory is defined as a branch of colour theory that features an ontological focus on pigment colour wherein colour is understood to have three attributes: hue, value (also referred to as tonal value, tone, lightness/darkness), and saturation (chroma, chromaticity).

This is claimed with no support, isn't used by anyone in art history or color science or by anyone other than the author as far as I can tell (WP:RS/AC). I would hope other editors would be suspicious as to why none of the key high quality sources used in this article in both art history and color science use "traditional color theory" (or "RYB system") in this way. O'Connor's paper is not cited by anyone else (WP:USEBYOTHERS). "Traditional color theory" is a label used by WP:RS found in this article to describe the class of incoherent low quality sources represented by "Color Mixing Guide" as discussed above. What WP:RS uses saturation and chroma equivocally in what "tradition"? Who confuses chroma with chromaticity? "Hue, value, and chroma" is synonymous with the Munsell Color System, (correctly) attributed to Albert Henry Munsell and considered foundational color theory/science. Munsell coined the term "chroma" and was well aware of the physicists' use of "saturation", how did the Munsell Color System end up as labeled as "traditional color theory" in this strange paper? It is undesirable for the article to represent these peculiar views (WP:FALSEBALANCE). The credibility of O'Connor's paper is further diminished by rather obvious fibs it makes, but this isn't a forum about that.

I didn't quote that one, as her other definition related more to primaries (RYB in particular). Your scholar search link ("isn't used by..." above) give a first hit to "Basic Color Theory" that says A color circle, based on red, yellow and blue, is traditional in the field of art." and "Primary Colors: Red, yellow and blue In traditional color theory...". This suggests to me that O'Connor and I are not the only ones using the adjective "traditional" for this RYB-based color theory. Anyway, I think O'Connor is a respected color writer and that this review is a reliable secondary source; it is not a requirement of Wikipedia that secondary sources give a cite for everything they say. Dicklyon (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Your claim that "RYB primaries" is her definition of "traditional color theory" isn't true. You can find her definition by reading the quote above that begins with ""Traditional colour theory is defined as...". Beats me as to how someone can turn that into RYB primaries.Maneesh (talk) 02:32, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Again, my "claim" is based on a different definition, the one in the source cited. Dicklyon (talk) 03:00, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

So if X is a "cornerstone component" of Y, X is defined as Y? Is that how this works? Maneesh (talk) 05:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. I had misinterpreted what was being defined there. Dicklyon (talk) 13:42, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that this is fixed, the writing is still makes these terms synonymous "This RYB system, or "traditional color theory","...but also cites a source titled "Traditional colour theory: A review" that explicitly defines "traditional color theory" in a way that is absolutely not synonymous with "RYB system". No need to make things this confusing. Handprint is absolutely concise and correct in the way it uses "material trichromacy" to define what I am pretty sure you are trying to. Compare how clearly the handprint page maps to the wp article, it's pretty obvious which is the much higher quality source. Maneesh (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Good point on the "or"; changed to "in". Never heard of "material trichromacy". Seems to be unique to handprint. Bruce notes there that the RYB system (with black and white) is "the conventional wisdom of artists and dyers stated in the formulaic brevity and specificity of an established theory." Fine. I call it "traditional color theory", as do various other sources. I know you like handprint, but it's also a very personal/opinionated source that's trying hard to get people to move away from traditional color theory. That's one POV. But that's not the POV that was so prominently missing from our article. And I agree that's it's no so easy to represent O'Connor's position concisely; with ‘Primary’ colours represent archetype variants of red, yellow and blue (RYB) – that is, not necessarily specific colours that are more pure or unique than others but rather exemplar colours and a focus on Hierarchical colour classifications I think it makes for a coherent interpretation of the traditional theory. But it's hard to summarize concisely. I could keep working on that. Or maybe there are other interpretations that could paint the traditional theory in a neutral or positive light to balance your dislike of it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

For some reason I can’t see an sig on the reply this is from but…

a widely held misconception found in "art education" materials since the 18th century or so which typically have little coherence or consistency on these ideas. There is no other legitimate way to frame "RYB primaries" outside of those general perspectives that are represented and supported in this article.
"RYB primaries" is not (and has never been) a notable heuristic of any tradition of painting practice that involves mixing large diverse gamuts of color

This is simply not true. I’m a professional artist. I went to art school and have a BFA. My art school’s color theory class included a color wheel project where we had to create an entire color wheel out of the RYB primaries. It wasn’t until years later that I learned of other subtractive models outside the context of printing.

Now, maybe things have changed in art education since the early 00s, but the point is, whether or not it’s the most accurate/best model, and whether or not you personally agree with it, it was, as recently as 2004, definitely still being taught to art students, and has been a common enough model in art that this perspective/usage needs to be included on this page.

I don’t even disagree that it’s not a great primary model! But the idea that it’s irrelevant or totally outdated/no longer used even from an artistic perspective does not seem factual to me.

Perhaps different perspectives are taught within specific fields of art, I was an illustration major, not a painting major, but if that’s the case, then that needs to be stated (and sourced). You can’t just take personal experience or viewpoints within one field of art and insist it applies universally to all artistic education and practice.

If there has been a massive shift in art education and it isn’t being taught as a primary model in most/any art schools anymore in any context, then I’d say you need to provide citation for that shift, because otherwise your claims contradict the professional experience/knowledge of a large portion of the art community. Catfrost (talk) 00:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

The reader is expected to believe that somehow the "RYB primaries" are a "cornerstone component" (from O'Connor's strange entry in Encyclopedia of Color Living Edition) of what is easily recognized as Munsell's seminal construction. Look at the Criticism subsection to see what Munsell had to say about that "RYB primaries" over a hundred years ago ("mischief", "a widely accepted error" etc.). It is quite laughable to suggest that "RYB primaries" are a cornerstone component of "hue, value, and chroma". I hope that the incoherence is clear here.

We really don't need to think about what the reader is expected to believe when we draw on secondary sources. And it sounds like you're complaining about RYB as cornerstone because you don't like her using Munsell's HVC dimensions. You're complaing about this source that's RYB focused because you dislike the other source that's more HVC focused? Why do you think I chose to quote this one? I do agree that the HVC definition is a bit off the mark for this article, whether it's a good or not good way of defining traditional color theory. Did Munsell get an exclusive on that? Did nobody organize color around those concepts (perhaps by other names) before Munsell? I don't know. Doesn't matter much to the crux of the point here. Dicklyon (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

If you don't have a good grasp of how much Munsell gets an exclusive on that, you need to read the key sources that are on this page (handprint and Briggs are a good place to start). You can also look at an accessible set of posts that critically assess the widely held notion that Munsell is the father of color science. Not at all credible to suggest that this doesn't matter here. If I were to define "traditional evolutionary theory" with observations and experiments from Darwin, Mendel etc. and then went on to say that "that a young earth is a core component of traditional evolutionary theory", that would be rather suspicious. That's what is going on here with O'Connor. You seem to be trying to cherrypick your way out of it, you can't.Maneesh (talk) 17:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Your math guy says of Munsell's patent: "Another part of the disclosure in the patent refers to 'the three well-known constants or qualities of color -- namely, hue, value or luminosity, and purity of chroma...' In the patent biz, we would refer to that hyphenated word well-known as a pretty clear admission of prior art!" So I'm not seeing what you mean that Munsell gets on exclusive on. Dicklyon (talk) 22:27, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I provided that source so that editors can see a critical assessment of what is largely taken as common knowledge; the author of that post ultimately agree with Munsell father of color science after all the evidence is considered. From the link already provided "The concept of chroma, new to leading American physicists of Munsell’s time, was found to be an original idea of Munsell". I would guess that Munsell was referring to other imprecisely defined ideas as we see in Runge's sphere. People like Runge were dancing around the idea of chroma, but didn't come to Munsell's key insights for which he is often venerated for. Maneesh (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I have no problem with Munsell as father of color science (though there are other important fathers, like Young and Maxwell and Helmholtz and Abney among others). But color science was and is a different thing from traditional color theory. The RYB primaries don't make much sense in modern color science, but they are what they are in traditional color theory. It helps to ignore the sometimes-claimed properties that you can't mix them from other colors, or that you can mix all colors with them. But those confusions apply to all systems of primaries, not just to RYB. Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Briggs says "Colour order systems based on hue, lightness and relative chroma first appeared in the early 19th century, but the key concept of absolute chroma was devised by the American artist and art teacher, Albert Munsell (1858-1918)...". So, we can give Munsell an exclusive (at the time) on "absolute chroma". Does that invalidate what O'Connor wrote (which I didn't even put into the article, so not clear why you think it's so important)? Dicklyon (talk) 22:35, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

O'Connor is claiming (read her definitions) that RYB is a cornerstone component of Munsell's HVC (HVC is synonymous with Munsell). That's a clear fib there is no need to refer to a source that supports such silly claims. Maneesh (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

That's an odd accusation that it's a "clear fib". Why can't it just be that's she's referring to the HVC concepts that predate Munsell, even if he did help to clarify and make those more definite with the context of modern color science and his own color order system? Here is an 1892 example in which buff and yellow differ chiefly in chroma. Dicklyon (talk) 21:28, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I added quote from handprint. I'm sure you won't like it, as it explains why artists often chose palettes closer to RYB than to the "optimal" CMY. Dicklyon (talk) 22:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't like it because the claims in the article are not supported by the source. MacEvoy is careful when he says "Painters who wanted to use a primary palette historically have chosen from among the labeled pigments", I strongly suspect he meant "would have chosen" as he doesn't mention a single painter or painting that used a primary palette historically (I can't think of one) in his entire website. Sticking to the source, some painters wanted to use a "primary palette" could only pick the pigments that were available that that time in history (fine). Does that claim support "MacEvoy explains why artists often chose a palette closer to RYB than to CMY"? It does not, there is no claim (and there couldn't really be) of what artists "often" chose. His R & B and aren't defined in his CIE LAB plane diagram (note his Y isn't b+, I am sure he has a good reason but hard for me to interpret)? If a painter who wanted to use a primary palette and chose PB17 and PR122, is that closer to RYB than CMY? How do you know? What metric are you using?Maneesh (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I also see that sentences now suggest that Itten and Albers are described together as making claims about RYB primaries. WP:RS treat Albers quite distinctly from Itten. Albers doesn't make any substantial claims about primary colors in his book , he really just mentions the different perspectives on primaries in passing (only 2 occurrences and in a very generalized way). Itten is really the only one who has something to do with "RYB primaries" and the one who WP:RS in the article critically asses. Some excellent notes on Albers from Briggs, along with an outstanding set of accessible sources. Albers has no real reason to be in this article.

I agree that I made a mistake in putting Albers in there; fixed. And I fixed the caption, which I agree was a bit off. This is still an early draft; help would be welcome. While some of your observations are correct—like that most authors don't specify specific pigments for R, Y, and B, and that there's not a great set that has a wide gamut (unless it's closer to CMY)—that is not a reason for us not to represent fairly and positively this widely used system of "primary colors". If you would turn your extensive knowledge to helping with that, that would be good. So far you've not been willing to do that for some reason. Your notion of a "coherent WP:RS" is one that doesn't talk about RYB as a system of primary colors; I get that. But WP:RS doesn't really restrict us to reliable sources that are "coherent" with your POV. We should rather be neutral, per WP:NPOV. Dicklyon (talk) 02:20, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

This article should reflect what I've outlined above and be reverted to where is was before Dicklyon's section was added. Things look very silly when "RYB primaries" is pushed past what coherent WP:RS claim. There has been plenty of time to seed the case for the nebulous idea of "traditional color theory" to be worked into the article but the associated claims do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. "RYB primaries" generally represents an inconsistent and incoherent view of color outside of notable claims found in history (which are quite distinct from one another and are not grouped under one theory by WP:RS). The article does (and should) cite the variety of contemporary low quality sources in art education that do claim "RYB primaries". Even if you pick up, what appear to be, more casual contemporary art books they can't help but point out how "RYB primaries" makes no sense. No coherent WP:RS says anything other than that such claims are generally common, as well as false/inconsistent/under-specified/incoherent as seen in the material that Dicklyon has added.

Some of the other claims and sources about early printing seem to clearly belong (there really should be something for that in the article) in the Subtractive Mixing section unless they get too long at which point it would make sense to put a subsection in History. Maneesh (talk) 23:47, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I have added a few more sources in which "traditional color theory" corresponds with RYB primaries. The fact that O'Connor mis-used "chromaticity", or used it differently from the way color scientists use it, doesn't mean there's no value in her review of traditional color theory in which RYB primaries are prominent. Your definition of all sources about that as being "low quality" is the bad POV problem I've been trying to work around here. Dicklyon (talk) 03:25, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't find a single occurrence "traditional color theory" in Snow and Froehlich. Who calls Snow and Froehlich "traditional color theory"? The quote in the article doesn't say anything but (from today's perspective) clumsily covers the difference between pigment and light. You are ignoring the problems I've clearly explained about 'Connor. Again: O'Connor's *explicit definition* of "traditional color theory" is, quite obviously, Munsell as I've shown clearly above which she associates with "RYB primaries"; that's nothing but silly as Munsell's quotes show. You can't work any of this into something coherent. If you think I am not helping by pointing out how this isn't sensible, so be it. I'll have to rely on the good sense of other editors. Maneesh (talk) 05:15, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Of course if they had used that term I probably would have said so in the article; I should probably not have quoted it that way above, since they use "Color Theory" without calling their RYB-based theory "traditional" at that time. The use of "traditional" is more retrospective; if you have a better sourced term for the color theory around RYB primaries, let us know. They do mention some competing color theories (named for their creators, including the Munsell theory), and discuss why they stick with a color theory and color wheel based on RYB. I agree it's clumsy from the modern color science POV. That's not a good reason to not fairly represent what it is. Maybe you don't like O'Connor's attempt at that; find something better then. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The article follows the claim: "O'Connor defines traditional color theory" with a quote that isn't how O'Connor defines traditional color theory. O'Connor isn't WP:RS but you aren't even putting her actual definition in which I've quoted earlier. Maneesh (talk) 06:53, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I do realize she has a different definition in the review article from the encyclopedia article. I quoted the latter, as cited there, since it connects more to the topic of primary colors. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

And now you've subsectioned mixing in limited palettes, that describes palettes that are not using "RYB primaries", under "Traditional red, yellow, and blue primary colors". This is all just hopelessly incoherent, I can't really do much except hope that other editors step in. Maneesh (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

That's my hope, too. That section is very odd if it's in this article but not connected to the notion of primaries, and more particulary to the primaries that most connect to painters' pigments. The sources there seem to be more often talking about red, yellow, and blue (and black and white) than about any of the other primary sets in the article. It looked to me like you had written to be an alternative to a more "traditional" treatment of RYB. Dicklyon (talk) 22:15, 13 June 2021 (UTC)