Yellow

Yellow is the color perceived by photoreception of light whose dominant wavelength is between 574 and 582 nm. It is found in the characteristic coloration of the skin of the ripe lemon, of the flower of the dandelion, of the bees or of the gold.

It is standardized in color catalogs and chromatic inventories, serving this "standard" yellow as a model and reference for the color yellow. Standard yellow can be seen in the box on the right, above; the values given below correspond to the same.

The color denomination «yellow» covers a set of colorations or variants similar to the standard color, called yellowish.

Etymology

Inflorescence of lion tooth

The word yellow derives from the Hispanic Low Latin amarēllus, 'yellowish, pale', diminutive of the Latin amārus, 'bitter'. For the philologist Joan Corominas, this association of concepts may have been due to the paleness of those suffering from jaundice, since this disease is a disorder of bile or bitter humor.

The use of the term "yellow" in Spanish language dates back to 1074.

Lexemes

Lexema icter or icteroof the Greek,κτερος (icteros), ‘ictericia, yellow’, associates with the terms that include it with yellow color. Some examples of this are jaundice and ictérido.

Another lexema that denotes yellow color is xant or xanto, of the Greek φανθός (xanthos), ‘yellow’, of unknown origin. An example of using this lexema is the word xantina.

Properties

As a psychological color: primary, warm

Yellow is one of the four primary psychological colors, along with red, green, and blue. In addition, it is considered a warm color, along with red, orange and all the colors that tend to these.

Production of colors from the primary of the subtractive system. Mixing cian, magenta and yellow are obtained the red, green and blue side, and by successive mixtures all the other colors.

As a subtractive color: primary

Yellow, along with magenta and cyan, is a subtractive primary color. This means that when working with pigments or dyes of any kind (paints, dyes, inks) it is enough to mix these three colors in different proportions to obtain all the others, with the addition of black and occasionally white to achieve a lighter shade. or darker.

In the process of four-color printing (used to print, for example, color books and magazines) yellow also plays a fundamental role, since this technique also uses subtractive primary colors with the addition of black. Hence, a process color is described by the percentage of each of these four colors that enters into its composition. Thus, an area printed in pure yellow color will be composed of C=0 (0% cyan), M=0 (0% magenta), Y=100 (100% yellow) and K=0 (0% black).). See CMYK.

Complementarity

In this system of chromosome synthesis, the complementary color of yellow is blue-purple. In plastic arts it is traditionally considered that the complement of yellow is violet.

As an additive color: secondary

Screening of the yellow color from the red mixture with the green.

In the additive color synthesis system, in which colors are made by mixing colored light instead of pigments, yellow is a secondary color. The primary colors of this system are red, green and blue; to get yellow you have to superimpose red light and green light. Optionally, we can start with the white light, which contains all the other colors, and filter out the blue, after which only the combination of red and green will remain: yellow.

This additive system of light colors is what monitors and televisions use to produce colors. In this system, a color is described with numerical values for each of its components (red, green and blue), indicating red with "R", green with "G" and blue with "B". On a value scale from 0 to 255, pure additive yellow is expressed as R=255 (full red), G=255 (full green), and B=0 (no blue). See RGB.

This yellow was one of the first colors that personal computers could reproduce when they abandoned monochrome, in the early 1980s.

Complementarity

In this chromosynthesis system, the complementary color of yellow is blue.

Spectral Yellow

Spectral Yellow is simply the yellow color in the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye is able to perceive. Frequencies higher than yellow are perceived as green, and frequencies lower than yellow are perceived as orange. The wavelength of yellow light is between 570 and 590 nm and pure yellow (according to various authors) is 578, 580 or 582 nm.

In the visible light spectrum, yellow is near the center, between green and orange

In the Newtonian spectrum and in the rainbow: third color

In the West, the traditional interpretation of rainbow chromaticism holds that it contains seven colors, corresponding to the seven colors into which Newton divided the spectrum of visible light. In this context, yellow is considered the third color, both in the Newtonian spectrum and in the rainbow.

Types

Pure yellow and other spectral yellows

It is the pure or vivid additive yellow with the maximum brilliance. Some pigments reach their hue, making them ideal subtractive primaries. It is an HTML color established by computer protocols for use in web pages and can be called in programming with the name yellow (yellow).

Among the pigments that reach their brilliance are light Hansa yellow or monoazo yellow, Ford yellow, Chrysler yellow, Humbrol yellow, etc. Crayola and RAL call it bright yellow, ColorHexa calls it electric yellow. A comparison between this yellow and other spectral yellows:

Standard Yellow

It is ancient, its use dates back more than 300 years, it is the primary color of the traditional color model and an example of its use is the cadmium yellow pigment. It is currently very common in CMYK printing (coordinate 0,0,100,0) and is also called canary yellow or process yellow (Pantone).

Pictorial yellows

Sunflowers, Oil by Vincent Van Gogh (1888)

Since ancient times, efforts have been made to produce colored substances for painting or dyeing that have good color, staining power, and permanence; that they were stable to light, that they dried reasonably quickly, that they had the necessary density and that they could be mixed without problems with other colors. Listed below are some of the yellow pigments that have stood out in the history of painting.

Cadmium Yellow

The cadmium yellow was created in 1840 and was used as a substitute for chromium yellow. It is documented in the palette of Impressionist painters Claude Monet and Paul Signac. Its tonal variety is wide: from greenish yellow to orange colorings. Its denomination indicates the tonal value: light cadmium yellow, lemon cadmium yellow, medium cadmium yellow, dark cadmium yellow, etc. Cadmium pigments are also used to obtain oranges and reds, although currently, due to their toxicity, they are imitated with azoderive pigments.

Chrome Yellow

The chrome yellow was originally made on the basis of lead chromat, intense color pigment that offers variations from light to almost orange tones. He was employed in temple and oil painting until the mid-19th century, and was one of the colors Vincent Van Gogh preferred to paint. The high toxicity of the chrome yellow, as well as its little stability in the light, were left unused. At present colors of the same tonal value are marketed, which no longer present these inconveniences, in the form of oil, acrylic, tea and watercolor.

Example of yellow tones

Indian Yellow

It is presumed that this pigment, today in disuse, was produced from the urine of cattle fed only with mango leaves. The Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries appreciated this pigment for its luminosity. The modern Indian yellow is a mixture of synthetic pigments, such as azoic yellow and naftol yellow.

Naples Yellow

Also called "antimony yellow", was originally obtained from lead antimoniate. It is a pigment of ancient use, although very toxic, unlike the previous one. Currently, nickel and titanium pigments are used that effectively mimic the tonal variations of the Naples yellow, ranging from greenish yellow to reddish yellow. They are high covering capacity and excellent resistance to light.

Ocher yellow

This pigment is already present in ancient cave paintings, Egyptians and Romans. The wide tonal variety of ochre is due to different concentrations of iron oxide.

Examples of yellows and close colors

Web Colors

Web colors established by computer protocols for use on web pages include the yellow shown below. As you can see, it coincides with the pure additive yellow and can be called in programming with the name yellow (yellow).

For the other HTML yellows that are defined by name, see the following color table:

In nature

The poison frog Dendrobates leucomelas warns with its contrasted yellow and black colouring that has a very powerful toxin

Aposematism

In nature, the color yellow plays an important role in the warning coloration, also called aposematic, of animals. Certain species use this color—generally in combination with black or other contrasting colors—to warn predators of their toxicity and/or bad taste. The yellow used in these cases is intense, suitable for distinguishing themselves in the natural environment, where they are more frequent green, blue and brown.

Xantism

Xanthism is known as a phenotypic abnormality in the usual chromatic pattern of a species, which is expressed in the total or partial display of scales, skin, fur, or yellow plumage. These specimens are usually also called yellow variety, yellow mutation or lutino, this last term is especially characteristic in ornamental poultry.

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  Lemon

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  A poplar in autumn

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  Poisonous golden frog

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  Domestic canary

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  The Sun is considered a yellow star

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  Hongo Calocera

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  Yellow ochre hillside

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  Crystal sulfur

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  Cetrino color of a citrine quartz

Symbolism

• Yellow has been related to sensationalism, see yellow press.
• Yellow pages are, in many countries, company phone directories.
• The yellow color was the symbol of the emperor of China and consequently of the Chinese monarchy.
• The Yellow Emperor is a Chinese mythological figure.
• In several countries, taxis are yellow. This practice began in New York thanks to Harry N. Allen, who painted his yellow vehicle after learning that this color was the most visible at a distance.
• In the theater it is said that the yellow color gives bad luck because Molière died representing his work The imaginary sick dressed in that color.
• The economy is represented with the yellow color.^{[chuckles]required]}
• The medical sciences are also represented with this color, by the yellow snake of the Sculpture rod.
• In some countries it is said colloquially that it gives you yellow when someone pales by a drop of tension, due to having consumed some kind of drug, especially by lung.
• Jorge Luis Borges in his story The other refers to yellow in relation to blindness.
• In politics, it is called amarillism to the tactic of repeatedly changing position in a discussion.^{[chuckles]required]}
• In several songs you make use of this color, as in Yellow of Coldplay or Yellow Submarine The Beatles.
• Yellow fever, also called American Plague, is an acute and infectious viral disease caused by "the yellow fever virus", which belongs to the Flavividae family, and gender Flavivus amaril.
• It is widely used in warning and safety signals because it is the most visible colour of the human eye. It is the traditional reflective vest and has become the connector of the Mayo Amarillo movement that fights traffic accidents.

Heraldic yellow and vexillological yellow

Yellow is not a heraldic color. When it appears on a coat of arms, it generally represents the metal gold. However, it can specifically appear as yellow if the description of the weapons requires the representation of some "natural" yellow figure (for example, a flower).

In vexillology, the color yellow derives from heraldic gold and is relatively common. The yellow surface in some flags is considerable, and others even use yellow as a background color, although this is not usually seen in national flags.

In the examples below these lines: the yellow rhombus of the Brazilian flag derives from the heraldic gold of the House of Habsburg, family of Maria Leopoldina of Austria, who was Empress of the Kingdom of Brazil between 1822 and 1826; in the flag of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, yellow represents the richness of the soil, as well as the sun and sovereignty; in the flags of Argentina and Uruguay the yellow sun represents the sun of May, the sun that rose in the revolution of May 25; on the flag of Ukraine, yellow represents the country's wheat fields.

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  Flag of Colombia

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  Flag of Ecuador

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  Flag of Venezuela

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  Flag of Brazil

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  Flag of Argentina

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  Flag of Uruguay

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  Flag of Ukraine

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  Flag of Spain

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  Flag of Brunéi

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  Flag of the Vatican City

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  Flag of North Macedonia

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  Flag of Andorra

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  Flag of Sweden

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  Sri Lankan flag

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  Flag of Palau

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  Flag of Antigua and Barbuda

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  Bahamas flag

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  Flag of Barbados

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  Flag of Granada

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  Flag of Dominica

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  Flag of Guyana

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  Flag of Jamaica

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  Flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

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  Flag of Suriname

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  Flag of Saint Lucia

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  Flag of Kiribati

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  Flag of Mexico (Parts of the shield have yellow color)

Political Yellow

In most European countries yellow is associated with liberal parties and libertarian liberals including Renew Europe and liberal democrats. Liberal parties are characterized by being transversal parties (which do not fit into the left-center-right spectrum) but rather have a liberal political ideology in economic policy and, at the same time, have a policy linked to the defense of civil rights.

There is also the expression "yellowism" for the parties that supported the employer in the strikes. Yellow syndicalism would emerge in France in 1899. The first union of this type would be founded by a group of workers opposed to the strikes and they would choose the color yellow as opposed to the red of the socialist unions. For the above reason, in some countries "yellow" can be a qualifying adjective with derogatory connotations to refer to those who hold moderate, indefinite or wavering political positions, or who constitute a "fifth column" against the ideologies defended, especially those of the left..

See political colors: political yellow.

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  The comic of El Chico Amarillo popularized the term "yellow press"