● In 1490 , Leonardo da Vinci suggested an alternative hierarchy of colour , insisting that black ( the absence of colour ) and white ( the cause of colour ) were both essential to the painter ’ s palette . In his Treatise on Painting , he offered a new colour scheme with white representing light , and black , darkness . He listed the six colours of his scheme in order : white , yellow ( earth ), green ( water ), blue ( air ), red ( fire ), and black . Like Aristotle , he equated colours with the four elements .
Da Vinci is also well known for his position on whether or not the colours of the rainbow were produced by the sun . “ The colours of the rainbow are not produced by the sun , for they occur in many ways without the sunshine ; as may be seen by holding a glass of water up to the eye ... each bubble of water , even though the sun does not fall on it , will produce on one side all the colours of the rainbow .”
● Aristotle ’ s scholarly beliefs on colour were widely held for over 2,000 years until being replaced by those of Sir Isaac Newton . Similarly , Da Vinci ’ s perspective on the colours of the rainbow was also refuted , by Newton , two centuries later . Like so many other areas of science , Newton completely redefined the conventional theories on the behavior of light .
Rather than seeing light as a void of colour , Newton discovered that white light is a combination of all colours across the colour spectrum . He proposed that the number of colours seen in the spectrum was a function of how closely you looked , and so might be five , seven , or even “ indefinite ”.