Chromosphere: The Color Theory Podcast
Chromosphere explores color theory, the science of color and optics, and how human color perception informs visual art and design. It is hosted by Ed Charbonneau, an artist and educator at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Episodes examine research and practical applications of color in drawing, painting, and design.
Episodes
Part 1: Racism, Misogyny, and Positioning in Color Theory
The conclusion of Season 5. A follow up to a webinar I gave titled, "Regarding Racism in Color Theory", hosted by the Colour Society of Australia, April 19, 2026 (April 18 USA time zones).Link to recording of the webinar on YouTube: link"Regarding Racism in Color Theory" with Edward Charbonneau (MCAD USA)The Colour Society of Australia (website)International Color Association (
Weather and Color Theory with guest podcaster Moira Wigderson
Guest podcaster Moira Wigderson discusses their weather/color research.National Weather Service: What Do Those Map Colors Mean?National Weather Service: Hazards MapNational Weather Service: Point Forecast Headline Shading Decision LogicNational Weather Service: Severe Thunderstorm Safety RulesNational Weather Service (History): Hoist a flag for cold waves and other weather conditions Send us Fan M
Interview with Julie Beeler, author of "The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi"
"The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi"By Julie BeelerThe book: Chronicle BooksThe website: Mushroom Color Atlas"An overview of the contribution of the textiles sector to climate change." Leal Filho W, Perry P, Heim H, Dinis MAP, Moda H, Ebhuoma E and Paço A (2022) Frontiers in Environmental Science (Link to download PDF)"The Food Scientist
Color and Emotion: Experience and Aesthetic Awareness (2026)
An episode promoting the online Minneapolis College of Art and Design Continuing Education course I will teach Wednesdays, March 25-April 22, 2026 / meeting 7:00-9:30pm CT USA. Please see MCAD CE website for details.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Reflections: Primary Colors and the Art of Persuasion
A reflection on teaching primary color concepts; thoughts on persuasion and the Pantone Color of the Year. Resources:Aristotle, On Sense and the Sensible, MIT websiteDa Vinci, A Treatise on Painting, e-book website (see pages 141 and 147; also 178-79)Ogden Rood, Modern Chromatics, Internet Archive, websiteBerlin and Kay, Basic Color Terms, Wikipedia (Search UC Irvine for PDF)Pantone websiteDavid B
Yellow
An episode devoted to the color yellow.Resources:The St. Olaf ChoirLooney Tunes: Elmer Fudd - Kill the WabbitDay Glo CompanyDavid Briggs. Beyond Colour Theory: Understanding and Applying Colour, National Art School, Sydney, Australia, Online course Lauren Welbourne. Why we see things differently in winter compared with summer, Phys Org, Aug. 5, 2015Lauren Welbourne, et al. Human colour perception
Reflections
A reflection on the past 4 years of the podcast.Matthew Midwood - WebsiteEd Charbonneau - WebsiteShedd Aquarium, Chicago, USA - WebsiteThomas Young - Bakerian Lecture, January 1, 1802, page 20Barry B. Lee. 2008. The evolution of concepts of color vision. Neurociencias.David Witt - Colormxr color mixing toolInternational Colour Association - AIC 2025 Taipei: Color for FutureColour Society of Austra
A Sherlock Holmes Color Theory Odyssey
More background on competing histories of color harmony, and a reprise of episodes from Season 1, Color Theory Wars parts 1 and 2.Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, Sacred Bones Records publisher Newton's Optiks, 1704, Project Gutenberg ebookGoethe's Theory of Colors, 1810 (1840 translated by Charles Lock Eastlake) Project Gutenberg e
Turquoise and Yellow: Measuring the Gap in My Knowledge in Parsecs
Guardian website: Do you see blue or green? This viral test plays with color perceptionColour Literacy Project: ResourcesScience How Stuff Works: Earth's Oldest Color was PinkMartin Bricelj Baraga (cyanometer art installation): CyanometerColor categories in thought and language, edited by C. L. Hardin and Luisa Maffi. Cambridge University Press, New York: 1997Encyclopedia of Color Science and
A Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel Project
Sharing a project I designed based upon Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel's color methodologies. Try it for yourself, or with a class.Link to project description (Google Doc):Color Project: Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel Link to video of presentation on Gartside and Vanderpoel's methodologies (on Vimeo):MCAD 2022 Faculty Biennial Forum Presentation by Ed CharbonneauSend
Color and Emotion
Color and Emotion, the topic of a 5-week online course I have designed and will be teaching in March/April 2025 for the Continuing Education Department of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.Color and Emotion: Experience and Aesthetic AwarenessOnline course, five weeksWednesday eveningsMarch 5 - April 9 (off March 19)7-9:30 pm CTCourse websiteMark Rothko at MoMAMichelangelo Sistine Chapel M
Camouflage
Welcome to Season 4! Lost and Found: Abbott Thayer and The Study of Camouflage. Martin Stevens Dazzle Camouflage. WikipediaNeuroanatomy, Retina. Navid Mahabadi and Yasir Al Khalil, NIH, Aug. 8, 2023The Confetti Illusion: This optical illusion tricks you into seeing different colors. How does it work? Nicoletta Lanse, Live Science, May 19, 2021The ‘Confetti Illusion’ Makes Fruit Appear Riper Than I
TV Party Tonight
The final episode of Season 3. A reflection on the past three seasons.The Book of Colour Concepts, Alexandra Loske and Sarah Lowengard, Taschen 2024Color Theory: A Critical Introduction, Aaron Fine, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021Magenta + Green = Blue? Instagram video reelBlack Flag, TV Party, 1982Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Interview with Gamma Jeanne: I Love Blue
Interview with Gamma Jeanne; a departure from our more in-depth discussions of color theory. Jeanne's career as an artist spans over nine decades and includes working with acrylic paints in the 1940s and being at the center of department store design in the 1950s. Our conversation is wide-ranging as it addresses an artist's inner drive to create and form connections with people.Relevant
The Eclipse: Purkinje Shift Reprise
CNN online article: Wear red and green to experience the Purkinje effect during the total solar eclipseSend us Fan MailSupport the show
Interview with Luanne Stovall: A New 21st Century Color Literacy Paradigm
Luanne Stovall is an artist and color theorist with an MFA in painting from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She attended the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture (New York City), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, Maine).Luanne is a member of the Steering Committee of the global Colour Literacy Project and a visiting
Interview with Suyao Tian: A Journey into Color
A conversation with artist, Suyao Tian exploring her process as a painter and her personal approaches to using color. Please find more information related to this episode here.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Interview with Jon Reischl: Memory, Perception, and Experience
A conversation with Jon Rieschl. Please find additional resources to this episode here.Jon Reischl is a visual artist and designer specializing in mixed-media and oil painting. He has shown work locally in the Twin Cities and the greater metro area as well as regionally at venues throughout the Midwest. A graduate of St. Paul’s College of Visual Arts (RIP), He works out of Rock 9 Art Studio, locat
Interview with Sebastián Wilson: The Mystery of Color
Sebastián Wilson is a photographer living in Santiago, Chile. He studied architecture which has a clear influence on his work both on the graphic sense, and on the way he observes and portrays light. For links and resources related to this episode, please see the Chromosphere episode webpage.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Interview with Dr. David Briggs: Understanding and Applying Colour
Dr. David Briggs has been teaching classes on colour for more than 20 years, and currently teaches colour, drawing and painting at the National Art School and the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. For links and resources related to this episode, please see the Chromosphere episode webpage.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Interview with Jeremy Szopinski: Abstract Landscape Painting
I interview painter Jeremy Szopinski who is a good friend and longtime studio mate. For more information about the podcast and Jeremy's artworks, check out this website link.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Mary Gartside and the Colour Ball: A Correction
The final episode of Season 2; includes a correction to the Mary Gartside episode from Season 1. The first version of this episode erroneously stated a connection between Mary Gartside and the writing of Johann von Goethe. This new episode was recorded as a correction and published on April 24, 2023. Mary Gartside was a painter, teacher, and color theorist who lived in England from 1755-1819. More
Focal Points and the Roots of Abstraction, part 1
Part one of a reading of an essay I am writing, Focal Points and the Roots of Abstraction.Human color vision adapts to the changing environment in many ways. Pupils dilate and constrict in order to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. The lens either bunches up or flattens out to change its shape while focusing light wavelengths along the spectral band at different proximities to the ret
Red, White, Gray, and Black
Are nearly all the cars and trucks in your area either red, white, gray, or black? Discussion of red colors pairing to neutral colors as a color scheme.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
No Science and No Math
A review of a listener letter.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Color Theory and the Grocery Store
A walk through the grocery store in search of the analogous split-complementary color scheme as well as other palettes.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Harmony part 3: A New Canon
Part 3 of 3: The final installment, A New Canon, places the work of color theorists, Mary Gartside and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel in historical context so as to examine how their inclusion (and by extension, additional underrepresented color theorists and practitioners) may help us to understand how we may expand our contemporary approaches to color usage in all creative visual fields. Send us Fan Mai
Harmony part 2
Part 2 of 3. In this episode, I read the middle portion of an essay I have written, which could become a chapter in a future publication. (Read in three parts.)Abstract:This essay charts how the term harmony came to be used by European and North American artists, designers, and educators as a qualitative descriptor of color usage and design. Originating in metaphysics and philosophy in BCE Greece
Harmony part 1
Part 1 of 3. In this episode, I read the beginning of an essay I have written, which could become a chapter in a future publication. (Read in three parts.)Abstract:This essay charts how the term harmony came to be used by European and North American artists, designers, and educators as a qualitative descriptor of color usage and design. Originating in metaphysics and philosophy in BCE Greece as a
Primary Colors part 3
Welcome to Season 2! This episode features a correction on the first episode of Season 1, followed by the continued investigation of how red, yellow, and blue became known widely as primary colors.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Green: Are There More Greens than Any Other Color?
The final episode of Season 1. I explore whether or not there are more variations of color within the hue of green; more than those of the other hue color families. Thank you for listening to Season 1!Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Telescopes & Color Theory
Discussion of the impact of telescopes on the development of color theory. Also linear & aerial perspective in relation to depth and space, and what any of that has to do with the newly-launched James Webb Space Telescope.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Emily Noyes Vanderpoel
Discussion of the work of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and her book, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, of 1903. Discussion centers on where I see her concepts in relation to those of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Purple: The Color That Doesn't Exist?
Discussion of additive spectral color mixing and how our perception of purple may be the result of our minds experiencing a negative green. Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Afterimages & Complementary Colors
Discussion of how afterimages occur when the cones of the retina tire and weaken due to overstimulation, allowing other cones to briefly play a more dominant role in vision, and how that lead to the establishment of complementary colors.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Color Theory Wars 2: The Philosopher (Schopenhauer) vs the Poet (Goethe) and the Physicist (Newton)
Discussion of Arthur Schopenhauer and Phillip Otto Runge's ideas about color vision and color harmonies, and how they may have impacted the teaching of color theory at the Bauhaus art school, in Germany in the early 20th Century. Send us Fan MailSupport the show
The Birefringent Michelangelo
Discussion of the speed of light, polarization, glare, mirages, and what any of that has to do with Michelangelo. (See cangiantismo and shot silk.)Send us Fan MailSupport the show
The Purkinje Shift
Discussion of how our perception of blues and greens remain strong in low light, and how that may have impacted the use of lapis lazuli (and other blue pigments) prior to the invention of the electric light bulb.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Homer and the Wine-Dark Sea
Why did Homer repeatedly describe the color of the ocean as wine-dark in the Iliad and the Odyssey? Could the sky have been purple or violet in the days when Helen and Achilles lived in mythological Ancient Greece? Discussion will focus on the possible ways in which the ocean could have been similar in color to that of a nice Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir wine.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Color Theory Wars 1: The Poet (Goethe) vs the Physicist (Newton)
In Zur Farbenlehre (A Theory of Colours, or, A Doctrine of Colours) of 1810, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe worked to dismiss Newton’s findings of the nature of spectral light and sought a return to Aristotelian views of color. Why no love for Newton? This episode reviews Goethe's theories and how he introduced psychology to the understanding of human color perception.“A great mathematician [New
Chromostereopsis: Color Depth Perception & Focal Points
Also known as vibrating colors or scintillating colors. Discussion of the chromostereopsis effect will explore how colors are perceived in 3-dimensional space, even when located on a 2-dimensional picture plane; how reds advance and blues recede. Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Value Contrast & Focal Points!
Given the properties of color (hue, value & chroma), do value contrasts work to form the most effective focal points? This question is addressed in relation to color vision's adaptability to view contrasts in hue and chroma over those of value and brightness. Also, could our vision as babies affect how we perceive value contrasts today? Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Unique Yellow: How Perception Shifts the Color of Sunlight with the Changing of the Seasons
Have you ever noticed that the color of sunlight changes throughout the year? It is thought that this is due to our shifting perception of a color known as Unique Yellow. Discussion will center on how this phenomenon occurs.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Is Indigo the Pluto of Hues? - Sir Isaac Newton and the Visible Spectrum
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Black Plastic
Is black plastic recyclable? Check out the World Economic Forum for more information on how it is recyclable, but rarely recycled. This episode focuses on a potential color theory explanation as to why it is that black plastic is used frequently as food packaging.Send us Fan MailSupport the show
Mary Gartside and the Colour Ball: A Correction
A prior version of this episode erroneously stated a connection between Mary Gartside and the writing of Johann von Goethe. This new episode was recorded as a correction and published on April 24, 2023. Mary Gartside was a painter, teacher, and color theorist who lived in England from 1755-1819. More information about Gartside can be found at: The Winterthur Museum's Program in American Mater
Primary Colors part 1
Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly stated the Jacob Christopher Le Blon was the first to identify cyan, magenta, and yellow as the three subtractive primary colors in 1723-26. Le Blon invented three and four color printing, but used red, yellow, and blue as his primaries. It wasn't until 1905 when Thomas A. Lenci of the Eagle Printing Ink Company, in New York City, use
Primary Colors part 2: Optical Mixing
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