I find colour fascinating in that there seems to be rich theories behind it in both art and science that I have trouble wrapping my head around.
For example, it seems as though there is nothing inherent about a certain wavelength of light that makes it primary or secondary or tertiary. Rather, the primariness of a colour is a function of the visual system perceiving it. We've got three cones in our eyes, one most responsive to wavelengths in the reddish part of the spectrum, one most responsive in the blueish, and one in the greenish. When light stimulates both the blue and green, for instance, the brain reasons that the reason for this is that we must be perceiving a wavelength of light kinda between the two, so it shows us yellow. This is what makes RBG (hey!) the primary colours of light.
What I don't understand is why the primary colours of pigment are red, yellow, and blue, rather than red, green, and blue. Pigment and light seem to act differently because one is subtractive while the other is additive, but I have no idea why it should be the case that it matters whether the light reaching our eyes was emitted or reflected by something. Especially confusing when in print, the primary colours used are cyan, magenta, and yellow, which are slightly different from blue, red, and yellow, and are the secondary colours of light. I mean, I understand that pigments absorb certain wavelengths of light, so the colour you see is the wavelength that was reflected rather than absorbed, but in the end, both subtractive and additive are transmitting some wavelengths of light to your eye regardless, so why does it matter how it got there?
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