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Polychromy

Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology
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Definition

Polychromy refers to the combination of many colors in a visual scene, whether it is a natural landscape or a man-made arrangement of things, for instance, a piece of art, a design, an object, a building, an urban landscape, etc. The word is formed by the Greek words poly (many) and chroma (color).

Overview

Colors can be divided into two separate classes: chromatic colors (such as red, green, blue, yellow, and any other tone), and achromatic colors (such as white, black, and grays). The characteristic of chromatic colors is that they have a definite hue, in addition to a certain saturation and lightness. Achromatic colors do not have a definite hue, and their saturation has a zero value; they are only distinguished by their lightness. When many chromatic colors of different hue appear together, this is called a polychromaticcomposition. If a composition uses colors of different saturation and lightness but of the same hue (for instance, different kinds of yellow that could...

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Correspondence to José Luis Caivano .

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Caivano, J.L. (2015). Polychromy. In: Luo, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_248-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_248-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27851-8

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Polychromy
    Published:
    04 June 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_248-2

  2. Original

    Polychromy
    Published:
    08 September 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_248-1