PHENOMENAL refers to the word "color" in its first basic meaning as a sense quality: a specific nature of the cause or content of a visual sensation and perception.  It is understood here as the physical cause of a visual sensation, as the basal property of the material world, which triggers a specific reaction in our eye through its light reflection.  However, as a sensation - in the concept the physical is inseparably connected with the psychological - this reaction eludes a more detailed description;  not only because of the particularly virulent inadequacy of our language in color phenomena.  The feeling itself is a matter of the individual subject.

 Color refers to the perceptible appearance of things and living beings, which is based on various reflections and absorptions of light and refers in the physical sense to electromagnetic waves in the wavelength range between 380 and 780 nanometers, the spectrum of visible light, the spectrum of our sun minus infrared and ultraviolet.  We define "black" as the absence of light and thus as the absence of any color, but "white" as the absence of any color, as bright.  For us they belong, as well as "gray" to the achromatic colors.

 SUBSTANTIAL we consider the colorants, pigments and dyes, more precisely.  We can distinguish between natural mineral colors, earth colors, synthetic mineral colors, natural animal or plant colors, and synthetic organic colors.  Therein, the word "color" denotes a coloring substance, the dye.  But color also refers to the body, which communicates the surface of other bodies, i.e.  changes the previous color of the object.

 SUBSTANTIAL we consider the colorants, pigments and dyes, more precisely.  We can distinguish between natural mineral colors, earth colors, synthetic mineral colors, natural animal or plant colors, and synthetic organic colors.  Therein, the word "color" denotes a coloring substance, the dye.  But color also refers to the body, which communicates the surface of other bodies, i.e.  changes the previous color of the object.

MEDIA AND LOCAL: Animals and plants warn, entice or disguise themselves by means of colors.  Their colored body parts exert an optical signal effect.  Colors fulfill important biological purposes such as reproduction, food or camouflage.

However, colors also function as recognizers and markers in the living environment of people and refer symbolically to dangers, prohibitions, countries, places and peculiarities, but also to similarities, feelings of cohesion, connections and experiences.

Our language is more than a means of communication.  It is a knowledge store for sayings and idioms, life experiences of generations, as well as the expertise of specialists and scientists.  But through color, language is communication without words.  This language is subject to a whole series of conventions of psychological, symbolic and religious nature, which vary according to country and epoch.  Also, the attempt through colorimetry to bring a certain order with the help of precisely specified color plates, still does not capture all the properties such as structure, transparency, brilliance and texture, which make up the actual color impression.

 The color perception is also culturally influenced.  Not only the naming of the colors, but also their classification depends essentially on a common vocabulary, thus also on social conventions and is determined to a considerable extent culturally.

ARTISTICAL: Colors have an unconscious symbolic power that gives our life its deeper meaning.  Almost every professional painter finds his own style with its own color and technique.  He uses the color and the material to express himself.  Colors are meant to be intoxicating, taking the viewer into another sphere, and painting is emerging in another place.

 Colors have the property of producing sensory effects only in harmony with other colors.  A single tone will reveal its character and ever-changing temperament only in collective play with other hues.  Combining colors with each other is a creative process like a colorful dream, a creative adventure or a poetic journey into the infinite world of the senses.  However, the message that conveys a particular color or color group is variable.  Because every color statement is always individual, true only to the moment and depending on its environment.  Colors and feelings are not randomly combined, are not individual tastes, but general experiences, anchored since childhood deep in our language and thinking, with psychological symbolism and tradition.