This video provides a good primer on color mixing and theory.  It explains hue, temperature, value and intensity.  You’ll learn how classical paintings use color close to the neutral core, how the lightfast colors used by the Impressionists were a result of the Industrial Revolution and intense modern colors were developed post WWII.

This Leonardo da Vinci painting is an example of the classical palette which, as explained in the video, is close to the neutral core.

 

By Claude Monet – repro from art book, Public Domain, Link

In this painting we can see the luminous hues of the Impressionists use.  The palette we use in class is largely made up of these mineral pigments.