Ochre and orpiment pigments were used to represent gold and skin color in Egyptian tombs, then in the murals in Roman villas. Sunlight has a slight yellowish hue when the Sun is near the horizon, due to atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths (green, blue, and violet).īecause it was widely available, yellow ochre pigment was one of the first colors used in art the Lascaux cave in France has a painting of a yellow horse 17,000 years old. They absorb light energy and protect plants from photo damage in some cases. Carotenoids give the characteristic yellow color to autumn leaves, corn, canaries, daffodils, and lemons, as well as egg yolks, buttercups, and bananas.

In the RGB color model, used to create colors on television and computer screens, yellow is a secondary color made by combining red and green at equal intensity. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing.

It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575–585 nm. Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light.

Yellow test print