Color Mixing and Eyesight

Summary: Color Mixing and Eyesight   Experiencing the visual  change brought about by eye surgery to replace clouded/color changed lenses, (cataract surgery) despite the pre-surgical briefing, the  transformation that will occur is still surprising. As an artist, replacing natural lenses with artificial intraocular lens (IOL) has had a significant impact on creating works of art .

Simulation of pre-surgical and post-surgical appearance of vision related to cataract surgery

The long break from writing new Syntax of Color articles has been influenced by many factors. Daily life gets in the way of doing many things.  One of the most dramatic things that happened this winter was agreeing with my doctor that it was finally time to get cataract surgery.

The amazement came when one eye was completed and my vision could be compared with the eye that was yet to be done. I spent most of the 2 weeks between procedures closing my post-surgical right eye, followed by closing my left eye and comparing the clarity, color difference and sharpness. 

My eyes were outfitted with IOLs that gave me distance vision and much more. Light is brighter and colors are more vivid.  Before the left eye was done and could be compared to my post-surgical right eye, it became obvious that I was perceiving the world with everything being duller and cast in a yellow-grey veil.  My vision was never clouded by cataracts; it was just not as intense and faithful to the way colors actual appear.

I initially marveled at how blue the sky was, how the walls of our home were so bright white (I thought they were white with a hint of tan) and how much larger everything looked.  People like me with very high negative sphere values to correct vision problems realize that glasses make the world look smaller. The “cost” of vision clarity is that lenses shrink the size of objects.  Now, everything is bigger.  The TV is larger. Our dog got bigger looking. Everything grew by more than a third the size it previously appeared when depending on corrective lenses.

Regarding color: I was a bit frightened to look at all the paintings I had done before the surgery.  I was certain that the colors would be way off. I was relieved to find that everything was fine. However, I see the blue hues are more vivid than what I thought I painted. Warm hues appear to have been less influenced by my pre-surgical eyes.

So, what does that say about how we perceive color?  I reflect that I did not have as pronounced distortion in color and clarity a decade ago when taking color vision perception tests.  Years ago, the Art Materials Collection and Study Center at the National Gallery of Art received several donations from one of the ASTM members who studied color intensely. One of the many gifts we obtained was a test composed of 12 colors that mimic the appearance of round, flat, pan watercolors. The colors in the disks display a range starting from earthy green with a hint of dusty pink and end with a dusty pink with a slight hint of earthy green. The object of the test is to put the disks of color in order as they progress from being dominantly earthy green to ending with being dominantly dusty pink.  The changes between disks are very subtle to say the least. When done, the test taker turns over the disks to reveal numbers on the back. If they are in the correct order numerical  from 1 to 12, the test subject has passed the test.

I took the test several times over a few years, mostly when visitors asked how the test apparatus worked.  I managed to get them right every time.  So my eyes were not as bad as they were most recently before surgery.

This brings me to ponder how we assess color. We see color based on the fidelity of the physical structure, mechanics, biology and signals interpreted by our brain. We can’t switch to a different form of seeing. So, color becomes an individualized perception.  Only when we interact with another person to compare colors do we get feedback that indicates that we don’t see things the same.  However, the devil is in the details.  Sure, someone with moderate lens yellowing and or greying will agree with someone with no cataract issues that blue is blue, green is green, red is red, etc.  It is only when we ask the same people to dig deep and describe if a blue as a bias towards warmth or coolness do we get mismatched conclusions.  As an example, our home has natural gas for cooking.  Prior to my surgery, I would swear that natural gas flames are blue-green, but mostly blue with a hint of greenness. After surgery, I see blue-violet flame emanating from the burners.  The flame is warm in hue, not cool.  The sky was never as intensely blue as it is now after surgery.

What surprised me was that I did not make horrible color mixing mistakes prior to lens replacement. My color vision bias was equally distributed over all the colors I was selecting and mixing.  Since I never tried to make exact match with objects that others would know to be wrong, my paintings still appeared to be within a normal range of expected colors.

Since I opted to get distance vision, I had to sacrifice close-up vision. So, my future challenge will be to get the right progressive lenses that allow me to see and paint with clarity up close but also maintains clear vision in the distance where the subject matter in a painting resides.  I have painted since my surgery by using reading glasses pushed out to the end of my nose so I could look over the top of them to see distant objects clearly.  I also tried painting without reading glasses, and the results were surprisingly acceptable.

I remarked to my family that as a young child I was required to wear glasses. After surgery, it was the first time in 66 years that I could see anything at a distance clearly.  I could also look at my face in a mirror without having glasses.

Thank you to my wonderful, gifted eye surgeon and to my wife who administered 283 doses of eye drops over the 6 weeks of post-operative treatment. Now back to making works of art and writing about the mysteries of color history.

Syntax of Color

Keywords: Color mixing after cataract surgery, color perception, vision,