Neither chemistry nor physics are important to him. Colour is basically an element of beauty, and its shine should enhance its effect. Aristotle is in turn more practical. He restricts the basic colours to the two extremes of black and white, defined by either the absence or presence of light. Light on its own is thus white, and for that reason he assigns this to the element air.
Colours appear at the point where a body is no longer transparent.
Aristotles constructs the many colours of the world by mixing, which takes place on various levels. The secondary colours arise from the juxtaposition of the smallest points of basic colours which are no longer perceivable by the human eye, from the superimposition of basic colour layers, or through blending coloured substances. Aristotle's theories remain influential up until the time of Fludd in the early 17th century. They were not confined to Europe, having intensively occupied the Arabic philosophers, who were to re-examine the relationship between light and colour in the 11th century. He strongly opposed Aristotle, mainly objecting to the names of the colours and their translation.