What Two Colours Make Brown?

The colour brown is made up from low intensity dark red and orange. The colour brown can be formed by mixing black complementary colours to red or orange. Generally being a low intensity colour it is subjected as a tertiary colour in its original technical sense.

A mixture of three subtractive primary colours is brown if the content of cyan is low. Brown is present as a colour perception only in the existence of a darker colour contrast. Red or orange objects are still apparent as such if the basic lighting level is low. In spite of shining the same amount of red or orange light as a brown article would in standard lighting conditions.

The first documented use of brown as a colour name in the English language was in 1000.

Brown is an amalgamation of colors; no two of the primary colors will make brown when mixed together.