Colorists

Reading and watching Robert Simmons, I was struck by the scientific study of color and the rich discoveries that are available to us to make use of.

I came across the term/occupation "colorist" recently, which is defined as "an artist or designer who uses color in a special or skillful way".

Simmons' methods struck me because he seems to heighten the role of a "colorist" by not only using colors to visually represent data in visualizations, but to analyze the colors themselves in imaging.

This was on my mind as I visited the Phillips Collections' Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir exhibit, where fortuitously the exhibit also showcased [an infrared study of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party](http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating-party/technical-study.

For further discussion, I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on how we could apply some of the experientially learned and tested methods of Simmons when not all of us can be experts in cognition and neuroscience. How can we not only be conscious but build a praxis for certain cases of color use? What praxis would we like to see in the data visualization field, and how do you go about developing such a praxis individually or collectively as a small initial group?