> Ask any artist to explain how color works, and they’ll launch into a treatise about how the Three Primary Colors—red, blue, and yellow—form a color wheel

I doubt that. More likely that they look at you akwardly or say a joke and try to carry on.

Some artist couldn’t care less about colours. A sculptor thinks much more about shapes, a 3d animator thinks much more about motion.

A writer or poet cares a lot more about what connotations different colour descriptors carry. “The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.” doesn’t quite hit the same as just calling it grey, for example.

Painters have a much more intimate connection with colour. But instead of thinking in primary colours they will be much more familiar with the mixing of the pigments they use. (Cadmium red, cobalt blue, burnt sienna, etc) A print artist or someone designing figurines or design objects would think in terms of pantone colours. Someone doing thread painting with embroidery floss will think about DMC colour codes.

And then of course there are colourist working on movie and TV productions who would know all the article describes and more. It is their job to know.

I don’t know why an otherwise quite okay article has to start with this image of the dum-dum arist “launching into a treatise” of kindergarden level colour understanding. It feels a bit degrading, as if the author has low opinion of artist. (And certainly not considering the full palette of the arts.)