The Central Virginia Arts (CVA) will sponsor a lecture, “Is the ‘Red’ You See the Same as the ‘Red’ I See?, the experience of Color in Art,” by art and design Educator Andrea Alvarez on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Atkinson Museum at Hampden-Sydney College.

“Color is a significant part of how we view our world,” CVA leaders said in a press release. “Perhaps most noticeably, it impacts how we view art. An artist’s color choices can dictate the mood of an artwork, its appeal to art collectors, its neighbors in a gallery and its impression on its viewers. Color as a concept is easily understood when we select examples in the world around us, but it is much harder to define when we think about it abstractly, either as light rays bouncing off an object or as something inherent in a material.”

According to the release, art historians, scientists, philosophers, artists and many others have defined color for centuries — in varying ways and for various purposes. “Close looking at a few paintings and objects from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s collection can facilitate a discussion of how we experience color, the factors that contribute to it and the many differing ways that it has been defined.”