On the one hand, light comes from the sun or other radiant sources, and is refracted by mediums (water, the atmosphere, glass) and diffusely or specularly reflected by surfaces.
On the other hand, color isn’t out there in the world in the same tangible way that light is. Rather color is part of how we sense the world around us.
Light enters the eyes, is processed by light receptors (cones and rods), and sent via the optic nerves to the brain for further processing and interpretation.
Light varies in wavelengths, which our eyes and brain interpret as varying colors, and also in intensity.
So our perception of color is composed of both intensity information and chromaticity information.
The naming of colors carries one out of the narrow realm of color perception, and into the larger realm of cultural and linguistic interpretation and classification of color, and thence into even larger philosophical, aesthetic, theological, and metaphysical considerations.
