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In dictionary examples for 多彩な there is a sentence:
メニューにはいろいろ多彩な料理があった。
There was a great variety of dishes on the menu.
Isn't いろいろ多彩な a tautology? Do いろいろ and 多彩 convey a different meaning? Is there a difference between the above sentence and the following?
メニューにはいろいろ料理があった。
メニューには多彩な料理があった。
Is it an emphasis of some sort, or just a quirk in the body of examples?
いろいろ is used to express the meaning "various". So 色々【いろいろ】多彩【たさい】 sounds like it emphasizes that there was a great variety (not just some variety) to me.
That being said, I don't think any language (Japanese included) puts restrictions on using tautologies or being redundant with adjective choice and such. This particular construction (色々【いろいろ】多彩【たさい】) may be a collocation (things that often come together) to some extent. (A Google search for those terms together gave me ~2.4k results).
In English, similar things are sometimes done. For example:
Tautology is an unnecessary repeating of the same idea in different words, as in the sentence He sat alone by himself. In this case, I agree with the explanation that alone is redundant.
However, depending on the case, I think it is not always redundant to repeat the same idea in different words. It occurs when words such as adjectives of the language are insufficient to fully express the situation or emotion. I think this is a phenomenon that occurs not only in English and Japanese but also in any language.
"色々｛いろいろ｝な果物｛くだもの｝ various fruits" or "多彩｛たさい｝な果物｛くだもの｝ variegated/colorful fruits" is sufficient to express the above picture, but how do you tell the picture below to him who is supporting you? You would realize soon that adjectives such as "色々｛いろいろ｝な" or "多彩｛たさい｝な" alone are insufficient to convey your excitement to him.
