The Ways We See And Use Colour

Many years ago, in the days before I learned to say No, I was asked to deliver a lecture to a philosophical discussion group. Then, I found the subject had been chosen for me. Its title was The Spiritual Meaning of Colour. What did I know about it? And I sure wasn't going to study up what others had to say about it. I suspected they were only guessing, too!

You can see I was a little wary of that word "spiritual" in such a context. So I decided to turn it around a bit. First I gave a bit on the physics of colour and a brief rundown on the physiology of colour perception.

Next was a discussion of our emotional responses to colour, sold as universal by pop psychology, despite the many differences in cultures: e.g. the adoption of red instead of white for weddings and of white rather than black for funerals in Asian societies. Nearing the end of my allotted time, I sprang the trick I had up my sleeve. At the start, I had asked the organisers to hand out cardboard squares on which I had painted a large dot of colour: red, yellow, blue, green, or purple.

Now, I asked the people to look steadily at their coloured dots as I talked. (I'd timed my next remarks to last for one minute.) When time was up, I asked them to turn the square over. For a moment or two, the place was filled with gasps of surprise. From the dais, I blandly remarked on what I knew each was seeing. Those with a red dot were now seeing a green; those with purple saw yellow. And so on.

When the excitement levelled off, I asked them to consider this fact: They had just seen something that doesn't exist and which cannot, as yet, be explained by science. I suggested that, until it can, it might as well come under the heading of "spiritual." (That got me neatly out of my dilemma.)

Of course, this audience was seeing a negative after-image in the hues complementary to the original dots. These appeared because the cones in our retinas react that way. So far, no one can say just how this works.

As well, neurobiologists have now found a system of cells in the brains of primates - humans and the great apes - which perform myriad calculations producing what is called "colour constancy." Because of this, as yet mysterious, faculty, we always perceive a white tablecloth as white, a lemon as being yellow, whether the object is seen under daylight or by candle or neon tube.

So, we've covered, briefly, the physics and physiology of colour; such knowledge gives us a springboard to using colour in Art. But what artists need to know is how to utilise the emotional impact of colour in their work.

Psychology can help a little - so long as we recognise that the response to colour is culturally conditioned. I've mentioned a few of the differences between Western and Asian uses of colour. Language, too, reflects our built-in prejudices. In English, we talk of "having the blues," of being "green with envy" or feeling "in the pink;" of "seeing red" and so forth. We say "pink for a girl, blue for a boy." Interestingly, this last may have a basis in physiology.

A woman's brain can distinguish many more shades of red than does a man's; he reacts more strongly to the blue range. Age can have a bearing too. The very young have been shown to prefer reds and bright orange; older folk often lean towards blues and greens.

The concern of these artists was with Story. They managed to show one moment of history that makes us think about the effects of extraordinary events on ordinary people. To make paintings about what is called "the human condition" you need to have a facility with figure drawing and a basic grounding in Anatomy. And that's a whole other story...