Feelings in Color

1. Color is very psychological, it allows for many meanings, symbols and feelings to come through. It affects what we wear, how we eat, feelings, how we live, and provokes subconscious decisions. Bold colors have been known to express strong emotions.

2. The most fascinating of color theory is not only are colors provoking some type of human emotion but that different intensities, hues, and value of colors mean different things. For example a dull, softened red might be warming but an intense, bright red could be perceived as alarming.

3. While the science of color had an impact on my learning and it would be my second mention, I think the most significant for me personally, was learning about Mark Rothko’s reason for his paintings. Rothko is one of my favorite artists, I have one of his paintings hanging in my house (It’s called Orange and Yellow, 1956). I never really delved into finding out the reasoning for his color block paintings, I just loved the aesthetic feel of them and that’s all I really knew. But hearing in the video that Rothko wanted to see if he could provoke an emotional response with just colors seems obvious but it was never something I really thought about, just felt. And then I found it humorous that he was painting for a place that he hated, the Four Seasons in NYC, and was purposefully creating artwork with colors that he wanted people to be subconsciously repulsed by.