Color & Emotions

1.) Color is a psychological experience, and it's also very cultural. Each society or culture holds different meaning for colors. For example, in western society, we generally view death as being symbolized by black and dark dismal colors, and weddings should be white and pastel. In a lot of Indian societies (Eastern) the wedding attire of the bride and groom is bright reds and colors normally we don't associate with pureness. (hence why we choose white) In and of itself, color is simply light, and without light there wouldn't be any color. I think that society tells us what to think of certain colors and how to react when we see it. We were instilled with the concept that blues are calming and reds cause more agitation or arousal, but it's a certain shade and or value of that particular hue that we associate with the emotion or feeling. Dark blue is usually seen as more dismal or gothic, and pink (tint of red) is seen as feminine and happy. All color effects on emotion is highly subjective. Everyone experiences something different when they see certain colors or images based on their life experiences.

2.) I just want to know why we give the certain meanings we do to colors, and what is it about a color or shade or hue that speaks to us individually? How come we have a "favorite" color(s) and what is it about certain colors and/or patterns that is more appealing than others? Personally, as I grew up my views on certain "favorite" colors changed along with me. I think the optical effect of after images and how we can see the lingering complementary color of an image due to receptor fatigue to be really fascinating. It shows us more about how our brains are wired for certain color stimuli.

3.) I'll be honest, I didn't really understand the point of the colors video of following the Scottish artist June Redfern. I know she was really inspired to paint when she saw bright, bold colors, and that she wanted the mood of her paintings to be more happy, mystical, and hard to pin down the exact overall attitude of the work. I suppose the biggest impact I can say is that color and light (or lack there of) has a different effect on everyone, and the emotions that certain colors or moods trigger is all based off of personal experiences. What we choose to do with these emotions is where we really vary, in the case of June, she likes to embrace the feelings by painting.

4.) I thought that of the two videos, this was not only more informative but also more interesting. I really thought that the contrasting views of humanity and human nature by David and Goya was portrayed in beautiful ways. The emotions in the art work seem to almost perfectly mirror that of our own desires, fantasies, fears, and doubts. There wasn't much discussion about colors and feeling necessarily, but mostly about how emotions can be captured and emphasized with the aid of colors in an art work.