Color and It's Effects on Emotion

1. Describe Color and it's effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.

Color is a component of light.  Light is refracted into different colors.  It is said to be the visual element that gives us the most pleasure.  Emotional responses to color are intense, personal and has cultural associations.  There are two different color systems: additive color which deals with mixing light and subtractive color which uses dyes and pigments.  The primary colors are red, blue and yellow.  These colors can be mixed to create different colors, hues and shades.  Hue, intensity and value are the three properties that describe our perception of color.  Also by using different color schemes an artist can create different emotional feelings within their work.  The color schemes are: monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split-complementary,  triadic, and tetrad.  Using a color scheme and changing the values and intensities of the colors effect the emotional response in a dramatic way.  
We have a complex response emotionally to colors and it is not something that can be put into a set of rules to follow.  The meaning and emotion of a work can be changed by using a different arrangement of colors.  By using warm and cool colors it can change the spatial characteristics within their work.  Warm colors can make it seem as the picture plane is advancing and cool colors work in the opposite way.  The color temperature of a work has a direct impact and can trigger memories or our association with things.  Colors can also be used to set a mood or to convey something symbolic.  A color can have conflicting meanings so must know know the context of a work to understand what emotion the colors are portraying.  



2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?

I find the discovery of Sir Isaac Newton to be fascinating.  How he was able to see that a ray of sunlight shining through a prism refracted into different colors that corresponded with the colors of the rainbow.  Then by placing a second prism he could recombine all of the colors into white light.  The idea that no object actually possess a color is amazing and kind of mind blowing.  
I also find it interesting that every color can be made from the primary colors of red, blue and yellow or a combination of them.  The color wheel was constructed from Newton's discovery.


3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?

In the video Color, I thought the point that made the biggest impact on me was that painters harness the power of color and the powerful and unpredictable emotions that colors create.  By layering colors it changes its tones and shades which create then different emotional responses.  When color is used to create shadows it makes it look more realistic to what you would see in real life.  


4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?
The video about feelings was very interesting and showed the contrasting work of Goya and Da vid.  Art gives you the emotion and feelings that reading a history book cannot.  Goya shows us the darkness and seriousness and the feelings of what is the worst of us.  In comparison da vide gives us the feeling of nobility and the desire to be better.  They both show a change from faith to reason.  Faith is a more structured mind set where reason allows us to be free and have personal feelings and opinions about.  Their work gives humanity its own sense of power.  The techniques that they used intensified the stories so that people could identify with them and this created intense emotion.