- Colour is said to be "the music of the visual arts", because whenever it is used it seems to have the power to bring forth an emotional response not seen elsewhere.
Here are some of the effects colours have on individual people:
Is the colour of strentgh, work and activity. It stimulates the central nervous system, it increases blood pressure, and circulation. It makes a person feel warm, confident, and courageous. Too much red can lead to quick tempers, lack of emotional control, and aggression.
Significance: Strength, masculinity, dignity, warmth, passion, power, excitement, tension, sensuality, serious, anger, aggrivation, and triumph.
Is the colour of enthusiasm and sociability. It also stimulates the central nervous system, but more gently than red. Creates feelings of independence, spontaneity, and self-assurance. Stimulates appetite, assists in healing (physically and emotionally). Too much orange can lead to excesses like bulimia, alcohol abuse, and destructive behaviour.
Significance: Joy, happy, mellow, cheerful, lively, exciting, intimate, pride, ambition, and communication.
Gives energy and boosts overall vitality. It contributes to mental clarity, improves left brain functions such as reading, writing and mathematics. Enhances the ability to perceive and understand. Contributes to good humour and optimism, clear thinking, and confidence. Too much yellow may lead to excessive behaviour, pessimism, cowardice, skepticism, and restlessness.
Significance: Generosity, caution, intuition, intellect, young, celestial, coward, sickness, and spontaneity.
Is the colour associated with balance, neutrality, and harmony. Mentally, it leads to freshness, renewal, and clarity. Green promotes harmony, understanding, self-control, sympathy, compassion, genereosity. Beneficial against headaches, chronic diseases, and overstimulation. Its association with nature and growth makes it pleasing to most people. Since we are used to seeing large amounts of green in nature, we tend to notice it less than most other colours. Too much green results in dishonesty with money, jealousy, possessiveness, and stinginess.
Significance: Sympathy, hope, tranquil, thoughtful, cool, fresh, growth, jealousy, compassion, healthiness, and inexperience.
Is the colour of universal peace and tranquility. It stands for loyalty, tactfulness, affection, inspiration, and inventiveness. It is cooling, soothing, and calming. It counteracts hyperactivity, helps calm the mind and nerves, helps bring down a fever, and can help fight migraines. too much blue will depress the central nervous system too much. It can cause depression, suspicion, apathy, emotional instability, when not accented with warm colours.
Significance: Feminine, relaxed, mature, inner life, clear, cool, restful, quiet, cold, glory, security, pleasure, and peace.
(bluish purple) It is a spiritual colour. It gives energy, influences sight and hearing favorably. It strengthens intuition and creativity (right brain activites), fearlessness, self-fulfilment, and practical idealism. It can be helpful with sleep disorders. Associated with dignity, authority, and power. When it is not accented by its complement (yellow), it may cause reactions of fear, melancholy, intolerance, and pessimism.
Significance: Tragedy, memories, spirituality, nostalgia, meditation, mysticism, thought, and dignity.
(reddish purple) Is the colour of art, beauty, and universal connection. It enhances spirituality and creativity, gives great mental strength, inspiration to leaders, humanitarianism, and idealism. It may help soothe emotional problems. It is associated with dignity and power. Overuse of the colour violet may lead to feelings of arrogance, superiority, and fanaticism.
Significance: Creative, spiritual, inspiration, beauty, dignity, importance, and memories.
It is lightweight, pure and cool. In the East it is associated with death. It can look clinical, uninviting, and impersonal. It is often associated with "good". It suggests cleanliness, unblemished purity. It works good in combination with other colours to give a fresh, crisp look.
Significance: Purity, empty, silence, infinity, refreshing, balance, zest, and clean.
It is mysterious, heavy, omnious, depressing to many people, comforting in its powers to hide to others. In Western cultures, it is associated with death and nothingness. It is often seen to represent "evil". It is dignified and can be powerful. It is good in combination with others colours to give a sense of mystery, even promise, and to make hues "glow".
Significance: Dark, death, void, elegant, negative, anger, blindness, heaviness.
It is the most neutral and non-commital of all the colours. Much depends on its value - light greys can give an impersonal elegance and elusiveness, drak greys can be elegant, but also depressing, or even dirty-looking. It is often assoctiated with cities, industrialization, and mechanization. Greys are usually best in combination with white and/or black, or as "foils" to other colours. Chromatic greys (not totally neutral/with colour) can be very subtle, sophisticated, and interesting.
Significance: Egotism, depression, inertia, nothingness, tragedy, selfishness, deciet, fear and indecision.***REFERENCES USED FOR COLOUR PAGES***
~Design Through Discovery: An Introduction to Art and Design by Marjorie Elliott Bevlin
~The Power of Color by Cynthia Blanche
~1998 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
~Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99
*All links are on each page that relate to the topic*