Black vs White, Hot Vs Cold, Wet Vs Dry

Colour phycology

 

 

(John Gage,Colour in Art, 2006, pg61) A survey of Mexican students in the 1960s for example, showed that black was the colour most apt to generate subjective associations, and all of them were negative: death, depression and so on. This survey was typical of many investigations into colour preferences – important for the fashion and marketing industries.

 

I have conducted my own surveys and have revealed similar results. Further research into colour history showed that originally colours were not recognized by the names we use today instead people used descriptive words such as wet if the colour was blue or hot if the colour was red dark if the colour was black and light if the colour was white and although we now have names for every colour we can conger up we still revert back to the same descriptive method using adjectives rather than the allocated name.

 

(John Gage, Colour and Culture,1995,pg79) Although it has been pointed out that stage I language rarely distinguish ‘black’ and ‘white’ but rather ‘dark’ and ‘light’ or ‘cool’ and ‘warm’ or ‘moist’ and ‘dry’ colours.

 

it can be argued that different adjectives will be used when describing colours according to the cultural background and previous experiences for example in western society White is viewed as light calming peaceful colour but from an eastern point of view white is the colou of death.

 

Which means colour salience as revealed by language must be related to the wider experience of colour in given culture.

 

I agree with both quotes and believe that colour association has been drummed into people for generations and I believe it would be quite impossible to change peoples initial opinion of certain colours but I still want to find out if using certain colours really does effect peoples choices why do people by black dresses and black cars if the colour black triggers of somber feelings?