Why We Gravitate Towards Certain Colors Part 2
A philosopher I once read asked the question, “Do we actually see anything at all?” What he meant by this question was are we capable of seeing anything objectively, or is all of our seeing influenced or colored in some way by our history, culture, or other subconscious biases? So I ask the question, “Do we see color objectively, or is all of our color seeing influenced by our history, culture or other subconscious biases? I’ll ask another question. Did you wake up this morning and decide today what colors you like and which ones you don’t? Did you do this yesterday and are you planning on doing it again tomorrow. Most likely the answer is no. So where does our color preference come from?
We have what I like to call a collective cultural color consciousness. I know it’s a mouthful. The psychologist Carl Jung wrote extensively on the subject of our collective unconscious. Is it not reasonable to conjecture that much of our color preferences have been filtered down to our subconscious minds through historically preserved works of art and ultimately by the very nature that surrounds us?
So if we look at the art that has most heavily influenced this color consciousness in Western Civilization we will come to the period commonly referred to as The Renaissance. Artists such as Michelangelo, DaVinci, Bellini, and others helped to inform our color consciousness by their master works created using the natural pigments available to them at the time. Their works have been enshrined in cathedrals and museums throughout the western world. Western religion played an important role by embedding the palette of these masters into our consciousness as early as childhood, since they were often the patrons of these artists.
You see what we have here is a color trend that has lasted more than 500 years! Now that is one worth paying attention to.
