Color Theory and Emotional Effects

       Color is described as a function of light, which is an outcome of sunlight rays broken up, and refracted. These mere rays refract into different colors, and these very products make up one of the most pleasurable of the visual elements. Color has the ability to touch into our emotions and affects a wide range of responses, both psychological and physiological. It has many meanings, symbols, and ideas behind it, and each artist uses it differently, for their own reasons. Color can be pushed to its very limit, or be used casually. Color can be used in a wide spectrum, or very subtly, but however it it used there is meaning behind it. A most intriguing aspect about color is that color can be used to play on not only emotions, but feelings, and appetites for example. Mark Rothko was famous for using color in some of his pieces to purposely decrease the appetite of diners, and make chefs in the kitchen feel trapped, and encaged. He used  certain colors such as reds and dark blues to his advantage, but to other's disadvantage in the way he presented it. His using color to bring out emotions in people whether they were for pleasure or not fascinates me because it gives me a broader range of possibilities to use with color and further inspires me to use color in my own work. The effect color has on emotion makes quite a big impact not only on the viewers, but more importantly on the artist. While watching the "Color" video, I was able to follow along with the featured artists process of a painting, and observe her strengths and struggles, which were surrounded mainly around color. As a viewer of artwork, color has its own effect on me personally, but what impacted me the most is realizing that the artist him/herself has to be happy and triumphant over their work, and to gain this, they need to be satisfied with their use of color. The featured artist worked from her imagination to recreate the colors she observed in Venice. It was difficult for her to capture them and it took weeks for her to be satisfied. After watching the "Feelings" video, I was impacted by the idea of color harmony, and how it effects emotions. Artists from thousands of years ago used the idea of colors and harmonizing them to give a certain appeal to their work. Once they realized the effect colors had, they used them to stir up emotions, on opposite ends of the spectrum. They either harmonized the colors, or made them so opposite that they created an "unharmonizing" effect.