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The Science Behind Color and Emotion

Color resonates with people in different ways. We all have a favorite color or color that we use more during specific periods of life. But the color you use in a design project can say a lot about the work itself. That's a scientific fact.

The science behind our emotional connections to color is a complicated one. But it is becoming more clear through anecdotal knowledge and scientific experimentation. Here are five hypotheses and a fifth-grade level experiment you can try to help us better design with color and understand its emotional impact.

We Might Be Hardwired for Certain Hues

Is it possible that our brains are wired to like (or dislike) certain colors? It all relates to emotion responses when we see color. A study by Wellesley College researchers Stoughton and Bevil Conway links neural processes to color.

Conway, who is also an artist, is using his research to determine how the brain processes color and impacts our feelings about it. "I think it's a very powerful system," Conway said in an interview with Co.Design, "and it's completely underexploited."

The study further relates some of the things we already know - color context changes based on other colors in the field of vision and that emotion is a big factor when thinking about color.

The study found that "globs" in the brains of monkeys reacted differently to colored stimuli, and reacted based on color. The brain was most triggered by specific colors (red, then green, then blue) and colors with the most saturation. What this tells us is that these colors immediately impact a user and draw attention.

This work has significant implications for the creative community. "To the extent that anyone would find it informative to know how the nervous system works, and through that would gain an appreciation for these phenomena, I think artists and designers could benefit," Conway said in the Co.Design interview. "This provides them with another lens through which to consider what they're doing when they make those kinds of choices."

Color Impacts Cognitive Performance

Can color impact your ability to create? According to a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, red can focus and help make a person's work more accurate while blue can spur creativity.

While this on its face is fascinating, the results are harder for designer to use. The study really only looked at the colors red and blue. (Six hundred people participated in visual tests with words and images against red, blue or neutral backgrounds.)

But it does reinforce some of what we historically know about the colors. Red is a color of stimulation, while blue is more relaxing and calming. Could that have something to do with it?

It's also important to consider context. Looking at words and images in an isolated environment can be different that when you are trying to connect a user to a brand, website or package. What this study does tell us is that color is important and even more so is the context used with that hue.

Red Means No

While we are thinking about the color red, do you ever think about its almost universal meaning? Across cultures it often represents "no." A study by researchers at Dartmouth College found that is common emotional association to red may be innate.

A study involving monkeys found that the animals avoided humans who wore red (versus green or blue). "We - primates and then humans - are very visual," neuroscientist Jerald Kralik said about the experiment. He further explained that color provides cues for everything from what is ok to eat to determining how others feel in different situations. "We start to see that color may have a deeper and wider-ranging influence on us than we have previously thought."

This study provides a useful bit for designers - color can have impacts that even users don't understand. Common associations (such as red meaning to stop or halt) should be taken into consideration.

Color Impacts Intuition

The research into color is not a new phenomenon. It can be traced to works that are hundreds of years old. One of the most relevant today remains "Theory of Colours" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was first published in 1810.

While this was not a "scientific work" per se, it set the course for much of what we know about color and the basis for future research.

Goethe published one of the first color wheels and associated color with more than hue; he also showed psychological impact. His theory about how color impacts our emotions and thoughts is still widely-used and applies to how we think about color.

The book is a great read for anyone with an interest in color theory. Here are some of Goethe's color specific highlights:

Red: "The effect of this colour is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys an impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness. ... History relates many instances of the jealousy of sovereigns with regard to the quality of red. Surrounding accompaniments of this colour have always a grave and magnificent effect."

Yellow: "In its highest purity it always carries with it the nature of brightness, and has a serene, gay, softly exciting character. ... State is agreeable and gladdening, and in its utmost power is serene and noble, it is, on the other hand, extremely liable to contamination."

Blue: "As a hue it is powerful - but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose. ... As the upper sky and distant mountains appear blue, so a blue surface seems to retire from us."

Green: "If the two elementary colours {yellow and blue} are mixed in perfect equality so that neither predominates, the eye and the mind repose on the result of this junction as upon a simple colour. The beholder has neither the wish nor the power to imagine a state beyond it."

Logo Color Affects Consumer Habits

"The specific colors used in a company's logo have a significant impact on how that logo, and the brand as a whole, is viewed by consumers," according to a s tudy conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The study found specific links and ties to colors within logos and how people felt about those brands.

Blue logos invoked feelings of confidence, success and reliability

Green logos invoked perceptions of environmental friendliness, toughness, durability, masculinity and sustainability

Purple logos invoked femininity, glamor and charm

Pink logos gave the perception of youth, imagination and fashion

Yellow logos invoked perceptions of fun and modernity

Red logos brought feelings of expertise and self-assurance

The findings change some of the ideas that we associated with specific colors. "Of all the feelings associated with logo colors, the feelings associated with red logos were the most surprising," Ridgway told Science Daily. "Traditional emotions based on red include aggression and romance, but red logos did not invoke those emotions in study participants. This can probably be attributed to the fact that red is used in logos of many well-established brands such as State Farm, McDonalds and ESPN, so consumers have pre-existing emotions associated with brands using that color."

The question this study holds for designers is "Can we change the preconceived perception of a color?" And is it a chance worth taking?

Experiment for Designers

Determining how a set of colors will impact users of your design is not complicated. This experiment is adapted from a fifth-grade science project idea and is something you can do in the testing phase of any design project.

Prepare several versions of the same design with different color schemes.

Find a set of volunteers to answer questions about the design on different days.

Ask how the person feels about one design each day, showing a different color each time.

Compare the results.

Conclusion

Mixing color, science and emotion can be a tricky game. And while science is teaching designers more every day, it's also opening up more questions about how we see and feel about color.

There are certain colors I still use sparingly in projects and others that I tend to use too much. Personally, I find that I design many times based on my own mood and feelings. (You know those days where you just "feel yellow?") Regardless, science is a good place to start when asking early questions in the design process: How will users feel about this project and is that the relationship you want to create?

Image Sources: A Guy Taking Pictures and Uwe Hermann.

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Color resonates with people in different ways. We all have a favorite color or color that we use more during specific periods of life. But the color you use in a design project can say a lot about the work itself. That's a scientific fact.

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Fauvism

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"If the trees look yellow to the artist, then painted a bright yellow they must be."

Synopsis

Fauvism, the first twentieth-century movement in modern art, was initially inspired by the examples of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Paul Cézanne. The Fauves ("wild beasts") were a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests. Several of them, including Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, and Georges Rouault, had been pupils of the Symbolist artist Gustave Moreau and admired the older artist's emphasis on personal expression. Matisse emerged as the leader of the group, whose members shared the use of intense color as a vehicle for describing light and space, and who redefined pure color and form as means of communicating the artist's emotional state. In these regards, Fauvism proved to be an important precursor to Cubism and Expressionism as well as a touchstone for future modes of abstraction.

Key Ideas

One of Fauvism's major contributions to modern art was its radical goal of separating color from its descriptive, representational purpose and allowing it to exist on the canvas as an independent element. Color could project a mood and establish a structure within the work of art without having to be true to the natural world.

Another of Fauvism's central artistic concerns was the overall balance of the composition. The Fauves' simplified forms and saturated colors drew attention to the inherent flatness of the canvas or paper; within that pictorial space, each element played a specific role. The immediate visual impression of the work is to be strong and unified.

Above all, Fauvism valued individual expression. The artist's direct experience of his subjects, his emotional response to nature, and his intuition were all more important than academic theory or elevated subject matter. All elements of painting were employed in service of this goal.

Most Important Art

Fauvism Artworks in Focus:

Fauvism Overview Continues Below

Beginnings

In the opening years of the twentieth century, Post-Impressionist painters working in France such as Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne were considered leaders in avant-garde art. Their collective experiments with paint application, subject matter, expressive line, and pure color were advances that fed the emergence of Fauvism. Symbolism, with its emphasis on the artist's internal vision, was another important influence. From another source, the European reassessment of African sculpture as art rather than an anthropological curiosity introduced new ideas of form and representation to the European modernists.

Matisse as Fauvist Pioneer

Henri Matisse is generally considered the principal founding artist of Fauvism. Like many of his contemporaries, Matisse was greatly influenced by Moreau's teaching that personal expression was among the most important attributes of a great painter. Also of considerable importance to the young Matisse were the techniques and systematic visual language of Pointillism, which had been spearheaded by his fellow countrymen Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henri-Edmond Cross. Although Matisse did not apply Pointillist theory directly to his own work, the application of tiny dots of paint in varying colors to create a harmonious visual tone was something that fascinated Matisse. His observation of this technique led him to develop "color structure," or large, flat areas of color that established a deliberate, decorative effect and sense of mood. He was also very aware of the Post-Impressionist work of Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, and Édouard Vuillard, whose integration of solid color and design was a departure from the flickering, momentary effect of Impressionist painting.

Synthesizing all these ideas, Matisse turned away from using subtle hues of mixed paints and began working with bright color, directly from the tube, as a means of conveying emotion. He had been working outdoors since the mid-1890s, and his travels to Corsica and the south of France in 1898 increased his interest in capturing the effect of strong natural light. A summer spent working alongside Signac and Cross at Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera in 1904 gave him a further opportunity to witness their techniques.

Fellow Fauves: Derain and de Vlaminck

During the same years as Matisse's initial experimentation with Post-Impressionist techniques, the two painters André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck met in 1901 and began sharing a studio in Chatou, a western suburb of Paris. Working closely together, they developed their new mutual interest in bold color and directional brushwork.

Matisse met Derain in 1899, and two years later, through Derain, he met de Vlaminck. As an older and more established artist, he supported and encouraged these two kindred spirits, even introducing them to prospective dealers. In 1905 Matisse visited the studio in Chatou, where he was strongly impressed by de Vlaminck's use of pure color. Matisse invited Derain to spend the summer of 1905 with him in Collioure, a port and fishing town located on the southern coast of France. The two men spent this breakthrough summer working and refining their styles and techniques, producing numerous significant paintings during a crucial four-month period of collaboration.

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Fauvism Overview Continues

The 1905 Salon d'Automne

Later that year, the Salon d'Automne exhibition was held at the Grand Palais in Paris. Matisse, Derain, and de Vlaminck all exhibited works in this show; they were joined by other former students of Moreau, including Henri Manguin and Albert Marquet. The paintings on display were quite distinctive in their use of vivid, saturated color and spontaneous brushwork. Also included in the exhibition was a more traditional-looking Italianate sculptural bust by Marquet, and this figure's proximity to the garishly colored, energetically executed paintings prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to describe the scene as " Donatello parmi les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts"). The term "Fauves" was thus coined for these artists; although it was pejorative in its original context, it endured.

Concepts and Styles

An Expanding Circle

Despite initial hostility from critics, many of the Fauves enjoyed commercial success following the Salon d'Automne exhibition of 1905. Their art was featured at additional exhibits held over the following years, notably at the Salon des Indépendants in 1907, where the main attraction was a large room dubbed "The Fauves' Den." Meanwhile, other artists began to join the central trio of Matisse, Derain, and de Vlaminck. The expanding group of Fauves (all based in France) eventually included Othon Friesz, Georges Rouault (another student of Gustave Moreau), Kees van Dongen, Georges Braque, and Raoul Dufy. These artists traveled together, shared studios, and exchanged ideas freely during the rather brief heyday of Fauvism.

The Primacy of Color

All the Fauves were intensely preoccupied with color as a means of personal expression. Color and the combination of colors constituted the intrinsic subject, form, and rhythm of their work. A sky could be orange, a tree could be blue, a face could be a combination of seemingly clashing colors; the end result was a wholly independent product of the artist's perception, rather than a faithful depiction of the original physical form. Additionally, compositional elements were built up through the placement of color, rather than through perspectival systems or draftsmanship.

Subject and Style

In their shared preoccupation with expression through color and form, these artists were generally less concerned with the novelty of their subject matter. Whereas the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists had depicted scenes of modern, urban life, such as the boulevards, cafés, and concert halls of Paris, the Fauves took more traditional subjects as their starting points. Their subject matter drew from the world around them and included portraits, landscapes, seascapes, and figures in interiors, but the visual impact of the color composition took primacy over any possible narrative or symbolism. Instead, they used their subjects as vehicles for the acts of observation and painting, with their active brushwork and non-naturalistic color as means of leading the viewer into their inner, creative journeys.

Later Developments

The Fauves' tendency to distort form and color in order to express inner sensations was a strong influence on the Expressionists, whose own artistic movement proved much longer-lived and more cohesive. The German Expressionists, led by such artists as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, employed a similarly aggressive use of color in their bustling Berlin street scenes and frequently grotesque portraiture.

Cézanne and Cubism

In a sense, Fauvism's demise can be also attributed to a renewal of interest in Cézanne. A Cézanne exhibition held in Paris in 1907 revived attention in the artist's work, particularly his emphasis on natural order and structure. Georges Braque, for example, began to favor a more restricted color palette, focusing more on subtle gradations of color and scale. This approach led Braque to fill his canvases with a crowded yet carefully ordered abundance of shapes and forms, as in his 1908 work Road near L'Estaque, which is unmistakably a crucial precursor to the artist's development of the Cubist style.

African Art

In another interesting crossover during this era, the Fauves' and Pablo Picasso's circles were both interested in African art. Matisse's travelled to Morocco acquired new ideas about color and pattern that surfaced in works like The Green Line (Portrait of Madame Matisse) (1905) and Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra) (1907), with their radically simplified features and angular limbs inspired by African sculpture. This use of non-Western artistic sources also had a profound influence on the younger Picasso; he began to incorporate African and Iberian masks into his own work, including in a number of self-portraits and in the iconic Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907).

By 1908 the Fauves were individually venturing in separate directions: Braque began developing Cubism alongside Picasso, Derain briefly flirted with Cubism as well, and de Vlaminck darkened both his palette and subject matter. Meanwhile, other artists in the group, such as Marquet, Dufy, and Rouault, had begun to work in other styles.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the Fauves joined together for a short but highly consequential episode, rather than a fully defined school. Although they never produced a group manifesto outlining their artistic aims, Matisse's "Notes of a Painter," written in 1908, formalized many of their shared concerns and goals, including their commitment to personal expression and individual instinct, their use of color as an independent visual element with an emotional effect, and their rethinking of composition as pictorial surface. Even after the dissolution of the group, nearly as soon as it gained its infamous nickname, Fauvism's ideas and landmark works would continue to influence art for decades to come.

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Fauvism Movement, Artists and Major Works

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"If the trees look yellow to the artist, then painted a bright yellow they must be." Fauvism, the first twentieth-century movement in modern art, was initially inspired by the examples of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Paul Cézanne. The Fauves ("wild beasts") were a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests.

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Kathy Sosa

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KSosa Fine Art by Kathy Sosa a female artist in San Antonio, Texas.