Are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet really the “exact” colors of the rainbow? White light doesn’t have any color. Is it really a mixture of all colors? What is the relationship between the color we see and language we use? Unlike many insects that can see ultraviolet colors, why can humans see light only in the field of visible light.
Perhaps not many people can answer all of the above questions correctly. Written by Gavin Evans, The Story of Colour provides answers to various questions related to color. It is a book that gives a deeper understanding of color by pointing out the significance of art history and social/biological meanings related to each color. As the Tidings has a lot to do with blue this month, I would like to talk about how this book deals with blue.
Blue is one of the last colors to be defined. In fact, there were many countries that did not see blue as a color at all, and the origin of the word “blue” in modern European languages also began with black or green, not blue objects that actually existed. Thus, blue has been added to the dictionary relatively recently, and it still does not exist in some parts of the world. In fact, some cultures do not distinguish between blue and green. Many scholars argue that it is related to nature, because there are very few cases where nature is blue. The sky and sea, which we think are blue, change color from time to time, and blueberries and bluebirds are more like purple than blue itself.
In the past, painters had a hard time making blue paint because of this, and the process was expensive and tough. Therefore, blue became a color used only by the best painters, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, and it became difficult to find blue in ancient art. It was not until the 18th century that the efficacy of blue paint could be increased through chemical reactions by mixing sulfuric iron with ash.
Blue is famous for evoking so many feelings. First of all, like the expression “feeling blue,” it is also called “the color of depression.” Many scholars insist that this originated from the fact that during the days of ocean navigation, when a captain or officer died during a voyage, people hoisted a blue flag and painted a blue line on the ship’s hull. The genre of music, which we know today as “Blues,” began with the worldly music of unhappy Black people, characterized by heartbreaking stories experienced by singers in a harsh and ruthless world.
Today, however, blue is considered the world’s favorite color. In fact, in a color preference study of 10 countries (Britain, the U.S., Germany, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia), blue overtook other colors to rank first in preference. This was shown to everyone regardless of age or gender. In addition, one experiment showed that students who took the IQ test on blue paper scored a few points higher than those who took the IQ test on red paper because blue had the effect of keeping them calm while the red paper had the effect of making students excited. This can also be demonstrated by the fact that blue reminds us of natural landscapes with calm feelings such as the sea, lakes, rivers, and the sky.
As we see, we now know that blue is interpreted and used in various ways depending on the time and culture. What does blue mean to you? This reporter hopes that this article will give you an opportunity to think about what the color blue means to you.
Chung Yeongyu ygchung00@naver.com
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