If your car moves ahead just as the light turns red, a figure in khaki glares down at you! A cheerful person reminds you of a yellow sunflower. Yellow is also the colour of a “jaundiced” eye. Nobility boasts of being blue-blooded as do the blue-skinned gods in Amar Chitra Katha comics. In a Bollywood song sequence, the bad guys appear in black, while the good ones are always in white!
“He is like a chameleon,” is how a person notorious for shifting his stand to his advantage is described, just like the chameleon changes colours to ensure its safety. A “colourful” personality refers to a person drawn to members of the opposite sex other than the spouse. Colours are indeed an integral element of all our thoughts, experiences and memories and the meaning that we derive from them.
Colours speak all languages, said Joseph Addison. They are associated with emotions and elicit emotions. Several phrases which we use in our everyday lives demonstrate how colours are an inseparable part of our psyche and state of mind. We see red when angry, we go green with envy, we are purple with rage, our face turns white with shock or fear… People try to avoid a dull, colourless existence at any cost. Our thoughts are also influenced by the colours of our existence. As Marcus Aurelius puts it, “The soul becomes dyed by the colour of its thoughts.”
While John Mayer likens life to a box of crayons, Ru Paul suggests “Life is about using the whole box of crayons.” Allen Klein goes a step further and advises us that, “Your attitude is like a box of crayons that colour your world. Constantly colour your picture grey and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colours to the picture by including humour and your picture begins to lighten up.” Poet and activist Prajakta Mhadnak talks of “Walking thru darkness with thoughts full of colours”.
Colours have a deep and direct impact on our lives and moods, our choices and pattern of consumption. At a condolence meeting or a meeting with a spiritual guru, we see people dressed in white, cream, light blue or beige. A wedding is a canvas only for the brightest shades of the most vibrant colours. A cocktail party brings out the little black or sometimes the midnight blue dress. Valentine’s Day is a sea of red, Sankranthi for Maharashtrians is an occasion for women to wear black and a Christian bride will be seen only in white as she walks down the aisle.
Complementary and contrasting colours help create interesting combinations on the canvas. Cool colours like blue or leaf green are often used on large walls or surfaces because they are soothing to the eyes. Warm colours are added to paintings to add energy to the canvas. The “shot” colour is the concept of two colours on one surface, where any one colour is visible based on the angle from which it is seen. It is popular in traditional South Indian silks. A pink-purple or a red-yellow shot-coloured sari draws appreciative glances. Pink and blue were gender-specific colours in the past, and little girls in pink and boys in blue evoked appropriate terms of endearment. Feminism is slowly but surely driving the practice away.
Bright and cheerful
Party décor is always in bright cheerful colours. “Open”, bright-coloured food preparation is ordered more often and preferred by a larger number than dark, drab-looking “closed”-coloured food. A shade of brown called Pantone 448C has been judged the ugliest colour in the world and is used for the packaging of cigarettes in Australia.
Children are drawn to colours as can be seen from the artwork of any kindergarten child who invariably draws a rainbow somewhere in his masterpiece! Maya Angelou advises us to “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
A wise man has said, “The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette. Life is what we make of it, a result of the colours that we choose to use. Choose well and a masterpiece will emerge.” Val Uchendu says, “If you’re to choose to paint your life today… what will it be? Remember you’re the artist, not the canvas.”
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Published - May 29, 2021 09:20 pm IST
