Why yellow is special for Us
I have wondered how we decide our favorite color. We are often asked this question as a kid, and eventually we come up with an answer. Usually, it is imitating a friend or a sibling and sometimes, it is a color from our crayon box. Does that favorite color mean something, can it predict personalities? The color of our choice affects our life, both consciously and subconsciously. We surround ourselves with that color; by painting our rooms, buying clothes and a lot other ways. And if a regular person has a favorite color, does a painter have one too? If yes, then yellow will surely have a special place.
Yellow being one of the primary colors, has uniquely influenced mankind. Often associated with happiness, health and prosperity, yellow has existed in nature and civilization rather generously. Yellow creates a lasting effect on the mind of the person staring at it. It may be the reason why painters across generations and cultures have owned it so passionately. If we think of the famous and the most recognized paintings of all time, we will find yellow dominates surprisingly more. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Andy Warhol’s Banana, Picasso’s The Weeping Woman, Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, the list is long. This made me look into the science of color perception, just to know if there is any scientific explanation or it is more of a coincidence.
I found a lot of interesting info but little scientific reasoning. Although there is a connection between yellow vision and mental extremities, I was unable to find any concrete evidence of it in these painters that would have led to overuse of yellow 1. Van Gogh’s paintings which has such brilliance and vividness happened after he moved to Arles, a sunnier place in southern France. There is a thorough analysis by Kyle Waters, the data scientist at Artnome, that reveals, as Van Gogh moved out from the cold and wet Dutch climate, his world became noticeably sunnier and more yellow 2 . However, it cannot be denied that there was something in yellow that helped him to express his emotions.
Van Gogh loved yellow and in his own words, ‘how wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun”.
Colors are perceptions of the mind and not defined permanently. For a person, color is defined the way it is processed by the brain 3 . And that is why a few years back, the ‘dress’ controversy happened. Some saw it white and gold whereas others found it black and blue. It was an obvious proof that the same color was processed uniquely by different people. As there is no universal measuring device to ascertain a color as that ‘color’ per say, it is difficult to determine who is right or wrong. Recently, a detailed research got published from Bevil Conway’s lab studying how brain perceives a color 4 . They wanted to know if there is a predictable roadmap of the brain for a particular color. They used an elegant technique to answer the underlying questions of how we identify and comprehend color. When comparing the brain activity across warm and cool colors, the warm colors were more precisely decoded in the brain than cool colors. What it meant that the brain was more sensitive to various shades of warm colors than cool colors. This also explains why a warm color like ‘yellow’ becomes ‘brown’ when it is darker, but ‘blue’ is usually light blue or dark blue by varying the shades. Their findings suggested that there is an universal likelihood to have more names for warm colors, which may root from how the human brain processes color. Surely enough, research also supports the fact that color is a powerful link to know how the mind and brain work. Nevertheless, yellow being the brightest color of the visible color spectrum, it creates the maximal stimulation of the photoreceptive cells in our eyes 5 . It creates an instant visual alertness and the reason why it is often used in places that require attention like the high visibility vest, taxis, tennis ball etc.
Nature has used yellow in ripen fruits, falling leaves, for camouflaging and visual alertness. Yellow has been delightful for our mind and body. It helped painters to create something eternal. The series of still life paintings by Van Gogh or Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych are everlasting. Yellow has never failed us.
As The Beatles song goes, We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine…..
