The role of colors in our life. Do they affect how we feel?

Every day and everywhere we are surrounded by colors. Such an ordinary part of our life and yet a very significant one. Even more so in the context of art. It is clear how to get orange from red and yellow. It is intuitive for us to associate green with approval/correctness in many cases. However, do colors have anything to do with our inner emotional state? As it turns out, they very much do.

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions” – Pablo Picasso once said. The modern experts of color psychology would surely agree with that statement. And yes, you’ve read it right – there is a whole separate field for studying the impact that colors have on human beings. The results of these findings have been widely used in such fields as art, design, marketing, and even therapy.

On both cultural and personal levels, we have strong associations with different colors. For example, while generally white is connected to light, openness, and purity, in many Eastern countries, like India, it is a symbol of loss and mourning. That is exactly why the psychological effects of each color are deeply individual. Color therapy (or chromotherapy), however, still manages to use colors as a tool for treating certain mental and even physical health conditions. Actually, we all on a regular basis experience its effects in some form or another. When instantly getting a mood booster around green trees and bright sun after exiting the dark room. When feeling more coziness in a place with warmer lights compared to the one with cold lights.

Each color that we can recognize has a unique wavelength and frequency, which is why different colors have different effects on the way we feel. “Colors are the mother tongue of the subconscious”, as mentioned by Carl Jung. Therefore, this is no surprise that art is such a powerful self-exploration tool. Through color choices, through creative patterns that we use, we release our inner emotions and open up our true selves.