Color and Emotion: Connecting Concepts in Neuroscience and Art

Science Center K209

Color, for many people, is a basic aspect of the environment and world that we live in. It is this characteristic that has captured the attention of artists and scientists alike. Although color is a basic part of our environment, all people do not perceive it the same way. Before the inclusion of scientific definitions of color, in art, color was defined by the three primary colors: blue, red and yellow. With the investigations on color perception in the brain, color can be defined scientifically as a process of translating wavelengths of light into a concept, ‘beginning’ in the retina and ending in the ventral cortex. However, between both the arts and neuroscience fields there is a lack of literature that illustrates how color choice in art and emotion relate. In art, color can often be used to express a certain emotion, but choice of color to express certain emotions has not been explained. It is possible to bridge the gap in understanding the role emotion has on the choice of color in art. The field of neuroaesthetics looks at the neural processes in the brain that explain the creation of and attraction to art. To further understand the connections between I used an auto-ethnographic process and my own paintings and sketches to understand relationship between color choice and emotion. My research can further the investigation of the connections between art, emotion and the brain and deepen our understanding of the importance that color has in our lives.