Chromophobic Response

I personally found the article to be very interesting due to being a painting and drawing BFA and always being the one scared and confused about color. Although there were some points that I couldn’t wrap my head around there were just as many good points. I thought it was very interesting with Huxley’s idea that color is “entirely natural” in regards to being untouched by language, they are fresh to us as they are presented due to color not being able to be verbally taught. I also think that Klein is right about color being “enslaved” by line and becoming writing. I thought that quote as a pun as I found myself reading a book on how to use and make color which uses language and line to convey ideas about color which contradicts Klein’s statement. Faber Birren brings up an interesting statement that “youngsters are more responsive to color that to form and will delight in it with sheer pleasure.” I think that the idea that children are more open to color, without judging, analyzing, and appreciative to art and color is so true due to doing a speech on a teacher, philosopher, and writer Ken Robinson. Ken speaks about how schools are squashing children’s personal expression and the arts by teaching analytical things where things are right and wrong, yeas or no. Therefore as children grow up they lose the love and appreciating for art and color due to growing up in a world of disciplines where we are told to question and think into the meaning of things. I think that it is also so true that color does not correlate with language and is not capable of defining itself verbally. My art teacher last year Helen O’Leary was trying to teach us color (which is very difficult already) but especially when in elementary school we are taught that basic definition of colors for example: that a tree stump is brown. Helen would scream that tree stumps are not just brown they can range from either ends of the spectrum of multiple browns. One thing I would like to bring up when discussing the idea of color is a question that I constantly ask myself. It may be out there but… how do we know that we see the same colors? We can describe and make gestures all we want but how do we as individuals and as a part of society know that the blue I see is the same version of blue others see? Especially with the idea of people who are color blind. Another point that is interesting is that it is believed that Newton divided his color spectrum up into 7 colors to correspond with the 7 notes that make up the musical scale. I agree with the article that color is alive, fluid, independent, dependent and use for different jobs depending on what we are trying to convey. And hopefully one day it won’t be another language and we will understand it rather then fear it.