Welcome to the 160th insertion of DEMUR®, an analytical series highlighting the intricacies of the artistic world and the minutiae lying within. In this episode, we dive into the painter’s palette to explore the depths of colour theory and its puzzling impact on the creative world.
While colour is an incredibly prominent feature of the human experience, it’s a rather unexplained premise. Used in all avenues of design, pigment has rooted ties to emotion, thought and perception, speaking to ideals otherwise shackled by linguistic barriers. Each hue retains an assigned significance and can invoke memories just like audible or visual mediums, but how is it used?
Our most frequent interaction with colour is found in the clothes we wear. From neons to monochromatics, the way in which we dress not only represents our personality but can drastically impact external viewpoints. In practice, we can value colours through a rank of intensity, looking at extreme tones like cherry red and hot pink as dominant hues. Their distinct, eye-darting shades grant them classification as pop tones, used sparingly among rather subtle counterparts.
On the contrary, tonal hues like forest green, brown and navy blue can make for great pairs against defining pigments. Most widely perceived as calming, these darker colours are exceedingly popular in mainstream wardrobes but continue to flee at the heights of couture. On the runway, we’ve seen a polarizing asymmetry to the tonal wave, pushing emphasis toward loud colours, exaggerated cuts and obscure functions.
Deriving from social media’s push for obscurity, in that absurd ideas often result with clicks and checkouts, a divide between maximalism and minimalism has plagued the fashion circuit. Harsh tones have begun to dominate online while in-person style continues to work among cool hues. This same comparison can be drawn in the world of fine arts, seen through an influx of conversation-provoking works like ‘Comedian’, a $120,000 USD installation that consists of a duct-taped banana to a wall. Perhaps this isn’t a conversation about colour, but rather one of marketing after all.
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