The Heuristic Nature of Hues

Abstract

Oscar Wilde once said that, “Mere colour can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.” Similarly, the researcher too believes that colours are an inseparable aspect of every individual’s life and play an essential role in one’s perception of the world. As a striving artist, the researcher often stumbles across the same question – ‘Which colours should she use?’ As she thought about this, she realised that this question can never have a correct or incorrect answer. The colour of the painting should always enhance the artists vision and highlight their opinions or concerns. However, now the question was – ‘How could a mere colour put across an individual’s belief or emotions?’. Thus, the researcher delved deep into the colour theory, where she found a strong connection between the interpretations of colour and society’s mindset, behaviour, and beliefs. She realised that most people often underestimate the power of colours and consider them to be just a breath-taking result of the refraction of light, but only a few understand the way in which this wide spectrum influences almost every moment of our life. Each colour in society represents a different message, sets a different mood, and elicits a varied emotion, which is used as a mode of communication. In this research article, the researcher plans to dig deeper and understand the relation between colours and society. She intends to regard colour as stimulus and then record society’s attached meanings and interpretations, because hues are one of the most powerful guiding forces in the world. If you think about it, our choices of clothes, our response to people, our shopping choices, our interactions, all are influenced by this spectrum of hues. Every colour speaks to us in a different way. Every shade influences our path and decisions. Every tone makes us wonder. Secretly whispering in our ears, colours help society write and tell its own story. Thus, the researcher hopes to provide her readers with all the information needed to decipher society’s colour story, while writing their very own.