Wednesday's Word -- Color

I happened across this quote from Van Gogh:

"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."  

I like this.  As you can see in many of Van Gogh's paintings, he appreciated that juxtaposing complementary colors (like blue and orange) makes each color pop and seem brighter than it would otherwise.  Blue on its own isn't as blue as it could be if paired with orange or yellow, and vice versa.

Here's what he had to say about the technique:  "To exaggerate the fairness of hair, I  come even to orange tones, chromes and pale yellow . . . . I make a plain background of the richest, most intense blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky."

He of course used this technique not just when painting hair, but nature too.

Taken as metaphor, "There is no blue without yellow and without orange" means (to me) that diversity is a beautiful thing.  The true potential of one thing (or person) may not reveal itself until put up against its complement.  Is your orange missing its blue?  Maybe you already have the blue background you need for your own personal pop, or maybe you need to find it.   

Ironically, the word "color" comes from an Indo European root (*kel-2) that means "to cover, conceal, save."  In a true sense, color can be a cover.  Paint the barn, paint the walls, paint your face.  Color may hide what lies beneath.

But color may also reveal.  On a technical level, color is the effect produced on the eye and its nerves by light waves of different wavelength or frequency.  Light transmitted from an object to the eye stimulates the different color cones of the retina, thus making it possible to perceive various colors in the object.

Yes, color brings a thing to life.  Makes me think of the original Wizard of Oz movie with the opening Kansas scenes in dreary hues of black and white, followed by colors that seem to burst from the screen once Dorothy reaches the Land of Oz.

Color can have that same effect on a smaller scale -- the food you eat, the clothes you wear, a pop of color in a room of your house.  Color can indeed save.  So go put something orange against an intense blue background and see what you see.  It might just improve your outlook on the day.