“And it was all Yellow…”

by Joy Wang

It was like a tuner. But not just any kind. More like a switchboard where one could change the hues and shades of her entire color palette. She could see the world in a whole new light, in completely different shades. What could this switchboard be but the backdrop against which we perceive color: culture and environment.  Defining the relationship between color and culture has not been easy.[1] How do some people see so many different hues and variations of color while others don’t? Even Homer, the possibly blind poet, had described oxen and oceans as “wine-coloured” while thunder was a shade of “smutty”. [2] Does this suggest a difference between the internal physiology of my body versus Homer’s or is it due to our external culture and environment? While I may never see color through Homer’s eyes, I was able to find empirical data of the influential effect of our environment on at least one color: yellow. The researchers found that the wavelength of unique yellow perceived during the summer months was of a shorter wavelength than in the winter.[3] What about other colors? Blues? Reds? Rather than considering color perception as a sensation pertaining to and properties of objects, what if, like olfaction, color perception is the culmination of underlying dynamics and variability in processing affected by culture and environment?[4] This switchboard that shifts and adjusts the color balance of our vision seems to be an exceptionally fitting metaphor of the way our perception and understanding is constantly informed and molded by our environment, whether physical, social, or cultural. I will attempt to demonstrate the pliability of our perception to the environment through a pictorial representation of the same shade of color against different backdrops. Was Homer right? Perhaps purple oxen are not such a stretch of the imagination.

Caption for Video: Color relativity: Is it your eyes that deceive you or your surroundings?

Transcript (via JAWS)

1. Title Slide
2. Photograph with a bright goldenrod yellow flower in the center as focus and green in the background.
3. The same photograph of the yellow flower but the background is now a bright pineapple yellow.
4. Same photograph as previous slide but now it is divided diagonally and one half is covered by a plum purple triangle on the right side.
5. Sam photograph as previous slide with two smaller triangles that appear, one on each half of the picture. The smaller triangle against the bright yellow background appears to be a dark minty green. The smaller triangle against the plum purple background seems to be a similar hue but brighter and lighter.

6-15. The smaller triangles move towards each other and meet in the middle. What appeared to be two different shades of mint green, one darker against the yellow background and flower and one lighter against the darker purple background are actually the same color. The two smaller triangles come together to form a square of the same mint green color.

16-24. The triangles separate again and move toward opposite corners of the picture once more. As they move apart, the colors seem to become distinct and different once again.

25. The picture from slide one of the yellow flower against green foliage appears again.
26. The same picture from of the yellow flower but the background is now a dark champagne and sand yellow.
27. Same photograph as previous slide but now it is divided vertically and the left half is covered by a black rectangle.
28. Same photograph as previous slide with two smaller rectangles that appear, one on each half of the picture. The smaller rectangle against the dark champagne background appears to be a darker shade of taupe brown. The smaller rectangle against the black background seems to be a similar hue but brighter and lighter version of the taupe brown.

29-36. The smaller rectangles move toward each other in the center of the page where the picture is divided by the black rectangle covering the left half of the picture. The two smaller rectangles come together to form one larger rectangle of the same taupe brown.

37- 43 The smaller rectangles move away form each other again towards opposite sides of the picture and appear to be distinct and different shades once more.

44. The picture from slide one of the yellow flower against green foliage appears again.
45. The same picture from of the yellow flower but the background is now a rich goldenrod yellow that almost exactly matches the color of the flower.
46. The same picture form previous slide is now divided horizontally with a dark teal rectangle covering the bottom half of the picture.
47. Two smaller rectangles appear on the picture from the previous slide, both seem to be the same shade of brighter light teal.

48-58. The move rectangles move toward each other to the center of the picture where the picture is divided. When they meet, what appeared to be the same shade of blue is actually two different Shades. The rectangle against the yellow background and flower is lighter while the rectangle against the darker teal rectangle is a darker shade of teal.

58-68 The rectangles move away from each other to opposite sides and background and seem to become the same shade again.

69. The original picture form slide one appears again.
70. The slide background is golden rod yellow. The text that appear is white: What appear to be different may be the same, and what appears to be twins, may only be sisters. Is it your eyes that deceive you, or is it your surroundings?
71. The slide background is golden rod yellow. Text in white at top of the slide: Color schemes were inspired by: , text below is in black: Albers, Josef. 2006. Interaction of color. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

 

NOTES

[1] Michael Rossi, “Colors and Culture: Evolution, Biology, and Socitey” in The Republic of Color: Science, Perception, and the Making of Modern America (University of Chicago Press, 2019), 115-145. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226651866.001.0001.

[2] William Ewart Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1858), 487, 472, quoted in Ibid, 122.

[3] Lauren E. Welbourne, Antony B. Morland, and Alex R. Wade, “Human Colour Perception Changes between Seasons,” Current Biology 25, no. 15 (August 3, 2015): R646–47, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.06.030. The discrepancy in perception is attributed to the presence of different colors of the environment, specifically the abundance of green in summer versus winter.

[4] Ann-Sophie Barwich, “A Sense So Rare: Measuring Olfactory Experiences and Making a Case for a Process Perspective on Sensory Perception,” Biological Theory 9, no. 3 (September 2014): 258–68, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-014-0165-z.