Blue. The color of peace and tranquility. The ocean and sky are the first things to come to most peoples minds. The next thing you might think of is sadness. I don‘t find this unusual in today‘s world given everyone’s ‘instant gratification’ mindset & our ever shortening attention span. I can imagine that being peaceful & tranquil has an ever increasing associating with boredom, loneliness & sadness because peace and tranquility don’t involve constant personal attention & streams of dopamine rushes. But if your life is overly stressful it could be very helpful to use these color association for interior design to create a home environment that eases the over stimulating rush of your daily life.
Blue also associated with security, loyalty & trust which is why many businesses use it so that subconsciously that is how you think of them. Recall, if you can, how many business men you have seen with a blue tie or button down shirt underneath their black blazers. Most all men have blue in their wardrobe. It’s because, while pink is the color that represents femininity, tenderness & sensitivity, blue represents masculinity. Blue clothing represents ”dependability, stability, and trust along with consistency, authority and strength“ according to the Dopely Colors website. I often wonder how these colors were picked to represent each of the main sexes, by who and with what intention, if any. Seeing as how men have basically ran the world up to this point, I wonder if this color of authority was intentionally used as one of the more subtle tools to attain & keep them in power. You also may notice in the male vs female struggle for power in politics, women in the race are most often seen in red which is the primary color that pink comes from. I realize that political minded women probably aren’t focused on using their right brain so if they happen to be using any color psychology hacks with their power suits they are probably very basic & limited. They are most likely using red because of it’s traits of attracting attention & to seem passionate about their political ideals. Maybe they are even going as far as using red’s assoiation to sexuality and increased appetites to throw their male counterparts off balance. I personally don’t think this is a good plan because they are focused on the wrong thing. Their opponent. Who is clearly not the one voting for them. Red more quickly evokes feeling of anger & danger. I mean, even traffic lights & stops signs in America use red to make you stop & be aware of danger. Does a woman running for office really want her voters to look at her and think, ’Stop” or ”Danger” or overly ”strong emotions”? It’s really not a wise color choice at all. If it were based solely on color choice I, as a voter, would much rather vote for the blue candidate that made me think of my last vacation at the beach with all that ocean, blue sky and peace.
But here are a few little fun facts you may not have heard before…. just to mix things up a little bit. According to Smithsonianmag.com, ” pink and blue arrived as colors for babies in the mid 19th century but not promoted as gender signifiers until World War 1. A June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl. In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading US stores.“ Boys in pink and girls in blue. It’s a fascinating article if you want to check it out. Http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture-when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097.
Going back the the art of it all, the digital image I created for the blue piece in my color psychology series (shown above) turned out to be a fish swimming in the ocean. In native american & asian cultures the fish most often represents wisdom, prosperity & fortune. Between the blue color traits, and the associations with fish, I’d say that the only way that this art would be a bad choice for you is if you are an overly emotional, angry, attention whore that associates peace with depression and wisdom with boredom. In which case you need this art more than everyone else to balance out your overly red traits, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
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