August 5, 2003

Dear Artist,

Dr. Reuben Amber, in his book Colour Therapy says that proper attention to colour can control obesity.  “Overweight,” says Reuben, “is the result of an overdose of blue rays or the lack of red rays in the body.”  According to him you can lose weight by using red bulbs around the house, eating red foods--beets, cabbages, cherries, meat, etc, and “solarizing” drinking water and other liquids in red glass containers.

We’ve all wondered about the power of colour.  If the principally orange and red décor at many McDonald’s and other fast food outlets can make us salivate sooner, eat faster and get back out on the street quicker, there has to be something in it.

Many artists have suggested that warmer is better than cooler.  Red gets attention that blue can only dream of.  In galleries I’ve noticed red-dominant paintings pulling folks up short as if they were coming to stop signs.  Even as a minor “colour surprise,” red draws you in.  Colours are also associative, often as not based on convention.  Yellow, for example, was as vile as bile to the mediaeval mind, while in India and Japan, yellow, like the sun, was traditionally associated with the highest states of godhood.  Why, we might ask, do green walls calm us down in our favorite mental hospitals?  Why does that green gown get you in a nice mood to meet your proctologist?

Colours are signals.  In the wild world they signify arousal, threat, invitation.  And absence of colour is nature’s most profound understatement.  Grayness is its own beauty, and the brilliant depend on gray’s shyness for their effectiveness.

Colours may calm, excite, arrest, motivate, or even heal.  In art they need to be understood and used with both intelligence and intuition.  We’re dealing with primal stuff here.  To my thinking there’s one main rule:  “What colour does it need?”  As well as the needs of the work, one asks in the psychology department as well as in reality.  Sorting through the mumbo-jumbo and quackery, I secretly wonder whether painting red paintings might make you thinner. 

Best regards,

Robert

PS:  “Diseases treated with red: (in part) Anemia, Bronchitis, Melancholia, Pneumonia, Listlessness, Idiocy.  For Hypothyroidism, use orange.  Blue is used for Insomnia, Jaundice, Measles and Baldness.”  (Dr. Reuben Amber)

Esoterica:  A red dot is the universal signal that a work of art has found a believer.  A blue dot generally signals that a work of art is on hold.  Half a green dot signals that somebody is confused, indecisive and not fully able to make meaningful acquisitions.

If you would like to see illustrated responses to the last letter, “Confidence,” please go to http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/confidence.asp

If you would like to comment on this letter or add your own information, opinion or observation, please do so. Thanks for writing rgenn@saraphina.com

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(c) Copyright 2002 Robert Genn. The "Robert Genn Twice Weekly Letter" may only be redistributed in its unedited form. Written permission from the author must be obtained to reprint or cite the information contained within this newsletter.