Secret Lives of colour – -Red is a universally loved colour also the most tested and researched colour . It has some measurable impact on humans, as commented by Ms. Kassia in her interview. She remarks “it makes us response in an elemental way “. To validate her comment she quotes an example of the soccer teams that wore red ,performed statistically better also that was found in Olympics teams and participants.The impact of red is such on humans that they’ve gone the length to find a brighter shade of red. Cochinel and scarlet are shades of red that are produced from scale insects which are heavily used in food colouring .
Purple was always treated to be a royal colour , specially when you look at the origin of tyrian purple. It was extracted from shell fish that were only found in the mediteranean . These shellfish were hunted to extinction to produce the colour which was found in their pale glands. Almost 250,000 of them were squeezed to produce an ounce of the colour.
Although green was everywhere but to form the pigment of green was extremely tedious . The green pigment was derived from a compound copper arsenite which is incredibly toxic and its most famous victim was Napolean . As on his death a lot copper arsenide was found in his body .
Blue is the most popular colour but it wasn’t the case till 14th century till the rise of christianity and cult of Virgin Mary .The color blue became associated with Mary and rose in prominence. Mary’s robes were often dyed with a blue pigment called ultramarine. In todays day n age , we associate blue with boys and pink with girls but it was the opposite back in the day as blue was associated to queen Mary while pink was considered as a shade of red and associated to boys .
Ms Kassis ends her interview with a very beautiful comment that colour is always changing and that’s where the magic lies in . It constantly tested , redefined and argued over.