Conway’s two articles regarding neural perception of color brought to the surface the elusive and intangible quality of “color.” Color perception can change drastically depending on so many innumerable factors, such as the intensity of the light shining on it, the texture and “color” (ironically) of the material it is painted on, subjective experience and interpretation, individual biological idiosyncrasies of the pupil, and the list goes on.
Even on the off-white wall of the library I am sitting in right now that should be consistent in its color all throughout, the top part that the fluorescent bulb shines on seems a yellowish white while the remaining part of the wall almost seems gray relative to the top part. As I was reading the articles, the first thing that came to my mind was my mother. I noticed throughout my entire life that for some reason, maybe because she is simply old and from an earlier generation than mine, my mother perceived the same color in ways different from mine. For example, she would see a hot pink dress and call it orange or purple, or see orange and call it red. I am certain that I have the “right” perception, and I have corrected her many times, but she didn’t seem to change her perception at all.
I believe that there is also some cultural and linguistic factor at play, but many Koreans call the green light the blue light, which still throws me off. Since Koreans have many different terms with subtly different connotations to signify the same color, I am led to assume that language and the scope and diversity of vocabulary of that language also contribute to the diverse perception of color.
The articles also made three specific artists pop up in my head: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Piet Mondrian. These expressionists established quite a groundbreaking progression of art from the impressionist or surrealist paintings that still do have a sense of reality, and a resemblance to the objects we can observe in the natural world, to lines, blocks, and randomly sprayed dots of color. I thought that the art of these such expressionist artists really accurately portrays the concepts discussed on Conway’s articles. Regardless of whether the artists were conscious of these underlying neurological concepts, they really took this idea of “color perception” and made really good use of it. It was new, it was groundbreaking, and it was refreshing. The famous painting of Mondrian and most of Rothko’s color-blocked paintings prove that the perception of color truly lies in its context. If Rothko switched out one of the blocks of color in his original paintings for a different color, the resulting work would be an entirely new work of art.
Also, as a final and perhaps slightly irrelevant remark, I wanted to say that I am really appreciating the articles we are reading for this course. It makes me think about things that we would never otherwise sit down and really ponder upon–things we take for granted.