Lesson 3. Warm and cool: color as emotion

Colors are usually divided into warm and cool. Warm: red, orange, yellow — the colors of fire and sun. Cool: blue, light blue, blue-green, violet — the colors of water, ice, shadow, night. This division is more than a convention; it affects how we see: — Warm colors seem to advance toward the viewer; cool colors recede into the depth. That's why artists often paint distant mountains bluish and the foreground warm. This creates a sense of depth: what is called aerial (or atmospheric) perspective. — Warm colors energize and warm us, and can unsettle or excite. Cool colors calm and suggest sadness, quiet, detachment. Often a whole painting is “tuned” to one temperature — this creates an overall mood. A warm golden scene feels cozy and alive; a cool bluish one feels sad or solemnly calm. And a single warm patch amid the cool (or the other way around) instantly draws the eye — that's contrast again, this time of color.