Art, Color, and Psychology: a Case Study

In ancient Egypt, as well as in India and Baalbek, China, and Greece, a science that was called color therapy was frequently used: they realized the healing properties of colors and believed that man received life energy from sunlight, and whenever one of these colors of the solar rainbow diminishes in the body, the body becomes out of balance and becomes ill.An elementary school in Isfahan was selected to investigate the effect of colors on the appropriate and inappropriate behavior of adolescent girls. This research was carried for a year to examine the moods of the girls during drawing and color selection, and each subject was given a ۴۵-question Rutter unfinished sentence test. This test measures the incompatibility/compatibility of the subjects in various issues. Then one hundred subjects were randomly selected. After scoring the answers, the result and their compatibility score were compared with the choice of colors in their drawings.It is interesting that the more compatible these teenagers were, the more cheerful and clear colors they chose in their paintings, and the color they did not like was darker, gray, brown, and at the same time, their colors were uniform and calm. Those with higher levels of incompatibility chose darker colors, such as dark green, dark blue, and the percentage of those who did not like red, orange, or one of the happy colors increased. Another notable result is that these teens vented their emotions with all their might when drawing a line, especially when drawing broken lines, but when applying color, they worked very calmly and were clearly to apply the color.