How colour is created in the mind
Illustration by Marie Montocchio / Ikon Images
What colour is the grass? It looks green to me, and you say it looks green to you, but are we seeing the same green? And what makes it green anyway – the light, or our brains? Welcome to episode one of Stories in Colour, a new podcast from the National Gallery.
This is a truly multidisciplinary endeavour – not just art but history, psychology, literature, sociology, economics and religion. World history is told through the story of pigments and how their development shaped centuries of artistic expression. Our emotional reflexes to colour – fear, disgust, calm – are put under the microscope. Paintings in the National Gallery's collection take centre-stage, with the mastery of Turner, Renoir and Monet dissected brushstroke by brushstroke.
But it begins with science, as Beks Leary from the gallery's digital department tries to understand what colour actually is and if it's even real. For this, she is joined by 'colour scientist' Professor Anya Hurlbert for a deep dive into physics and then evolutionary biology to understand why we see colour in the first place.
If you're still wondering whether the dress in the photo that went viral ten years ago was really blue and black or white and gold, Hurlbert has recreated the illusion in real life and can give you the definitive answer. More interesting, though, is why it divided the internet, with millions of people utterly flummoxed that they could view the same image yet see something so different. Colours are, it turns out, our 'personal possessions': real, but also something we create in our own minds, influenced by both our surroundings and our memories.
So is the grass green? You'll need a philosopher to answer that, not a colour scientist or an art historian. But the viral dress wouldn't have bamboozled Monet or Turner. Orange skies, a golden cathedral, fields laid out in purple – the minds behind some of the world's greatest artworks instinctively knew that colours aren't always what they seem.
Stories in Colour
The National Gallery podcasts
[See also: The BBC Sounds series 'Stalked' is thrilling and worrying]
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New Statesman
2 days ago
- New Statesman
How colour is created in the mind
Illustration by Marie Montocchio / Ikon Images What colour is the grass? It looks green to me, and you say it looks green to you, but are we seeing the same green? And what makes it green anyway – the light, or our brains? Welcome to episode one of Stories in Colour, a new podcast from the National Gallery. This is a truly multidisciplinary endeavour – not just art but history, psychology, literature, sociology, economics and religion. World history is told through the story of pigments and how their development shaped centuries of artistic expression. Our emotional reflexes to colour – fear, disgust, calm – are put under the microscope. Paintings in the National Gallery's collection take centre-stage, with the mastery of Turner, Renoir and Monet dissected brushstroke by brushstroke. But it begins with science, as Beks Leary from the gallery's digital department tries to understand what colour actually is and if it's even real. For this, she is joined by 'colour scientist' Professor Anya Hurlbert for a deep dive into physics and then evolutionary biology to understand why we see colour in the first place. If you're still wondering whether the dress in the photo that went viral ten years ago was really blue and black or white and gold, Hurlbert has recreated the illusion in real life and can give you the definitive answer. More interesting, though, is why it divided the internet, with millions of people utterly flummoxed that they could view the same image yet see something so different. Colours are, it turns out, our 'personal possessions': real, but also something we create in our own minds, influenced by both our surroundings and our memories. So is the grass green? You'll need a philosopher to answer that, not a colour scientist or an art historian. But the viral dress wouldn't have bamboozled Monet or Turner. Orange skies, a golden cathedral, fields laid out in purple – the minds behind some of the world's greatest artworks instinctively knew that colours aren't always what they seem. Stories in Colour The National Gallery podcasts [See also: The BBC Sounds series 'Stalked' is thrilling and worrying] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
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Britain is failing children in care
Illustration by Gary Waters / Ikon Images There is no denying that, for so many looked-after children, growing up in care can be brutal and traumatic. I should know. I was looked after for most of my childhood, shunted between a range of foster homes in south-east London, as well as doing a stint in a residential care home with pre-teen boys of a similar age. In my case, it was necessary. But what concerns me is children being placed into care when it's avoidable – when there's a better alternative. The number of looked-after children in England is high – more than 80,000. And although statistics from the Department for Education show that only a small proportion of children in care are there due to being in 'low income' homes, that doesn't disprove that poverty is a significant factor for children entering the system. The UK's most senior family court judge, Andrew McFarlane, cites poverty as a key reason. 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The fact remains, however, that many children in care are being let down. At its worst, time spent in care can compound trauma, deepen a child's sense of abandonment and diminish their life chances. Placing a child into the care system should only ever be a last resort. A greater emphasis should be placed on preventative measures, keeping families together wherever it's safe and possible to do so. A few years ago, I presented a BBC3 documentary, Split Up in Care, about the frequency of siblings being separated in the care system; it was rooted in my experience of sibling estrangement. I explored how some local authorities were pioneering preventative strategies. During the pandemic, Derby City Council introduced a rapid-response team to support vulnerable families and prevent more children from entering the system. In 15 months, they helped 60 families to stay together and prevented 50 sibling groups from being split up. 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