Several studies reveal that colours are capable of influencing, at least to a small degree, our state of mind, arousing different emotions depending on the nuance. Understanding the various feelings conveyed by colours is therefore useful for knowing how their presence in our surroundings affects our mood.

The theory of colour temperature

Many of the best-known ways of categorising colours are based on the very principle that every gradation conveys a specific emotion and evokes a certain image or situation in the mind. This is demonstrated, for example, by the theory that divides colours according to their temperature — more precisely into cool colours, which include green, blue, indigo and violet, and warm colours, which include red, orange and yellow.

This classification stems from the fact that cool colours suggest calm, gentleness, rest, contemplation, sadness and various shades of these states of mind. Warm colours, on the other hand, excite and arouse joy, strength, power, activity, passion.

We find the same analogies in the environment around us: blood is red, flame is yellow, the sun is orange, and they are all equally warm. Water, plants and lush nature, by contrast, are characterised by cool colours and are therefore relaxing. So, if we walk into a room painted yellow, we will certainly have a more joyful and invigorating sensation than in a blue or green one, which will instead evoke tranquillity.

Warm and cool colours according to Louis Turenne

Alongside the classification based on temperature, there is a second classification that also takes into account the electromagnetic waves produced by each colour:

• red, orange and yellow (warm colours) have a positive radiation;
• blue, violet and indigo (cool colours) have a negative radiation;
• green is both negative and positive, and many authors identify it as the link between the two categories.

This latter classification dates back to the early twentieth century and was put forward by Louis Turenne, a renowned scientist and engineer from the École Centrale de Paris, a university institution that trained the country's leading executives. As well as being a leading scientist, this scholar was also a great dowser who had the merit of studying, using the scientific method of dowsing, a series of phenomena related to colours, about which his contemporaries expressed total scepticism.

Communicating through colours

As the theories put forward amply demonstrate, colours are closely associated with different emotions, and our very choice to wear or paint our home in a particular colour is not entirely random. Colours say a great deal about us, our personality and our current state of mind, and at the same time they are capable of altering its course. It all comes down to the use each individual decides to make of them: this means that the simple act of wearing a red T-shirt can be an expression of good mood just as it can represent a device adopted to lift one's spirits.

In any case, whatever message one wishes to communicate through the use of colours, it is clear that their influence plays an important role in people's emotional sphere. For this reason, they can help us change our days, making them more relaxing, less gloomy and more cheerful.