Since I was a little girl, I've had this interest for colours, like most children, and these never-ending thoughts to try to figure out if we all see all colours identically. Hence I developed a passion for the causes and effects of colour blindness. I had this intimate conviction that colour blind people could see somehow differently, surely, but also more deeply, or in a different way, or maybe see things that we, or at least I, would miss.
Incidentally, I happen to have a very good vision, 12 out of 10 have always said the eye doctors, "you should have been a air pilot!", insisted one. But I haven't really used this ability for technical or artistic skills.
But I have developed an interest for art and images and other people'a painting. I've spent my youth battling in my head to figure out which job is the most endearing and passionate: painter or musician... Yet, I'm lucky enough to spend a large part of my life interviewing some of them.
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Here is a very beautiful article from the BBC website about art and colour blindness:
How the colour-blind see art with different eyes
- 21 June 2014
In its latest exhibition, the National Gallery examines how generations of painters have created and used colour. But how do people who are "colour-blind" view art?
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27884975
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Extracts:
To anyone who has a colour vision deficiency, commonly known as colour blindness, the bold reds that dominate the Degas work may look very different.
The subject of colour blindness is tackled in an interactive part of the exhibition devoted to the science behind colour vision.
The retina at the back of eye contains light sensors called cones. The three cone types - red, green and blue - are stimulated by different wavelengths of light.
Most colour-blind people have three types of cone, but they are sensitive to a different part of the spectrum.
By Tim Masters - who has first hand experience of colour blindness
The earliest sign that I was colour-blind was, according to my parents, when I drew a picture of Doctor Who's Tardis - and made it shocking pink.
When I tell people I'm colour-blind some assume I see the world in black and white.
That's far from the truth. I can see rainbows. I just don't see them in the same way as most people.
Walking around the Making Colour exhibition, I was dazzled by the ultramarine blues and daffodil yellows.
But was that a big patch of green in Degas's La Coiffure? The sign said it was red, but my eyes said something different.
Apart from a fashion faux pas involving some burgundy trousers, I've never found my colour blindness to be much of a problem. It's never detracted from my enjoyment of art.
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According to the Colour Blind Awareness organisation, colour blindness affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world.
In Britain there are approximately 2.7m colour blind people, most of whom are male.
Most people inherit deficient colour vision from their mother, although some people become colour-blind as a result of disease, ageing or through medication.
Most colour-blind people still see a world of vibrant colour. The most common form results in confusion between red and green.
Does it matter that they don't see works of art in exactly the same way as others?
"Art is about individual taste," says Kathryn Albany-Ward, who founded Colour Blind Awareness.
"Everyone knows someone who's colour-blind and think they get on fine."
Her concern is that a lack of knowledge about the condition in schools can lead to colour-blind children feeling a lack of confidence in the classroom - especially when it comes to art.
"If they haven't had their crayons marked up with the right colour they might colour the sky partly blue and partly purple.
"It's that kind of issue that can make people embarrassed. Children at school can be laughed at and it puts them off art potentially."
As the science experts at the National Gallery point out, people shouldn't really be called colour-blind - they just "see the world differently".
Making Colour is at the National Gallery in London until 7 September
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Beautiful conclusion!
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