Symbolism and Psychology of Colors in Painting - Focusing on a Color Comparison between Vincent Van Gogh and Gustav Klimt -

회화에 나타난 색채상징성 및 색채심리 - 빈센트 반 고흐와 구스타프 클림트의 그림에 나타난 색채비교를 중심으로 -

This study aims to examine associationistic psychology and psychological operation associated with each color image, then to study the relation between particular colors used in paintings produced by Gogh and Klimt in different times and these painters' psychology in a bid to explore the meaning and role of psychological operation of colors. The findings of the study indicated that red and blue colors represent mainly negative images, while yellow and orange colors represent mainly positive images and psychologies. Specifically, in the case of Gogh, red expresses anxiety, a negative image, yellow symbolizes passion, a major positive image of emotional liberation, dark and thick green and the green involving blue symbolize negative images, emptiness and despair, and blue represents negative images of internal desire conflicts, and screaming. Also, purple used together with white represents anxiety and depression. In the case of Klimt, red represents negative images of anger toward mother and suppressed energy, yellow, an alternative to gold color, symbolizes the positive image of hope, passion, desire and eroticism, the arrangement of strong gold and orange colors represents a color of psychological healing more than a color of hope. As such, colors used in paintings produced by modern Western painters express the physiological conditions, psychological feeling and emotion in life, at the time when the artists produced such works. It was found that colors are yet another language of expressing emotions, and symbolize the psychologies of the artists, indicating that colors have something to do with the painters' experience and emotional impulses.