The evolution of the world of color
Prehistoric times were gray: only gradually did plants become colorful and attract animals. According to color researcher Axel Buether, colors are “people’s largest communication system”. The development of our brain is also based on this system.
Only gradually did colors develop in the course of evolution: first mainly the green tones of plants, then ever more colorful shades. It’s all about the principle of “seeing and being seen”, says Buether. While different pigments formed in plants, color vision substances developed in the eyes of animals. This led to an extremely creative interaction between plants and animals.
Seeing and being seen
plants attract animals—such as bees today—with their colors, and this allows them to reproduce more successfully. Through genetic selection, increasingly beautiful hues and ever more magnificent fruits have emerged.
This interplay of “seeing and “Being seen” communication mechanisms have slowly evolved. developed, according to Buether. “And we assume today that Complex nervous systems like our brain actually have such have developed communication mechanisms.”
Red as the most important color
, red is the most important color for humans. “If something is red, we have to look at it immediately.” This can be explained by the structure of our eye, specifically the arrangement of the cones on our retina that are responsible for color perception: The cones responsible for perceiving the color blue are located at the outermost edge, which is why we can only perceive blue as a blur—according to Buether. Further toward the center are the green cones. In the inner center of the retina, where what we see all the time and very consciously is captured—“there are exclusively red-sensitive photoreceptor cells.”
Colors as an expensive commodity
However, humans did not stop at simply seeing colors. They also began to produce them themselves . The oldest evidence of this—cave paintings— are about 30,000 to 40,000 years old, says Buether. “People began to paint their world using earth pigments.”
No wonder that colors later became an expensive commodity, sometimes worth as much as gold and silver: “The purpose of color is, of course, to indicate status. This means that the more valuable the color pigments are, the more important the person is in the social hierarchy.”
Podcast to listen to: Deutschlandfunk Kultur ECHTZEIT contribution from 02.11.2019 When the world became colorful
