Thursday 5 June 2014

The Colour Purple

Am I the only one who's noticed this phenomena or have you noticed it too?
In the past decade or so more and more people have taken to painting their houses and business establishment in bright colours. 
  
This penchant for bright colours stems from the need to stand out I would think, after all there's 1.2 billion of us jostling for attention. More than ever before, the burgeoning  middle classes are becoming proud, first time home owners and a distinctive exterior colour for their new home makes a statement. Besides, visitors won't have to bother with GPS they would just have to look for the purple house with orange and green trim. 

Could the need to be unique be the only reason? Asking around I was told these bright colours were Vastu colours. Of these vastu colours I'm partial to purple because it doesn't feature prominently in the Indian art and culture colour palette with the exception of Indian sarees be it Kanchipuram, Ilkal and Benares to name a few.
According to Vastu, purple inspires respect whereas this interesting infographic of colours and their significance around the world says purple in India denotes sorrow,comfort and nobility.
In the past if purple was not visible was it the preserve of only the wealthy because it was expensive to create? I know with natural dyes fabric or yarn would have to be dyed twice - with indigo and then with madder to achieve a deep rich colour like the colour of the jamun fruit. A beautiful colour but no match for the brilliance and intensity of  the purples which chemical dyes and paints could produce.
Vastu and the building boom has taken Egg Plant Delite, Velvet Night, Dark Triumph, Intense Purple and Orchid Bloom from merely existing in an Asian Paints shade card and unleashed them on the landscape along with a hundred different bright colours.

Purple spotting has become one of my pet projects.Purple pops up in unexpected places like this freshly painted house glimpsed while driving along a back road in the Nilgiris.
 Before the mist shrouds these purple beauties.  
If you have to make a statement and you want to stand out purple wins hand down. Not limited to paint, purple has caught the imagination of the people with this song Oodha colour ribbon from the Tamil movie Varutha Padatha Valibar Sangam.
Have you spotted purple recently? what was it? I'm curious.



4 comments:

jackie said...

Thank you for your comment. Now you have me dreaming of living in a purple, an egg plant coloured house, my favourite colour,so much better than boring red brick.

Maya Sara Matthew said...

Purple is an exciting colour.I wonder if you are more productive and creative if you live in a house painted in your favourite colour.
Thank you for leaving a comment.

Tana Bana Design Services said...

the first photo with yellow, green is our office building in India.

Maya Sara Matthew said...

Yes it is. I took this picture way back when I came to Salem to do some work for Tana Bana. All the buildings in the area were painted a different colour.