“Listen, God love everything you love – and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.

You saying God vain? I ast.

Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

~ Conversation between Shug and Celie, as told by Celie to her sister Nettie in a letter. From the book The Colour Purple written by Alice Walker.

If I were asked to pick one colour as my most favourite of all colours, I know that I would not choose the colour purple, yet I can totally relate to the quote above from the book “The Colour Purple”. I’m sure my heart skips a beat when I see a purple flower, or anything in nature showing the colour. I even love to see purple in the sky, although it is usually a sign of imminent, or earlier, bad weather.

As a child, one of my girls absolutely loved purple, everything she owned had to be purple, there were no if’s or but’s about it, so I did a bit of research on purple to find out, if anything, what a love for the colour signified. The one thing that struck me the most all those years ago was how purple was regarded as a spiritual colour. My daughter, who was crazy for the colour, could look deep inside a person’s soul. Even today, at age twenty, she “feels” her way through life, like no other young person I have ever met.

In the Catholic Church, the colour purple is worn by cardinals and bishops and during lent is regarded as the colour of pain and suffering. Up until the mid twentieth century, purple was regarded as the colour for mourning in England.

Thought of at one time as a regal colour, purple fabric was so expensive that only the rich in society could afford clothing made from purple, therefore purple became a status colour, worn only by the wealthy or privileged.

So having established that purple has enjoyed quite a colourful history throughout the centuries, what effect does the colour have on our personalities?

Besides being a spiritual colour, purple, and the lighter shade of violet, are both connected to the imagination and intuition. Lovers of purple will want to run their own race as individuals, are often surrounded by mystery, can be psychic and can live in a world of fantasy, needing to escape the realities of the world. Purple lovers are often the daydreamers among us and being around the colour has a calming effect on the person.

The negative aspects of the colour purple, especially a liking for the darker shades, can be that the person is possibly immature, can be cynical and arrogant and can at times be seen as a social climber. It can also represent loneliness and mourning.

But lets not dwell too long on the negative aspects of this most distinguished of all colours. Something that you may not know about the colour purple, being a combination of the colours red and blue, it possesses the strength of the colour red, combined with the integrity of the colour blue.

And here’s another thing you may not know about what I have written here, and the photos I have added showing The Colour Purple in my life ~ this is my contribution to Karma’s “Colours of Your World” photo assignment. And it gets even better, after Karma red read my last post here, “The Psychology of Colours ~ Featuring the Colour Red”, it gave her the inspiration for her latest photo challenge!

Karma has set the deadline to get the assignment in by April 28th (but she’s pretty cruisy about deadlines!) so if you too feel inspired, why not join in the challenge and add a post with photos of some of your favourite, or not so favourite, colours.

I’m enjoying learning about the psychology of colours so much, and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in my findings on the colour red, so I’ve decided to feature a new colour each week, (until I run out of colours!)

How do you feel about the colour purple, do you love it, or loath it? It could be fascinating to look at the reasons why you feel the way you do. 🙂

The Violet ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Written 1773)

A violet blossom’d on the lea,
Half hidden from the eye,
As fair a flower as you might see;
When there came tripping by
A shepherd maiden fair and young,
Lightly, lightly o’er the lea;
Care she knew not, and she sung Merrily!