The first known theory of colour comes from Aristotle, in his work “De Sensu”: he suggests that all colours come from black and white, colour coming from the rays of light. He developed a system of colour classification from white at noon to black at midnight.
This system remained in force until Isaac Newton, 2000 years later, solved the mystery of the rainbow and developed the first colour wheel.
A few years later, Goethe introduced the notion of emotional and physiological experience: colour is not just a visual phenomenon, and the brain processes information differently in different individuals.
Carl Jung, for his part, linked four types of temperament to four colours: sunshine yellow (joyful, enthusiastic), cold blue (neutral, analytical), earth green (calm, comforting) and fire red (determined, reckless).
In the 1970s, Angela Wright took all these theories and created a unified theory of colour psychology. Her “Color Affects Systems” postulates the existence of patterns in the visual spectrum that are reflected in human behaviour. We are all psychologically affected by colour. She suggests that each hue affects specific psychological modes, thus influencing the mood and behaviour of the observer. Her principles also show that all colours can be classified into one of four groups. The group a colour falls into determines how it will affect a psychological mode.