Evaluation of Franz Marc’s Color Theory using Implicit Testing Procedures

In the early 20th century, the German expressionist painter Franz Marc formulated assumptions concerning the meanings of color, based on his individual sensations. He characterized the ‘cool’ blue as the ‘masculine principle’. Yellow represented the ‘feminine principle’ which he declared as ‘gentle, cheerful, and sensual’. This leaves red, the color he perceived as ‘brutal and heavy’. Here, we tested some of the color–meaning associations assumed by Franz Marc via implicit measures based on response times, using Single Category Implicit Association Tests. The participants had to classify words as belonging to one of two semantic categories (e.g., masculine or feminine) by pressing one of tw…