Did you know lighting is very important to highlight artwork at home and office? In this article, we are going to address how does lighting affect colour, how the different source of lighting impact the paint, how the temperature of the lighting can affect our color perception and throw of color harmony in the room.

It’s amazing how lighting is such an important part of our lives. We can’t ignore it. Lighting is measured in temperatures. The brightness or colour of your light is measured in Kelvins. For example, now a day LED is labeled in colour/temperature. Have you ever notice that they say how much hot or cold the light will be, when it comes to appearing to your eyes. Did you know that the Sun is 5600 Kalvin, so it is super bright? You should use light between 2400 to 3000 Kalvin in your home.

Why this matter?

When you change temperature or colour of light, it significantly changes the colour of the paint on the walls, paintings, art pieces, and accessories as well.

Impact of light frequencies on the colours of your interior spaces and artworks:

The colour of an object depends upon the mixture of light frequencies that you see. Keep in mind that mixture contains two elements such as frequency of the original light source and the frequency that the artwork or object intercepts. If a surface doesn’t allow to absorb any colour then all colours will reflect. As a result, it will give you white colour to see in the interior space or pieces of art. If the surface absorbs only red colour, then it will reflect blue and green, and you may see cyan.

You have observed that a typical incandescent bulb contains yellow light. It is a fact that you should know, a high proportion of photons in green and red can be seen more in the space or painting as compared to the blue range colours. It is the reason behind the yellowish colour of the incandescent light bulb; it highlights warmer colours in the paintings and artworks. That light itself contains a lot of red and green colours. These colours bounce back to reach your eyes when they drop on the paint. If you use a typical fluorescent bulb, it will bounce back a lot of blue colour to reach your eyes. It also highlights cooler colours in the painting, any artwork or interior spaces.

Have you notice that differences in the light source indicate the conclusion that incandescent light is considered more flattering to the eyes of a receiver than fluorescent light. Blue light and other cooler colours generally give a non-refreshing look to the art piece or painting. On the other hand, warm colour gives quiet refreshing look unless and until it’s not radiant. Here I am going to introduce an example of Grocery stores where they avoid to use fluorescent bulbs in the area of vegetable and fruits.

Can you believe it, colour changes directly when you change a light source? Space depicts different colours or moods under daylight, incandescent light and fluorescent light in the homes and offices. In fact, paintings and art pieces also have shown different colours in daylight even in different times of the day. Did you know? There is a phenomenon known as metamerism which states that the objects or art pieces match in colour under specific lighting and they will not match anymore under different lighting.

How lighting affect artwork through glass?

When you decide to get framed your piece of photograph or artwork, you want to see the work in its excellent and original condition. A framing glass will hinder the clarity of your artwork and may make it dull and distorted. We also observed that framed artwork is never found in its accurate colours when it’s framed with clear glass. Actually, we see the light that reflects from the glass. It is stated in the study that 2 percent of light is absorbed by the glass when its passes through it and percentage of reflected light are 8 percent. As we all know that the reflected light creates glare.

It means that we can have only 80 percent of image clarity when using transparent glass to frame a picture or artwork. These effects can decrease by using special-made glass for artwork display. These glasses are known as “Art Glass” which have low-iron properties, non-organic materials and doesn’t change the colours.

Suggestion:

I suggest you use both lightings with proper frequency and art glass because it has only 1 percent glare. These elements will help you to enjoy your artwork at both home and office.