Are You a Chromaphile?
What it’s like to be hostage to hues
Does the following list make you tingle in an inexplicable way?
Goldenrod, mahogany, copper, periwinkle, cornflower, sepia, carnation pink, pine green, raw umber . . .
These are/were some of the 64 crayon colors in Crayola’s premium box. If you were heavily wired toward the visual, lifting the lid was like opening a warm box of Krispy Kremes, a wallow in gratification.
Color freaks, formally known as chromaphiles, are a special breed. They’re okay with leaving a candy shop empty-handed. Why? They’ve licked all the treats with their retinas. For them, paint sample cards spark joy. The idea that impossible colors exist teases unspeakable regions in the sensorium.
Historically, this peculiar pleasure led down some gruesome avenues. One of the best examples of color rush ever comes from Ancient Rome. Seneca reports on banquets where red mullet was served, a fish with a fantastic property:
They are carried about enclosed in glass vessels, and their coloration is watched as they die, shifting as they struggle in the throes of death in varied shades and hues… There is nothing, you say, more beautiful than the colors of a dying surmullet; as it struggles and breathes forth its life, it is first red, and then gradually turns…
