The "Blue" Couch and How It is Making Me Consider Payne's Grey

This summer another color dilemma rose to prominence on social media, the likes of which the internet hadn't experienced since the gold dress of 2015. A woman presented her "blue" couch and asked for some recommendations for other decor. The internet was quick (and kind) to point out that her couch was grey. Surely it's blue, she stated and provided other examples of blue items from her home. They were mostly grey. She took an online color blind test and filmed it. Many colors did not register in her rods and cones. She ended up getting her eyes professionally tested to confirm color-blindness and was gifted a new blue couch. 

Atmospheric River #1, Rainwater and Watercolor on Paper, 22"x30", 2024

​From Winsor & Newton's site "Payne's Gray is a dark blue grey historically made from a mixture of Ultramarine, Lamp Black and sometimes Crimson. It was named after the 18th c. water-colourist William Payne who created the mixture and often recommended it to his students as an alternative to plain black." 

While it is called a blue grey in the description, the titular word is "Gray." This makes me wonder if Mr. Payne had the same kind of colorblindness as the woman with the "blue" couch, who from the comment sections of her videos is not alone in experiencing the world in this way. 

It also made me wonder how many people experince my offerings a grey, not blue. While I recognize that there is variability in this color nine times out of ten it reads more blue than grey to me, especially in person. When viewed under cold light the pigment differences of grey and blue are even more pronounced. In photographs it tends towards grey. And all of this brings up color classifications and constructs. How did you learn all of the subtleties of what color is called what? Do you experience Payne's Gray as grey? Do you read it as blue?