Colors. The texture of our life, the hue of global ambiance, and the complexity of symbolic universitality. The significance of this wonderful element ranges from child's play to cultural definition. Color encapsulates so much within our lives and can be looked at through so many angles and aspects.
One of these aspects is upon the level of art. They provide the intensity to a truly vivid picture and help envelop the beauty of reality (people, the environment, etc.). Without it, there wouldn't be the same level of beauty in art as there is made possible by the wonderful pigments we know today.
Another aspect is the level of symbolic significance. For example: the color red is seen as a symbol for both blood and death as it is a symbol of love and forgiveness. Green is a symbol for trickery and decietfulness, as well as a symbol for vitality and life. Colors hold multiple special meanings that are explored throughout our cultures.
Colors also hold extreme religious significance. In Christianity, redemption can be represented by the color red for the blood that Jesus shed. Green can be seen as a sign of the serpent, thus the devil (represented in the story of Adam and Eve). Green can also be seen as a religious symbol of life and nature- thus hope for eternal life. And white is seen as a symbol of purity and cleanliness. As you can see, colors hold great significance in the aspect of faith and belief.
Colors are also great cultural definers. Flags are represented through nationalistic colors. Also, certain celebrations held close to individual societies are represented through colors.
For example, to name a few:
Christmas: Red and Green
Mardi Gras: Purple, Green, Gold
Thanksgiving: Brown and Gold
Colors signal these celebrations and the society (or nation) that embraces them.
Colors do have incredible significance and meaning beyond the art room. They hold great symbolic significance, cultural and religious meaning. They truly do have aspects that revolve 360 degrees.
I think you made a great point. Isn't it interesting how a color can mean so many different things for different people? Not to be too much like Descartes, but is there any way for a color to have one definition? For you, red looks like red. But, maybe, if you could transfer your idea of red to me, I would only see blue. So how can we judge character by color? How can we racially profile, if we all see colors differently?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post, Alex. I've never thought deeply into how much color can influence our lives. I especially liked your connection of color to religion. Some people have very personal feelings with certain colors because they correspond with things that shape their lives and care deeply about.
ReplyDeleteThis post brought two major questions to my mind, one of which was addressed by Austin in the comments: Does everyone perceive the world the same way, and why do we find significance in things such as color, art, and music?
In Sophie's world, there has been a great deal of talk about "perception." How do we perceive the world? Can we trust these perceptions? Do we all perceive things the same way? Some philosophers have claimed that because we can't be sure if our perceptions are correct, we can't be sure that conventional science works in the real world at all, and thus it should be rejected. However, even if we could know for a fact that the world we live in is only a mirage, or some sort of "Matrix" world, we should still trust our senses and perceptions, because they have real implications in this "fake world." For example, if the world was only a dream, the law of gravity would still apply in the dream. Since the dream world is the only one that we know and the one that we occupy, we have to accept the natural laws of the dream world as true. However, this does not mean that we should stop searching for a way into the other world, or the "real" world. It's similar to Plato's Allegory of the Cave (if you haven't noticed, I like this story a lot haha). The people in the cave have a shadow world created for them, but they must accept the rules of their world because it is the world in which they function. They are restrained by it. But they shouldn't ignore the possibility of a different world in which their world's laws don't apply. They should be curious about it and strive to find it, but this does not mean that they should necessarily reject the laws of their own world. Doing this is senseless, because as long as you live in the "dream" world, the natural laws of the world will apply to you whether they actually exist or not.
As Alex pointed out, humans have always enjoyed art. Drawings on the walls of caves attest to this. But why is it a part of our nature? What is it about music and art that humans find so compelling? I can only guess why we like art- is it because art stirs the imagination, do the colors release some chemical in our minds? Maybe certain colors have been subconsciously associated with memories, and thus hold a significance in our minds. Most people find dark red eerie and green refreshing because they are associated with blood and nature, respectively. Perhaps our perception of colors starts at a young age as a way to categorize things- red is blood, and bleeding is scary, so dark red is scary. Green is grass, trees, and plants, plants are calm, green is soothing. Yellow is the the sun, the sun is bright and cheerful, yellow is happy. These themes are common to almost all humans, so this may explain why most perceptions of colors are similar.