THE MEANING OF THE COLOURS
Extracted from “Rivista Colore”, Ikon Publishing n. 35 - 2001
Pier Pietro Brunelli - (translated by Amelia and Alexandra)
When attempting to answer questions such as `What does this colour signal?' it is easy fall into one of the many traditional interpretations and their conflicting meanings, even in the most sophisticated theories of colours. Semiotic studies can aid in interpreting the true meaning - or the contradictory meaning - of colours.
What a colour signals is usually expressed with perceptive, emotional, aesthetic or symbolic qualities. However, when searching for the meaning of a colour, the context in which it appears must also be considered. Whether one is to view it like a pure colour, characterised on a specific colorimetric scale or system - for example the Pantones - or as an applied colour – e.g. in a material, having a specific shape, in a specific ambient context and its levels of brightness.
The sense of a colour as pure colour is however an abstraction, since it's hard to imagine it not to have some kind of texture or material. Neither can the imagination disregard its shape and the level of brightness – i.e. the different conditions of the same colour. Therefore when a colour is to be interpreted, it must be clear if one refers to the pure feeling, the abstract of the colour, or to the colour in itself.
This article refers to reasoning on the chromatic feeling and the fact that one should try to answer questions like the following; “What does the colour ‘red’ symbolise - or ‘blue’ or ‘yellow’?”
Throughout history every culture has named certain wavelengths cut out from the continuum of colours. For Latin people the colour “Caeruleum” was something that could go from green to blue and no name existed to distinguish these two colours. On the other hand, people living in desert areas have multiple names to define the level of redness of sand.
For cultural reasons, people around the world have different ways to distinguish and interpret colours. This text refers to the western way to interpret colours, although the in-between ranges of tones and gradients thus have rendered more difficult to characterise than "blue" or "red", it is being spoken in terms of a common and not a technical dictionary.
There is a joke witch tells the story of how a fabric store clerk is driven crazy in the search for a particular type of red. After an hour of searching he succeeds in finding it, but it turns out that the customer only wants to buy a couple of centimetres to make a dolls tongue. Jokes aside, we mean to explain the current use of colour names – typically expressed by non-professional customers, e.g. when choosing colour for paintjob on the house.
The interpretation of the meaning of a colour derives from reasoning of associative character. E.g. a colour comes associated with determines objects to you in which it appears, natural or crafts them, or with it determines concepts to you, therefore with cultural symbols (flags, uniforms, religious objects etc).
Moreover, the meaning of colours derives also from the effect the colours have on the nerve system, from the moment the colours are effectively able to provoke measurable feelings.
One say that a particular colour is warm or cold because effectively it provokes different perceptions of the temperature (A room painted orange can feel comfortable at 18°, but if the walls are green the room can be perceived as cold when it in the reality is 20°. For further reading; “L’abitazione ecologica” by S. Sachetti, Padova, ed. GB, 1993 - in this text there are interesting observations on the relation house - colour).
The perception of how heavy objects are is also affected by its colour. The darker the colour, the bigger and heavier the objects seem, while lighter objects are perceived as smaller.
According to the psycho physiologic studies, let alone the various chromo therapeutic, ancient and modern cultures, proves that colours stimulate the nerve system with objective effects, e.g. that red is exciting and blue soothing. Still in places like hospitals they would avoid cold colours like blue, and favour warm colours (See: J.Torquinst, Color and light. Milan, Institute of the color, 1999).
One can say that the calmness of the blue also can be “depressive”, in opposition to red that gives energy and can give almost nervous effects (the opposite effects depends on the context and individual mind).
Further there is the expression “that he is blue of anger”; in medieval paintings devils are often coloured blue (see: M. Pastoureau, the man and the colour. Florence, Joints, 1987), Shiva is blue because it absorbs the evil of the world and often the clothes of Madonna are blue.
Red is the symbol of love, but also of war (for example the god Mars from the roman mythology, is red) in addition to being a signal of danger or prohibition. Yellow is a symbol of brightness and therefore of also wisdom (in China only the emperor was allowed to wear yellow). Yellow is also often associated to madness.
Not to mention purple, witch for Kandinsky, and for M. Lüscher (Famous psychologist of the relation colour - personality. See: The test of the colours of Max Lüscher, Rome, Astrolabe, 1969) evokes a sense of sadness and disease (in `The superstizioni teatrali' it also symbolizes misfortune) while in some mystical traditions it is considered most spiritual of the colours.
Green on the other hand, the colour of nature and peace, attracts attention, thanks to its power of neutralization of some disturbing optical glares (In fact it is used in hospitals, worn by doctors and nurses), but can at the same time symbolize fear.
The countless meanings, as well as the contradictory meanings, of the colours are very famous enigmas, and both at a disciplinary approach (aesthetic, semiotic, psychological, and anthropological) as well as in the subjective dimension it should be tried to have a clear, objective view.
From the semiotico point of view, that is the discipline that studies communication and the interpretation of the signs, we can try to make a little order and begin with replacing the question `What does the colour symbolize?' with the question `In that sense do we ask ourselves what the colours symbolizes?'
It is obvious that the answer brings a semiotic literature, but we can just consider “apte ac simpliciter” from de semiotic literature de C.S Peirce about triple participation of signs as Icons, Signal and Symbol (vedi G. Proni, Introduzione a Peirce, Milano, Bompiani, 1990, and deeply, the studies of the major Italian expert di Peirce: Massimo, A. Bonfantini).
Icononics signs mean what they do for their cause-effect relationship with objects (ej: the designs similar to what they represent or onomatopoeia with a similar sound to what they express); symbolic signs mean depending on a shared code that establish their meaning in a motivation given in their alikeness.
This three kinds of symbols cannot be excluded: Native -American’s smoke signals mean a heat source, but a conventional symbol. The icon that represents a rose is also a love symbol. The arrow design above a mountain is an icon, but can also be a happening event.
Advertising graphics show a non finishing repertory, that gives an iconic indicative and symbolic states.
If we try to consider the chromatic meaning according to tripartzzione ,icon , sign and symbol, maybe some certain senses of colour may result easier to understand.
Colour as an icon.
When colour, as a chromatic feeling, comes associated to an element or object that is typically the carrier of this colour, the colour gets some validity from this element or object.
This happens when we individualize a relation of incognit, between an intense colour as a pure sensation and an object or element that have this colour in common
Light blue is not heavy at all cause is similar to blue sky, or maybe is fresh if we relate it to water.
Red is hot if we think in red fire, but if we related to blood, it may have some other meaning, passional or even violent. It is observed that pure colour.....
In fact the temperature increase is a signal of a heat source, that has its more evident look in fire, for this fire red has a hot quality.
If we press an iconic, indicative and symbolic succession we would pass from colour to energy and passion. Lately iconic associations can fortify or weaken the meaning of a certain colour. i.e Blood red means “life-death” “love-war”. We relate an indicative motivation to psychological phenomenons.
Colour as signal/index.
In the case of an immediate meaning of colour as a signal, then we cant consider the colour as a pure sensation, but we must talk of colourfulness in a certain object or element.
The green in a salad leaf is a signal of freshness, but in a piece of cheese means that is gone. The semioptic identifies in collaboration to body, wastes and orine signals of health or sickness.
Animals use colours as signals, but also to express and recognize certain states ans attitudes. With its colours nature offers signals to traduce the advance of seasons, quality of crops, lack or belongings of minerals and other sources.
This way in some cases colour comes along with a symbolic meaning in function of nature. Due to this, green can represent nature, in this sense comes used the expression green years to symbolize youth.
Red at dawns is considered as signal of good weather, hope and serenity.( Opposite to exciting sense of the iconic and symbolic level). In general terms light and dark colours are a sign of more and less light, from this we take out the more extroverted eanings from light colours and the more introverted ones from dark colours
Colours as symbols.
When colours have a strong symbolic meaning the route of the meaning is almost always locators.
In Latin cultures, red represents the colour for excellence (in fact coloratus” and ruber are synonyms, and in Spanish “colorado” means red), because red was the easiest way to obtain and opposite to black and white).
Consequently blue was considered the colour of barbarians in the north, and black hadnt a mourning meaning (meaning discovered after sXIV)
Red in dresses gives a sign of noble depending on the saturation.., the most expensive one is chermes red to normal red (robbia). With the discoverment in the combination of vado with blue makes diffuso colour, but its regale meaning depends as in the case of red pregevolezza on the saturation ( indac blue).
In this cases the symbolism of the colour is given by the “status symbol” derived from its difficult localization; there is no sophistication in the handmade production. In other cases, the symbolism of the colour, and the meaning attributed to it, depends on the ideological and cultural factors; that is why the colour is used as a language or as an identification sign.
In the ancient times, the colours were used as the identification code of a tribe, of a habitat, of a territory; thus the origin of these meanings of the colours have an uncertain confine, between the arbitrary and the brought about.
The Chinese wives, as those of the ancient Greece, used to wear in red, meanwhile in the West they used to do it in white. For the Chinese the white is the no-colour or the antithesis of the colour. In summary, the symbolic sense of the colours must refer to an anthropologic relativist concession; that is why certain people have reasons to grant a particular meaning to the colours. Following E. Benveniste, in his Vocabolario delle Istituzioni Indoeuropee (Einaudi, 1969): According to the Indo-Iranian tradition, the society was divided into three activity classes: preti, warriors and farmers. You can find these classes also in India. Anyway, when literally translating these classes, we can find the colours themselves. In Iran, the colours differentiation were used to identify theses classes –the white for the preti, the red for the warriors and the blue for the farmers-.
Thus the colours have been originally used by the different cultures to express senses or concepts, or as a language, which origin comes from an muddle of signification chains, at an iconic, indicative, and symbolic level.
A common feeling in every culture is the “wish or need of colour”; this can be considered as an innate and universal tendency to recognize and express through the colours. The world can be recognized thanks to the fact that their components are coloured and can be differentiated. We can also say that the first visual experience of a newborn corresponds to the luminosity contrast, spots and out of focus figures; we could say obvious figurations of chromatic difference. Like the children find a great fun with the colouring, all the original cultures have developed colouristic expressions in their rites, their dresses, their architecture, and of course in all the artistic and handmade expressions.
Nowadays we have a total grasp of the colours, the colour technology, chemistry, physics, and electronics that allows us colour everything. This can be anthropologically interpreted as the diffuse and constant proposal of party, play and beauty… also it can be interpreted under the fashion and marketing strategies: a great and varied bazaar.
Also in the world age as: old e new business, to project and live the colour can constitute a human, psychological and social experience of a remarkable importance in relation with the problematic issue of buying and selling; that is why it is worth it to try to experience “the flavours of the colour”.
Plato compares in The Allegory of the Cave the truth of “a good” under the sunlight, making visible the colours and consequently the ideas.
The image, for Aristotle, is represented in the soul: this way the intellect allows the potential intelligent people to look intelligent at once, as the sun allows the potential colours to look like colours at once. This comparison is discussed by Averroè after Tommaso in De unitate intellectus, and following the study made, says: God is the only one that allows the knowledge of men, like the sun allows the sight of the colours. This way, the ultimate sense of the colours is in the magic and significant force of their beauty and the variety of what is created; and playing since childhood with this, men learn to become creative.