Colors: Their Connotations and Perceived Meanings
Throughout the ages, colors have been used to evoke unavoidable emotions, and an test of the history of color offers interesting insights into the human condition, as well as showing how distinct cultures have advanced distinct attitudes about color. Here are a few examples of what assorted colors have come to recite over the years:
Red
Red has traditionally been connected with courage and love in Western culture, but in China, red is the color of happiness and good fortune. In fact, white has traditionally been the color most adored for wedding dresses in America, but the Chinese prefer to dress their brides in red.
Orange
Orange is determined a warm color, maybe because it has evoked the feeling of fire, all the way back to mankind's earliest beginnings. Painting walls a subtle orange, leaning toward a warm brown, stimulates the appetite and can sell out tension. However, as the orange color becomes brighter, it begins to take on a high energy feel and can lead to anxiety.
Brown
Brown is another warm and comforting color, stimulating the appetite and as a matter of fact manufacture food taste better. That makes coffee brown, in all intensities, with or without the cream, an ideal candidate for dining rooms.
Yellow
Since it's always been connected with the sun, yellow has traditionally been determined a cheerful color. Yellow is also the first color most people see in early spring, when the daffodils begin to bloom. However, there seems to be an East/West cultural distinction when it comes to yellow. The Chinese revere yellow sufficient to have determined it the imperial color since the 10th century, yet some Western studies have shown that yellow is many people's least popular color.
Green
Green is another color that has both an up and down side. It's connected with the new growth of spring, prosperity, and clean, fresh air, yet it can also carry a negative connotation, in terms of mold, nausea, and jealousy. Throughout the ages, green has most often been determined to recite fertility, and during the 15th century, green was the most popular selection of for the wedding gowns of European brides.
Blue
Because it's connected with the color of the sea and the sky, blue has come to symbolize serenity and infinity. That's especially true of the more greenish shades of blue, such as aqua and teal. On the other hand, cooler shades of blue can have a tendency to cause feelings of sadness.
Purple
Over the millennia, purple has been connected with royalty in Western civilizations, due to the difficulty and expense involved in producing purple dye, which was made from a single species of mollusk shell. Even today, when purple can be produced just as inexpensively as any other color, the use of purple is still determined to recite elegance and sophistication.
There are stories and connotations for every color, and distinct cultures assign distinct meanings to colors. For instance, American brides generally prefer white wedding dresses, while many Asian cultures dress their brides in black, reserving white for funerals. But regardless of what culture on is from, one thing is certain: colors will always have effects on human beings and should be determined determined when decorating a home.
(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All possession reserved.
Colors: Their Connotations and Perceived Meanings
Bloom Energy
Colors: Their Connotations and Perceived Meanings
Colors: Their Connotations and Perceived Meanings
Colors: Their Connotations and Perceived Meanings
