The Black and White of Color

Sunshine, daises, lemon drops and gold. Daffodils, bananas, scrambled eggs and smiley faces. Tainted yellow, yellow jaundice, yellowing pages and yellow journalism. Even with color, we chose sides. My yellow is sunshine; yours is disease. Your yellow is gold; mine is caution.



I can "paint the town red" and "see red" in anger. Red to "stop" and alarm; the red-light district; lady in red; red flags. If I'm blue, you try to cheer me up; but if I'm in a blue room, I'm calm and peaceful. I saw a "blue" film - was it sad or erotic? I can be "green with envy" or gone green for the environment; I got the green light to proceed. You can be "in the pink" or have "pink eye". There are gray skies and the issue is gray when you see both sides.



Color: colors our speech; colors our art; colors our point of view. Do you live in a red state or a blue state? About 80% of the information we assimilate through sense, is visual. Color is objective in form and subjective in its affect on individual mood.

The presentation of color can convey many diverse meanings. Shades and variations of color can provide the opposite effect; dark blue is powerful, while sky blue is soft and ethereal. The quantity and placement of a color can deliver powerful symbolism. And color combinations can take on new meanings.

We live in a color-drenched world. Some research speculates that the human eye can distinguish more than one million colors. The communicative properties of color can be defined through natural associations and psychological or cultural symbolism.

Occurrences of color in nature are universal. Green is the color of vegetation; that is accepted. However, color often generates another level of meaning. The symbolism of color comes from cultural context and has no relation to the natural association; hence green is associated with greed, money and seasickness.

The range, of sometimes contradictory, psychological and cultural meanings of color arise from an array of sources. There are the cultural associations representing traditions, celebrations and geography: red and green are the colors of Christmas.

Perceptions of color as either good or bad can be based upon political and historical associations, as in the color of flags, political parties or royalty; red is the color of communism.

Color is also associated with spiritual or magical beliefs; Lent is represented by purple in the Christian world; green, a symbol of heaven for the Muslims and a symbol of fertility to the ancient Celts.

While we try so hard to distinguish black and white, we need to step back and realize that there are a million shades of black and white in the spectrum. Color me "searching".