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Color symbolism in art, literature, and anthropology is the use of color as a symbol in various cultures and in storytelling. There is great diversity in the use of colors and their associations between cultures [ 1 ] and even within the same culture in different time periods. [ 2 ]
White often represents purity or innocence in Western culture, [2] particularly as white clothing or objects, can be stained easily. In most Western countries white is the color worn by brides at weddings. Angels are typically depicted as clothed in white robes. In many Hollywood Westerns, bad cowboys wear black hats while the good ones wear white.
The color white can be given with white pigments, especially titanium dioxide. [3] In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore white togas as symbols of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity.
The taijitu uses black and white or red to represent the unity of yin and yang. Ancient Chinese people regarded black as the king of colors and honored black more consistently than any other color. Laozi said "know the white, keep the black", and Taoists believe black is the color of the Tao. [citation needed]
However, connotative color associations and color symbolism tends to be culture-bound and may also vary across different contexts and circumstances. For example, red has many different connotative and symbolic meanings from exciting, arousing, sensual, romantic, and feminine; to a symbol of good luck; and also acts as a signal of danger.
The color spectrum clearly exists at a physical level of wavelengths (inter al.), humans cross-linguistically tend to react most saliently to the primary color terms (a primary motive of Bornstein's work and vision science generally) as well as select similar exemplars of these primary color terms, and lastly comes the process of linguistic ...
The color is said to have first surfaced in art during the Neolithic era, writes Hannah Foskett at the site Arts & Collections. The pre-Raphaelites in Britain especially loved purple. The pre ...
Color fictionalists argue that, since we can imagine perceiving an inverted color spectrum, it must follow that color represents a property that determines the way things look to us, yet has no physical basis.