8.1: Understanding Color Symbolism — Read

From LibreTexts, under mixed, as the source states it; its equations are written in TeX, which the PDF shows typeset. This page at LibreTexts.

Definition: Color Symbolsim

– The use of color to convey meaning. The evocative power of color is both a product of natural phenomenon and a learned response.

Universal and Specific Meanings

While some color meanings cross cultural boundaries, color symbolism often varies across time and place. Much like different colors appear to change when placed on different grounds, associations and meanings of specific colors shift in different contexts.

Connotations can be universal or culturally specific. Red may mean danger if used on a stop sign, but in Chinese culture it represents good luck.

What do you think? \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Consider encountering an artwork of red LED lights ticking off from 1 to 9 continuously. What might that mean to you?

File:Canon LE-10 LEDs.jpg — Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Red LED lights. (Canon LE-10 LEDs by Mister rf, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Answer

The visual artist and Buddhist practitioner, Tatsuo Miyajima, creates work using LED numbers. He often uses red lights to symbolize the life force of Buddha. The artwork can surprise viewers who are accustomed to seeing red lights on stock market tickers, marquees, and alarm clocks.

Learn more here:

Exploring Color and Meaning - Four Categories

Color signifies in many different ways: it can be coded, cryptic, intuitive, emotional, ceremonial, or decorative. It is a language with the unique ability to communicate both meanings and direct sensations. Picture a row of flags: color information of striped bands is used to distinguish country affiliation. Now, on the other hand, imagine standing in front of a Rothko painting: entering fields of red and orange raises your heart rate slightly, makes you feel warm, excited, complex emotions.

An exhaustive understanding of color symbolism would be akin to learning a new language. Luckily, we already come to the topic with a native color fluency. In order to understand color symbolism it is useful to break it up into four categories.

Color in the Arts -- Painting, Literature, Music, Film

How have individual artists used color, changed the way we see color, or developed a unique language of color?

(Choose one artist or movement to focus on: Kandinsky, Joan Mitchell, Hoffman, Rothko, Bauhaus, Color in 20th century Abstraction, Hilma af Klint, Agnes Pelton, Eamon Ore Giron, Mark Bradford, etc)

File:Hilma af Klint - exhibition view at Guggenheim.jpg — Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Hilma af Klint's work was re-discovered in recent years and challenged the claim that many male artists held to being the progenitors of abstract art. Her work, pictured here in a 2018 Guggenheim exhibition, drew on spiritual practices rich with color symbolism. ("Hilma af Klint - exhibition view at Guggenheim by Ryan Dickey, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)

How has color been referenced or used in other media?

For example: Color in Music (Scriabin), Color in Literature (Nobokov, Wallace Stevens, Italo Calvino), Color in Film, Philosophy (Goethe, Derrida)

Color system corresponding to musical notes — Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Alexander Scriabin was a Russian Composer who was inspired by synesthesia, or the cross sensory association between sound and vision. He create the system above correlating musical notes to colors as he saw them. (Scriabin Circle by Mouagip, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Culture/Spirituality

For example: Color use in specific cultures, countries, and/or religious practices.

Australian aboriginal painting with ochre yellows and reds — Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Australian aboriginal painting utilized colors derived from the earth such as ochre and shells. Each color had specific meanings and symbolism. (Painting by Unidentified Australian Aboriginal Artist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Google Art Prject)

Color Systems

How is color used to organize information, in science and technology, or as a system of analysis?

For example: Color in Politics, Propaganda, Protest Movements, Cognitive Science and Perception, Healing, Psychology (Jung)

Epiphany game screenshot with grey, red, and green tiles — Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Color is often used as a code to guide players in video games. (Epiphany game screenshot
by KarstenSchulz, GPL, via Wikimedia Commons)

Environment

How do we encounter color in the natural and man-made world? How have humans and animals adapted around color? How might color and our environment continue to change in the future?

For example: Signage, Urban Color, Architecture (Le Corbusier, Olafur Eliasson), Pigments and Dyes, Climate Change, Nature

Photo of a Cochineal insect on a cactus — Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): Photo of the Cochineal insect used to create vivid red dyes. (Dactylopius coccus by Dick Culbert, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

This page titled 8.1: Understanding Color Symbolism was last modified on Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:49:36 GMT and is shared under a mixed license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Lauren Champlin.

Contents

Text