Throughout the ages, colors have been used to evoke unavoidable emotions, and an test of the history of color offers appealing 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 varied colors have come to report over the years:
Red
Red has traditionally been associated 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 beloved for wedding dresses in America, but the Chinese prefer to dress their brides in red.
Orange
Orange is carefully 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 reduce tension. However, as the orange color becomes brighter, it begins to take on a high vigor feel and can lead to anxiety.
Brown
Brown is other warm and comforting color, stimulating the appetite and truly 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 associated with the sun, yellow has traditionally been carefully a cheerful color. Yellow is also the first color most citizen 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 adequate to have carefully it the imperial color since the 10th century, yet any Western studies have shown that yellow is many people's least favorite color.
Green
Green is other color that has both an up and down side. It's associated with the new increase 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 carefully to report fertility, and during the 15th century, green was the most favorite selection of for the wedding gowns of European brides.
Blue
Because it's associated 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 associated with royalty in Western civilizations, due to the strangeness and expense complicated 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 carefully to report 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 carefully carefully when decorating a home.
(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All proprietary reserved.
