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Language of Colors: Symbolic Meanings and Representations

- December 13, 2013
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Imagine the world without colors. Imagine yourself in a setting where everything is dull and with no tint. Even your skin is either black or white and so with your clothes, house, furnishings and even plants, trees and animals. Such impossibility, don’t you think?

Beautiful creation

Colors play a significant role in our lives. Perhaps when the world was created, God must have thought it would be a drab and boring life for human beings if there were no colors so he splashed a whole palette of hues all around. Noah saw the proof of this beauty in the colorful rainbow that appeared when the sun first shone after the great flood. It was a wonderful sight to behold especially that its beauty held a symbolic meaning about life, faith and hope.

Uses

Since man is the most intelligent creature on earth, he found out that he could use colors to make his life easier and more meaningful. Now, this might seem to be elementary but surely many people will agree that colors are very useful in everyday life. We see color codes being used in every aspect of daily life. The most basic examples are the traffic lights and signs.

We are caught everyday in the hurly burly of busy life but we avoid getting tangled up because of the traffic color codes. Certainly we stop with the red light, pause when the yellow sign flashes and move forward when the green bulb lights up. All in a day, these color codes guide us on the road to life. We see red when we are about to leap on a wrong decision. We take a clue from the yellow light when we face dilemmas and we freely drive forward when the green gives an approving signal.

Color symbols

The national flags of every country are represented by their respective colors, the most common of which are red, blue and white. Very often, countries are honored through their national colors. Just recently when former South African president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela died, he was given the highest esteem at the New York’s Empire State Building where the colors of his country’s flag were illuminated.

Various occasions are also embodied through colors. Christmas is more cheerful because of the red and green trimmings. Autumn awes everyone with its gorgeous blend of green, red, orange, yellow and brown tones. At one point during the year when it is time for Halloween and Thanksgiving, orange becomes the dominant backdrop. And thanks to February, the month of love – red and pink hearts float in the air, providing a romantic milieu for lovers all around.

Psychology of colors

As it happens, the mind cannot escape the power of colors. Psychological therapy makes use of colors to set the psyche in the right mood. Psychologists attest that magenta suggests harmony and emotional balance. Brown means serious business inasmuch as it is an earth color that links to material possessions, protection and security. Gray refers to understanding and cooperation because it is a combination of black and white. Nonetheless gray can also mean shady or uncertain, much like when you find some gray areas in a business proposal or the results of a scientific study.

Oh, colors! The world is a ball of prism where you can pluck out as many shades of red, green, pink, blue, purple, yellow or orange as you want. With colors, life is indeed colorful in a literal sense.