The meaning of colours

Symbols and metaphors help us understand our everyday language and figures of speech. Almost every item, every word, every idea hides a certain symbolism. Colours are rich in hidden meanings and symbolisms. What is more, colours have a very interesting story to tell.

White, for example, is sometimes defined as the absence of all colours and sometimes as the presence of all the colours of the spectrum of light. It symbolizes truth, purity, glory and the road to heaven and it was thus the colour of newly baptized Christians as well as the Pope. White can sometimes have a negative meaning as well. It can symbolize the pallor of death. In China it symbolizes age, autumn, misfortune, virginity and purity.

But colours are not just black, white, red or blue. There are colours you’d never imagine they existed. Vandyke brown, for example, is the dark brown colour that the famous 17th century Flemish painter Sir Anthony Van Dyke liked to use.

Isabelline has an interesting story. The name of Isabelline, this grayish-yellow colour comes from the colour of the underwear of Isabel Clara Eugenia, daughter of King Philip II of Spain who at the siege of Ostend vowed not to change her underwear until the city was captured. The siege lasted for three years so the colour of her underwear must have been truly grayish-yellow (isabelline) when the city was finally taken.

Each colour comes in different variations, or nuances to use the correct term. Green for example can be chartreuse, dark sea green, forest green, green yellow, lawn green, lightgreen, lightseagreen, lime, limegreen, medium aquamarine, medium sea green, medium spring green, pale green, sea green, spring green, teal, yellow green, dark green, dark olive green, olive, olive drab.

See how many greens exist? It is usual for colours to borrow the names of plants, animals or even things peculiar to a colour. Brownish-red for example can be seen as firebrick, tomato, chocolate, coral, salmon, indian red, goldenrod, saddlebrown, sienna and so many more.

The name Sienna comes from the Italian city of Sienna, in Tuscany because all the city’s facades are painted in this reddish-brown colour. Speaking of Italian cities, Magenta is another colour which took its name from the Italian city Magenta in the North of Italy because this purplish-red dye was discovered the year the French and the Sardinians defeated the Austrians in that very city, in 1859. Parma violet is another colour named after the Italian city of Parma, southeast of Milan because this sweet variety of Viola odorata was the source of an essential oil used in perfumery.

Some professors have gone a bit further associating the sound-elements of a colour name with the position your arms have when you say that name. Based on the rules of the Physical Foundation of Language they try to explain why a colour has that specific name and not another one; why red for example is called red and not green. Colours have a great story to tell and it would be interesting to study each and every colour separately.