Symbolic Meanings of Colors
2008-08-12

       I always believe that colors have lives. It’s a magic. Do you agree with me? Maybe you will say “no”. But in daily life, Color can influence our emotions, our actions and how we respond to various people, things and ideas in faith.       Choosing colors is a great part in home decorating. Before decorating, we’d better learn something about colors. Because every kind of color have their own symbolic meanings. They also have emotions.        Here are the meanings of colors.        1. Red        Red is associated with the base chakra in the sacral region. It promotes vitality, strength, sexuality, willpower, and alertness. Red is used to counteract anemia, lack of energy, impotence, and low blood pressure. Its complement is turquoise.       Red affects the circulatory system and sexuality. It stimulates the overall energy levels of the metabolism, lower extremities and most blood conditions. Red is a stimulating color. It will energize the base chakra. It warms and it activates. It awakens our physical life force.       Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.       Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.       Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.       Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.       Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.      2. Yellow      Yellow is one of the three primary colors. Visually it is the most difficult for your eyes to focus on. It is actually brighter than white and stronger in its emotional impact. It also has a stimulating impact on your memory.      It triggers the following emotions: intelligence, joy, and organization. Its opposite effects when used in the wrong manner or with the wrong combination of other colors can create feelings of criticism, laziness, or cynicism.     A splash of pale yellow is the best choice since many tones/shades of yellow are difficult for the human eye to focus on for very long.    Dull (dingy) yellow represents caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy.     Light yellow is associated with intellect, freshness, and joy.    3. Blue    Blue is a primary color. It is the easiest color for the eyes to focus. It generates feelings of tranquility, love, acceptance, patience, understanding and cooperation. Its negative qualities if used inappropriately are fear, coldness, passivity and depression. Blue is a favorite color choice among all age groups.     Light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness.     Dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness     4. Green     Green is the color of nature, fertility, life. Grass green is the most restful color. Green symbolizes self-respect and well being. Green is the color of balance. It also means learning, growth and harmony. Green is a safe color, if you don't know what color to use anywhere use green.     Green is favored by well balanced people. Green symbolizes the master healer and the life force. It often symbolizes money. It was believed green was healing for the eyes. Egyptians wore green eyeliner. Green eyeshades are still used.     Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy.     Yellow-green can indicate sickness, cowardice, discord, and jealousy.     Aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection.     Olive green is the traditional color of peace.     5. Purple     Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Purple is associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.     According to surveys, almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children prefer purple to all other colors. Purple is a very rare color in nature; some people consider it to be artificial.     Light purple is a good choice for a feminine design. You can use bright purple when promoting children's products.     Light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings.     Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings. It can cause frustration.     6. Orange     Orange is a power color. It is one of the healing colors. It is said to increase the craving for food. It also stimulates enthusiasm and creativity. Orange means vitality with endurance. People who like orange are usually thoughtful and sincere.      While red is associated with fiery heat, orange is associated with the benign warmth of the sun. A dynamic color to be sure, orange offers a more thoughtful control than explosive red. Curiosity is a driving characteristic of orange, and with it comes exploration of new things.      Dark orange can mean deceit and distrust.      Red-orange corresponds to desire, sexual passion, pleasure, domination, aggression, and thirst for action.      Gold evokes the feeling of prestige. The meaning of gold is illumination, wisdom, and wealth. Gold often symbolizes high quality.      7. White      White contains the entire light spectrum. Thus it influences all systems of the body. It is cleansing and purifying to the entire energy system. It promotes purity, virtue and spirituality. White can awaken greater creativity. When in doubt as to what color to use, you can seldom go wrong with white.       But if used in excess, white light causes passivity, lethargy, hypersensitivity, and inhibitions.       8. Black       Black is a protective color. It is grounding and calming, especially to extremely sensitive individuals. It activates the magnetic or feminine energies of the body. Black is the spiritual color for some religions; but it is the color of death for others. It promotes resistance, obstruction, opposition, and enmity. It wards off hatred and negative emotions.       Black is most effective when used in conjunction with white, balancing the polarities of the individual, especially in cases where the individual seems to be losing control. It can activate the subconscious mind which can put life and all of its craziness into proper perspective. It should rarely be used by itself, but always in combination with another color.       Black should be used sparingly, as too much black can cause depression or aggravate such emotional/mental conditions. Black also increases fear, suspicion and paranoia.       It’s not enough to know the meanings. In real home furnishing, especially DIY, to know how to go with colors is also very important. This topic will be talked about in the next article.