by Tim Dedopulos

This is likely to be the last of my rambles on colour symbolism, for which you’ll probably be grateful!

The opposite of black both literally and figuratively, white is the equal presence of light from all colours of the visible spectrum, brightness without hue. It is unblemished, and has become a strong metaphor for purity and perfection. Religious thought has further extended this image of purity into a whole range of different interpretations. These are dominated by the theme of  goodness: virtue, sexual abstinence, innocence, obedience, truth, sincerity, reverence, cleanliness and humility. Other auxiliary associations include understanding and protection – peace, unity with God, wisdom, enlightenment and youth – and joy, happiness, glory, purpose and so on. In religious imagery, white dominates depictions of heaven, saints, angels and God Himself, because it is perfect and untainted.

However, it can be just as accurate to associate purity with sterility, coldness, withdrawal, isolation, arrogance, unworldliness, clinicality, lack of compassion and emptiness. It is as empty of proper colour as black is; an extreme, and thus devoid of flavour or charm. Many atrocities throughout history have been perpetrated in the name of purity. In many cultures, white is the colour of death, misfortune and mourning, and even in the west, it is associated with ghosts, the pallor of disease, and the impersonal formality of the medical world. In early Hollywood, white depicted heroes and black depicted villains, but there has been a noticeable shift towards both black and white depicting extremism, and softer tones, such as earth colours, depicting moderation and sanity. Politically, white has often been used historically to depict royalty and the current leadership. It is the sign of surrender and peaceful intention and, by association, pacifism. Inevitably, this has also led to some interpreting it as a sign of cowardice, and in Victorian England, accusations of cowardice were delivered by presenting the target with a white feather.

by Tim Dedopulos

Technically the absence of light, rather than a colour itself, black is a complex symbol. In the western world, it carries a lot of negative connotations, many of them centred around fear and the unknown. This is not necessarily the case in other regions, although almost all cultures recognise the duality and opposition between black and white.

One common theory regarding black’s sinister associations is the obvious link to darkness and night-time. People are afraid of what the darkness hides; it is the time of thieves, nocturnal predators, malefactors and witches. If this is the main reason for black’s negative connotations, then perhaps the western world’s particularly strong negative feelings towards black can be explained in terms of European weather. Unlike the arid regions in the Middle East, Africa and large parts of Russia and China, European skies are commonly cloudy. Night time would have been genuinely pitch black, and therefore particularly intimidating. In countries where cloud cover was much less common, even moonless starlight provides a surprising amount of illumination, and night would have been much less blind. In other words, night just isn’t as dark in the tropics and equatorial regions as it is in cloudy temperate zones.

Another possibility commonly put forth is that in any given area, people with the power and wealth to not have to work outdoors at menial tasks are going to be paler in skin-tone than those who are exposed to the sun all day. That’s an inevitable biological fact. The implication then becomes that the rulers and aristocrats are going to be paler than their poorest subjects. Taken to its extremes, these differences become symbolised as an antagonism between black and white, with black indicating meniality and inferiority.

In the west though, black’s strongest associations are linked to the theme of evil. While these meanings may be retained to a certain outside the west, they tend to be significantly weaker. Backed up by religious imagery, black now symbolises tragedy, sadness, loss, despair, fear, discord, lies, bad things, malevolence, sin, satanic works and rituals, the netherworld and, by extension of the theme of loss, mourning and bereavement. For the Chinese, by contrast, black is the colour of the element of water, and conveys stillness and passivity rather than badness.

Western popular culture’s use of the colour has led to it being reclaimed, to an extent, by younger generations wishing to defy the orthodoxy, thumb their nose at authority, and generally irritate their parents. Accordingly, black now also symbolises a whole swathe of interpretations on the theme of defiance and freedom, such as rebellion, independence, mystery, occult power, sexuality, anonymity, acceptance and anger. Politically, it is generally associated with anarchism.

Even before its uptake by youth culture however, black retained a degree of respectability. It is a perennially fashionable colour for clothing – not only is it the most flattering and slimming colour to wear, it can also convey a degree of sophistication, elegance, seriousness and power. Authority figures have often used black to add weight to their influence – priests, judges, elite and/or secret police and so on – particularly where blue’s reassuring air of safety is not required. The difference between establishment and rebel, in this case, lies mainly in the style of clothing – but then, this year’s rebels tend to become next year’s authority anyway.

by Tim Dedopulos

If green is the active colour of nature, then brown is its passive counterpart. The natural colours of human hair and skin are all shades of brown, with a greater or lesser contribution from red – the colour of human existence. It is the colour of bare soil, from which we grow our food; it is the colour of wood, which we build so much out of; and it is the colour of decay, fallen leaves and fecal matter. It surrounds all stages of our existence at a very practical level. It is impossible to talk about it symbolically without referring back to these realities – the colour is grounded, down to earth, rooted.

Like purple, brown is a combination colour rather than a wavelength of light in its own right. Often considered a close hue to orange, brown is obtained by combining complimentary colours – red and green, orange and blue, or yellow and purple. Brown is not a stimulating colour. Many people find it rather dull, even slightly depressing. It reminds us of our physical nature, brings us back down from heights of emotion, passion or fancy with the clear message that it is the real world which we live in – the one were we have to eat, sleep and ablute.

It has plenty of positive associations, however. It is steadfast, reliable, comfortable and dependable. It conveys warmth and wholesome honesty, lacking the ambition, greed, coldness or excitability that other colours might convey. It is consistent and trustworthy specifically because it is a little dull. Excitability, inconsistency and imagination are not desirable traits when you are choosing an institution to look after your money, or a person to drive your school bus. It is essentially stable and restrained.

Internationally, brown does not see a lot of variation in its meaning. It is rarely used politically, not appearing often in logos or flags. For most advertising purposes, it is found to discourage sales. The colour is just not an aspirational one. Its most common application is in uniforms that want to indicate that the wearer is trustworthy, steady, reliable and unthreatening. As such, the colour is often found in service businesses worldwide. International package delivery company UPS have even trademarked a specific shade of the colour as an important element of their corporate business, a hue now known officially as “UPS Brown”. Not all uses have been so wholesome, of course. Symbolism can deceive just as effectively as any other form of communication. The most reviled brown uniforms of recent memory are those of Hitler’s ‘Sturmabteilung’, the stormtroopers who formed the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party.