“Colour has also had a significant role in religious symbolism. One rendering suggests that red stands for blood and sacrifice”
It was the early Greek philosophers that taught us the importance of wonder; a lesson to be remembered in a world where the constant invitation is to control and possess. Occupied by our penchant for usefulness our capacity to wonder is diminished. And yet the ordinariness of life is rich with a splendor commonly missed. I am thinking now about colour and how different our world would be without it.
We are all impacted by colour one way or another. It has been suggested that there are significant links between colour and human emotion. Some colours comfort others agitate, some delight others distract. How we paint our homes, choose our clothes and plant our gardens all testify to the importance of colour. Of the four seasons, fall is favoured by many. The blaze of colour that the eye finds in a Canadian fall landscape inspires the sense of wonder and brings great pleasure. The creation story in Genesis tells of the divine invocation “Let there be light.”
And at this word was the separation of light from darkness. It is light that carries the possibility of colour for it contains the spectrum with its diversity of colour – which in turn can be multiplied into what seem to be innumerable combinations, yielding a visual feast for the eye. The earth that “Color can add dimension and physicality to two-dimensional work. Color can tap into rich symbolic histories. Color even holds sway over the psychological mind. In the variety of roles it can fill, color becomes a tool to remind, provoke, warn, instruct, prompt, honor or surprise the viewer.”
Kimberly Garzabrings forth that blaze of colour also holds the resources for the artist’s palette. Mercury, sulfur, potassium, iron, copper, lapis lazuli and a host of other earthly resources yields the diversity of colours for art making. Beyond the science and theory of colour we may ask of the meanings of colour.
Kimberly Garza writes,
“Color can add dimension and physicality to two-dimensional work. Color can tap into rich symbolic histories. Color even holds sway over the psychological mind. In the variety of roles it can fill, color becomes a tool to remind, provoke, warn, instruct, prompt, honor or surprise the viewer.”