The Language of Colour

Lesson card: the language of colour

• Meaning is learned: a colour's meaning comes from culture and history, not from the colour itself. White is for weddings in the West, but it is the colour of mourning in many Indian and East Asian traditions.
• Red in Asia: the colour of luck and celebration in China; the Indian bride's sari and sindoor are traditionally red.
• Imperial yellow: at the Qing court, bright yellow was reserved for the robes of the emperor, the empress dowager and the empress.
• Tyrian purple: a dye from the glands of sea snails. Around 12,000 snails yield only about 1.4 g, which is why "taking the purple" came to mean becoming emperor in Rome.
• Purple for everyone: in 1856, 18-year-old William Perkin discovered mauveine, the first commercially successful synthetic dye, and purple came within ordinary people's reach.
• Simultaneous contrast: explained in 1839 by the chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul, director of dyeing at the Gobelins tapestry works: we see a colour differently depending on the colours next to it.