some random thoughts on the colour red ...

The last colour I looked at was violet, made up of the shortest wavelengths of light discernible to the human eye. So now it’s red, made up of the longest wavelengths the human eye can see.
If the wavelengths got any longer they’d be infra-red, ‘visible’ to (some) snakes, the military and art restorers ... (Although the military and art restorers do need some extra help, the snakes are just naturally gifted). Above is an infra-red image of a Zebra showing hotter areas (red) and cooler areas (blue). I'm a bit concerned about its off-fore (or right foreleg, for the non-horsey reader).

The symbolism of the colour red? Red has a complicated symbolism that switches between war / retribution / violence, and marriage / fertility / cyclic decline and renewal. Rosetti’s famous image of Proserpine with her pomegranate suggests the more carnal elements of the colour red, while Kuzma’s image ‘Bathing the Red Horse’ (1912) suggests revolutionary change.


Of course, there's probably as many meanings of the colour red as there are artists!




see more of Steve Lowe's infra-red images at the London Zoo site

see my post on (red) poppies at my fiction site

wikipedia has quite a good entry on red

Some random thoughts on the colour violet ...

We are blind to many wavelengths of light. Violet is the shortest wavelength colour still visible to us. But beneath violet lies ultraviolet. We cannot see ultraviolet, but it is visible to some animals, including bees, butterflies and birds.

The first truly violet pigment used by artists was the poisonous and rather weak Cobalt Violet (the name Kobold reputedly coming from German for the goblins or evil spirits that interrupted miners in their search for precious substances).

The complex symbolism of violet seems to reflect its position on the edge of sight. The artist, Kandinsky, writes:

‘Just as orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow, so violet is red withdrawn from humanity by blue. But the red in violet must be cold, for the spiritual need does not allow of a mixture of warm red with cold blue. Violet is therefore both in the physical and spiritual sense a cooled red. It is consequently rather sad and ailing.’

Others believe that violet is a colour of spiritual ascension. Wearing violet symbolises transformation or retreat.

This post has now led me on a synchronous leap to my namesake, as violets (the flowers) can symbolise faithfulness or early death. Ophelia wears a ring of violets about her neck in Millais' Ophelia.

See my fiction blog for more on botanical symbolism.

image of the sun in extreme ultraviolet: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/media_viewer/flash.html

Kandinsky quote found at this interesting colour site:

http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/color/purples.html

For the image shown above and for flower symbolism in Millais' 'Ophelia':

http://www.tate.org.uk/ophelia/subject_symbolism.htm