The Language of Colour

Language, like the heart, can speak loudly. If you listen you can hear the language of the rainbow. There are primary colours that lie at the end of the colour spectrum. There are secondary colours - colours that are made from colours and there are tertiary colours - a multitude of colours making colours.
Yellow and red make orange. Blue and red make violet and blue and yellow make green. What do they mean and what do they say?
Colours represent affiliations and loyalties. Countries have colours, schools have colours and sporting teams have colours.
Colours represent Christian events. Purple or violet represents Advent and Lent, white is for Easter and red for the Feasts of Martyrs.
Colours represent war. The war of the roses had colour; the white rose and the red rose.
Each colour has its own meaning. Red can characterise fire, the snapping, crackling red haze of a fire or red as heat. Red can also depict love. Hearts are red. Valentine, the day of love, is filled with red hearts. Red is also the colour of blood; the life’s force that pumps through our veins. A rose may be called blood red or a blood red ruby.
Red means anger. Red with rage is to burn with anger. Red also encourages hunger. They paint restaurants red so people get hungry eat quickly because the colour is subconsciously affecting them towards anger and then they leave. Red means communism. Red means embarrassment. A red face is an embarrassed face. Red means debt. If you are in the red you owe money. A red blanket draws an angry bull.
Blue is sad. If I say I am feeling blue I mean I am downhearted, dejected, melancholy. Blue means cold. Blue lips are cold lips and also show a lack of oxygen. A red dog is called blue. Blue chips are superior. Getting away with blue murder is too much liberty. To win a blue ribbon is to come first. The blue run in skiing is the easy run. Blue blood is an aristocrat; blue blood is royalty. Royal blue, which means there are, shades of blue. To be true blue to an Australian is to mean that you are fair dinkum or real. When one goes into the blue they are entering the unknown; when something comes out of the blue it was unexpected, unforseen, surprising. The blues is a music style; to sing the blues means you are lamenting your situation or state. A bluestocking is a woman with significant scholarly, literary, or intellectual abilities or interests.
There are shades of all the colours. There are pastels and fluorescent colours. There are bright and dull and hazy and shadowed. There is glossy and flat?
Yellow is happy and sunny. Yellow flower means friendship but yellow also means cowardice. Yellow journalism is irresponsible journalism. Yellow bellied is to have no courage. Yellow is caution; a yellow road sign gains attention or the use of a yellow light at the intersection between red and green. A yellow ribbon denotes remembrance, hope and support. To be mellow yellow is to be laid back and relaxed. Yellow has different meanings in different countries; Yellow is for mourning in Egypt, courage in Japan, merchants in India and was worn by actors of the Middle Ages to signify the dead. Yellow (amber) in the bible speaks of God's glory and the brightness of His presence. “And I looked, and behold! A likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of His loins and downward, like fire. And from His loins and upward as the appearance of brightness, like the color of polished bronze.” Ezekiel 8:2
Green means serenity; it speaks of nature. To have a green thumb means that you are good with plants. Green is the colour of Ireland. Green means go at the traffic lights. Moving on to greener pasters means going on to something better. The green room is where performers relax. The greenback is money in the United States. Green is also to be untutored or ignorant. Green is the colour of illness; green around the gills is to be ill Jealousy and envy are green. “O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy: It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Shakespeare, Othello.
White is the colour of purity. White speaks of serenity and peace. White is virginal. Brides wear white on their wedding day. White is spirituality, and white is innocence. White means perfection. Fear is white. To buy a white elephant is to be conned. Something that is whitewashed is something that has been covered up. A white flag shows surrender. A white knight is the hero, the rescuer, the knight in shining armour.
Black is the colour of formality. Black depicts death and is the colour of mourning. People wear black to funerals. Black is evil; black magic is evil magic. Black shows upset; if someone is in a black mood, they are disturbed. Black is sombre. To blacken someone is to slander them.
Black and white is obvious; if a situation is black and white the circumstances are clear.
Pink is a soft colour. Pink is feminie. Pink is pretty; a girl is pretty in pink. It represents sugar and spice and everything nice. If someone is tickled pink, they are happy about something. If you are in the pink you are healthy and strong.
If we call someone coloured we are saying that they have darker skin. If we call something coloured we are saying that it has tampered with, or is slanted, biased, twisted, corrupted, misrepresented, skewed, perverted or warped.
We use colours in our language all the time. I am feeling blue; I am green with envy; you are white as a ghost or your hands are black as the ace of spades.
Colours are linked with emotions and personalities. The colour people paint their walls can show their mood. Some paint them white or cream, others vivid oranges or blues.
There are dyes, tints, shades, traces and tones. There are splashes, sprays and spatters, smudges and smears; there are polka dots, stripes, specks, flecks and streaks and then there is the solid hard mass of colour.

Color, color, everywhere,
Over here and over there.
My hair is black my shoes are red,
Colour is good that’s what He said.

There are taboos with colours. We do not each green cakes or yellow meat. We do not paint our houses or our teeth black.
Nothing is whiter than heaven or blacker than hell.
We use objects to describe colour; lemon yellow, ruby red, pea green, oyster white, salmon pink, rust brown, pumpkin orange. We also put colours together; golden brown, blue grey, crimson red, lime green.
Colours together can represent times and places; red, green and white are a Christmas combination. Red, brown, orange and green are the colour of nature, the colour of autumn.
What would we do without colour and the language of colour?
I would be blue and so would you.

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Gen 1:31