Goethe's 1809 watercolor color circle: a ring of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet segments inscribed in German schön, edel, gut, nützlich, gemein and unnöthig, with Vernunft, Verstand, Sinnlichkeit and Phantasie on the outer band.

Concept · Color in Painting

Color and Symbol

A color becomes a symbol when a culture attaches a set meaning to it, so the color can be read as a sign.

The meaning can come from tradition, from the cost of the material, or both. European painters often gave the Virgin Mary a mantle of ultramarine, the most expensive blue, which honored her and showed what a patron could afford.

  • A symbol needs a viewer who knows the code; without it, the same blue is just blue.
  • Painters can use a traditional color to name a figure at a glance, before any detail is read.
  • Meanings differ by culture and period: Goethe's 1809 circle calls red “schön” (beautiful) and blue “gemein” (common).

See

Image: Freies Deutsches Hochstift, Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, via museum-digital:hessen · Public domain (Public Domain Mark)

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