This time we will look at Yellow, Gold & Orange, and also on the special relation between Yellow and the Human Eye.
Yellow & Gold
In China, a specific hue of yellow was an imperial colour, corresponding to purple in Rome. It was manufactured from gingko berries. In the West it signifies joy and happiness, but sometimes also falsity and betrayal, intelligence and learning, imagination and creativity, as well as jealousy, illness and laziness. In heraldry, yellow/gold is one of the enamels, and it stands for "faith". For the Indians it is associated with merchants, but also with sensuality and chastity (just as red). It also keeps evil away, and it is the colour of the god Vishnu, but also Ganesha and Krishna wore this colour. It represents knowledge.
In Mecaru, yellow means west and left. It also symbolises the god Mahadewa and the holy number 7.
For the Japanese, yellow is associated with courage.
In old Egypt, yellow ["khenet"] stood for perfection - it was the colour of the sun.
Gold was indestructible and eternal, it was used for a god's skin. A sarcophagus, for instance, might sometimes show this quite clearly. The divine Pharaoh had golden flesh and skin; he had become the new Osiris.
The major yellow pigments were limonite and ochre. An orange colour, realgar, was made from arsenic sulphide. Another form of the toxic arsenic sulphide was orpiment, a bright yellow pigment.
Yellowing, "citrinitas", is the third of the four phases of the alchemical Opus magnum, according to "Physika kai Mystika".
According to Böhme, yellow stands for "son". In other esoteric systems it is toned light, air/ether, medium sweet, angel; the Sun, sometimes Mercury; and with the constellations Gemini and Leo, in some traditions with Taurus. For Runge's trinity, it is the holy spirit. It is associated with Wednesday.
Gold symbolises male energy, conscious mind, activity, the Sun, Sunday, and the constellation Leo. For the Chinese it is Yang, just as is yellow. In Chinese philosophy, yellow is special; it is one of the five basic colours, associated with the element earth, but also the centre and source of everything in our world.
Yellow is sometimes claimed to cause irritation and tension. If it is a very strong shade, it can trigger aggressiveness. Yellow food, however, is appetising; think of bananas, maize, physalis, etc. Suitable shades used moderately trigger mental activity and attention.
Saffron, a specific yellow shade, is sacred and auspicious in India; so is Turmeric. The colour means fire and purity.
Amber, a yellow-orange colour, symbolises energy and also Zoroastrianism, where it represents the spiritual energy of Ahura Mazda, manifested in fire.
Yellow & The Human Eye
Yellow is the colour best perceived by the human eye, and the greatest contrast is the one between black and yellow. This seems counter-intuitive, because optically black's polar opposite is white, and in theory that might be the strongest contrast. Our eyes and our visual system, however, are parts of our nervous system, which has a special relation to yellow. In our vision, the contrast between black and yellow is the one we best perceive.
Why it is so, is hard to say; perhaps it has to do with the presence in nature of so-called blue light, which is harmful for us, and that yellow pigments protect us from damage related to blue light – so evolution brought our eyes and its nerves in that direction.
You can read more about blue and yellow light in Blue Light, Blindness, Sleep Disorder & Cancer. The understanding of this dichotomy is important for health, especially in our age, when life is filled with devices emitting artificially generated blue light.
Orange
Orange stands for creativity and autumn, balance and attraction, warning and danger; the celestial bodies Mercury, Mars, and the Sun; the constellation Sagittarius, and in Chinese tradition it is Yang.
This colour stimulates the appetite almost as well as red. Just imagine orange fruits!
Previously published articles in the present series on colour:
Colours I : The Nature of Colour 1
Colours II : The Nature of Colour 2
Colours III: Function, Purpose, & Effect of Colour
Colours IV: Colours of Animals
Colours VI: Green in Focus – Religion, Life, Death, Sex, Witchcraft...
Colours VII: Red in Focus – Blood, Death, Love, Power...
Colours VIII: Blue in Focus – Royalty, Divinity, Loyalty...
Colours IX: White, Black & Grey in Focus – Purity, Death, Boredom...
All articles related to colour in my index, and that is more than the series above, can be found here.
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I read this with surprise:
"Yellow is sometimes claimed to cause irritation and tension. If it is a very strong shade, it can trigger aggressiveness. "
Perhaps you could refer to
where we might read more about this particular effect?
Thank you