Living Color

Color meanings and their customs Colors over the years have come to mean many things to different cultures. Celtic peoples ascribed different colors for different elements as did Native Americans and other earth based spiritualities. Christianity even banned green for its connection as a pagan color. Symbols and metaphors help us understand our everyday language and figures of speech. Almost every item, every word, every idea hides a certain symbolism. Colors are rich in hidden …

…d to different wavelengths. This leads to attempts to chart colors by a mixture of three primary lights. Figure 1 shows James Clerk Maxwell's color triangle with the three apexes representing three primary colored lights: blue-violet, orange-red, and green. A great number, but not all colors can be produced by mixing lights of the three primary colors. A specific color, for example an unsaturated greenish blue, can be represented by a point on the triangular grid.