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How do you feel about white?
We started discussing the way we perceive different colors in different corners of the world. Here is our previous post:
And today we are going to talk about another color:
White
White has already been noted and singled out as a special color. Together with red and black, it was part of the triad of primary colors. It has retained this meaning to the present day, although from a physical point of view it is not. The oldest symbolic meanings of white are mostly positive. White means joy, purity, health, multiplication of offspring, peace, harmony. White is the lightest of all colors, it is light-bearing, and therefore it does not “designate” a color, but is it. From here come the white clothes of the heavenly gods and their earthly deputies – kings, priests and noble people.
History
In the rituals of the Ndembu and all other primitive peoples, white, in the form of clothing, coloring, talismans, is used as a sign of purification and communion with goodness. In ancient times, colorless or simply light substances were called white. Water was also considered white, since the white color was also associated with the benefits that water gives. Hence the meaning of white as a symbol of purity, sinlessness, serenity. White is the color of the deity and good spirits, opposed to black as the color of demonic and evil forces.
In China and India, this color was given a mystical and transcendental meaning, which does not come from sensory perceptions or associations, but arises as a visualization of philosophical concepts.
Thus, the unique cosmic and world-building beginning of Tao in ancient China has no form, weight, taste, color, but can be compared with such realities as water, fog, clouds. Taoist painting prefers Chinese ink of all colors, chrysanthemums of all flowers, and storks and white cranes of all birds. In addition to this philosophical symbolism in China, white was also given simpler meanings – it was a sign of the West, autumn, metal.
In ancient India, the southern direction and ritual hymns were marked in white. In addition, the key concepts of “shunya” and “sattva” are encoded in white in Indian philosophy. Shunya means emptiness, but not a space devoid of matter, but a psychological state, i.e. spiritual emptiness – the absence of passions, emotions, perceptions, even the perception of one’s own “I”. Having reached this state, one becomes a saint, a bodhisattva. “Sattva” is a concept close to “shunya”. It means purity and serenity.
In ancient Rome, representatives of the elite of society wore white togas and tunics, women “from society” – white dresses (tables). White is the color of the gods, saints, the righteous. In the era of civilization, white everywhere symbolizes the main, supreme deity, and it has long been identified with the sun. The Egyptian priests wore white clothes and dressed the gods and the dead in the same color (which in their concept was one and the same).
In the coloring of the floors of the Babylonian ziggurats, the walls of temples and palaces, white occupied the most honorable place. Ziggurats (for example, Etemenanka – the so-called Tower of Babel) were crowned with white cubes of divine “bedrooms”, where the sun god spent his nights in the company of temple priestesses.
The Christian religion has fully adopted the symbolism of the white from the Old Testament. White meant luminosity, kinship with divine light. The white color borrows its symbolic meanings from the light, and the light in Christianity is both God, and the word, and reason, and every good. In addition, white means joy, joy of the spirit, innocence, purity.
In the culture of Islam, the white color also has a place of honor. After all, Allah himself is “the light of heaven and earth,” and although his angels are dressed in green, his faithful people and the prophet Mohammed himself wear white turbans. If in countries with a temperate climate they sacralize the triad red – white – black, then in the Arabian Desert they prefer the triad green – white – black. These colors are sacred symbols, and at the same time they are most loved in the countries of Islam. Of course, the negative meanings of white were not unnoticed in the culture either. Gray hair is the approach of death, white is the color of the dead man’s shroud, leprosy and lichen.
Modern Times
According to surveys in Europe and the US, white is most often associated with perfection, kindness, honesty, purity, beginning, newness, neutrality, and precision. White is an important color for almost all world religions. The Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church, has been wearing white since 1566 as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam and in the Shinto religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims; and Brahmins in India. In Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common color for wedding dresses, symbolizing purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is also the color of mourning.
In China, Korea, and some other Asian countries, the white, or rather whitish, color of undyed linen is the color of mourning and funerals.In traditional China, white linen clothes are worn at funerals. Small bags of quicklime, one for each year of the deceased’s life, are placed around the body to protect it from impurity in the next world, and white paper flowers are arranged around the body. In China and other Asian countries, white is the color of reincarnation, indicating that death is not a permanent separation from the world.
