The Color Symbolism of Philosophers

jwr47

Fig. 1: Ewald Hering Colors (1874)

Ewald Hering Colors von Grafik selbst erstellt. Tilo Hauke - Eigenes Werk.
Lizenziert unter Public domain ber Wikimedia Commons -

Intro
In The Man without Qualities Robert Musil uses color symbolism to explain the Creation of Man
which as a mythological model had been documented by Plato.
Musil had chosen to symbolize the contrasting antipodes Male and Female by color pairs blue and
yellow, which had been applied as antipodes by Goethe as well.
Musil however also considers red and green as antipodes whereas purple and violet represent
synthesis.
Musil's description in chapter 25 The Siamese Twins may be compared to existing color
theories. One of these theories seems to match Musil's model: Ewald Hering's color wheel (1874).
In contrast Goethe based his antipodes Blue and Yellow on his own analysis. Purple-red is to be
included as an extra, fundamental color symbol.
According to Miranda's diary records the colors blue, yellow, red in three South-American flags
seem to have been chosen on the base of Goethe's discussion with de Miranda.
This symbolism may now be compared to the three of four primary colors, red, white, blue and
purple, which in the Bible have been specified as divine commands for the architecture of the
temple.

1932: Robert Musil's color symbolism

In Man without qualities there is a quotation of antipodal color symbolism, which I tried to
decipher.
Musil must have considered yellow and blue as the complementary color pairs, as well as red and
green, whereas he considered the mixture of antipodes violet or purple:
We might dress ourselves in an opposite pattern, Agathe delightedly responded. Yellow
one of us, and the other blue, or red opposite to green. And our hair might be colored
violet or purple1.
The quotation does not meet Goethe's nor Newton's theory. However searching the web I identified
the four color system of Ewald Hering, explaining Musil's expression. The 4 color system also has
been applied to setup the Natural Color System (NCS).

1874: Ewald Hering's Color wheel

The Natural Color System (NCS) is a proprietary perceptual color model published by the
Scandinavian Colour Institute (Skandinaviska Frginstitutet AB) of Stockholm, Sweden. It is based
on the color opponency description of color vision, first proposed by German physiologist Ewald
Hering.[1] The system is usually used for matching colors (using printed reference cards), rather
than mixing colors.

NCS
The NCS is based on the six elementary color percepts of human visionthe psychological
primariesas described by color opponencywhite, black, red, yellow, green, and blue.2
Note also that, under normal viewing circumstances, there is no hue that must be described as a
mixture of opponent hues; that is, as a hue looking "redgreen" or "yellowblue" (see note in the
color opponents article).
The opponents yellow blue, respectively red & green are exactly what had been defined as
opposite patters in Musil's quotation. We also know Musil had studied color theory and 1906 even
completed the design of a color wheel3.

Purple
Purple in this system must be interpreted as a mixture of red and blue. Purple is a special case
because it is the only color, which does not exist in the spectral system for (normal4) human beings.
In the 4-segmented color circle the antipodal element to purple (yellow-green) is located at the
center of the rainbow's spectrum.

Own translation from German to English - Page 904-905 in Rowohlt's Gesammelte Werke von Robert Musil (1978)
- Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften Teil 3 Ins tausendjhrige Reich (chapter 25, The Siamese Twins).
Original: Wir knnen uns ja auch gerade entgegengesetzt kleiden entgegnete Agathe belustigt. Gelb der eine, wenn
der andere blau ist, oder rot neben grn, und das Haar knnen wir violett oder purpurn frben, und ich mache mir
einen Buckel und du dir einen Bauch: und trotzdem sind wir Zwillinge! (904-905) Kapitel 25 - Projekt GutenbergDE - SPIEGEL ONLINE
2 Natural Color System (NCS)
3 Musilscher Farbkreisel
4 Of course the

1810: Goethe5
Goethe expresses his antipodal system in the contrast based on darkness (blue) and light (yellow)6:
Yellow is a light which has been dampened by darkness; Blue is a darkness weakened
by light.
Much earlier, in 1774, however Goethe already write a novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in
which his clothes had been based on the colors yellow and blue.

Goethe's main symbol Red (and its antipodal symbol green)

If the edge of a white figure is displaced over a dark boundary by viewing through a prism, he says
(Paragraph 204), a narrow blue edge appears next to this boundary, and a broader blue-red border
appears next to the blue edge; but if the edge of a black figure is displaced in the same way over the
light boundary, a. narrow yellow edge appears next to the boundary and a broader yellow-red border
appears next to the yellow edge.
Both types of border colors thus tend toward purple-red7, which is, for Goethe, the most powerful
and intense of all colors8.

1810: The chromatic circle

"The chromatic circle... [is] arranged in a general way according to the natural order...
for the colors diametrically opposed to each other in this diagram are those which
reciprocally evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands violet; orange
[demands] blue; purple-red [demands] green; and vice versa: thus... all intermediate
gradations reciprocally evoke each other; the simpler color demanding the compound,
and vice versa ([23] paragraph #50).

Fig. 2: Goethe's circle

Fig. 3: Goethe's circle

explained
(horizontally flipped)

5 Source Theory of Colours - The first edition of the Farbenlehre was printed at the Cottaschen
Verlagsbuchhandlung on May 16, 1810
6 Goethe, Johann (1810). Theory of Colors, paragraph #502.
7 Goethe uses the word Purple, but he refers to Red
8 Goethe's Theory of Colours

In the same way that light and dark spectra yielded green from the mixture of blue and yellow
Goethe completed his color wheel by recognizing the importance of non-spectral (extra-spectral)
colors "For Newton, only spectral colors could count as fundamental. By contrast, Goethe's more
empirical approach led him to recognize the essential role of (non-spectral) magenta in a complete
color circle, a role that it still has in all modern color systems."

1785: Francisco de Miranda

During a party in Weimar in the winter of 1785, Goethe had a late-night conversation on his theory
of primary colors with the South American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda. This conversation
inspired Miranda, as he later recounted, in his designing the yellow, blue and red flag of Gran
Colombia, from which the present national flags of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador are
derived.9 .

Fig. 4: Flag of Venezuela (1811)

Bandera de Venezuela 1811 by HansenBCN - Own work
Licensed under Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons

9 See Flag of Colombia#History

Miranda's reports10
Miranda gave at least two sources of inspiration for his flag. In a letter written to Count Semyon
Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda stated that the colors were based on a theory of primary colors given to
him by Goethe.
Miranda described a late-night conversation he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar during the
winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the United States
Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that,
"Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colors are not distorted.
He proceeded to clarify what he meant by this:
First he explained to me the way the iris transforms light into the three primary colors
[] then he proved to me why yellow is the most warm, noble and closest to [white]
light; why blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, a distance that evokes shadows;
and why red is the exaltation of yellow and blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of light
into shadow.
It is not that the world is made of yellows, blues and reds; it is that in this manner, as if
in an infinite combination of these three colors, we human beings see it. [] A country
[Goethe concluded] starts out from a name and a flag, and it then becomes them, just as
a man fulfils his destiny.

The Flag of the Burgers' Guard of Hamburg11

In his military diary, Miranda gave another source of inspiration: the yellow, blue and red standard
of the Burgers' Guard (Brgerwache) of Hamburg, which he also saw during his travels in
Germany.

10 Source: Venezuelan flag

11 Source: Venezuelan flag

Biblical Color Symbolism12

September 2012 I was lucky to discover some sources for color symbolism. First of all I found
Frederick Solomon's Critique of Modern Art13 in which the background of ancient symbolism is
explained. Only a few samples will be listed here from my analysis: The Symbolism of the Colors
Purple, White, Red (Uploaded 09/05/12).
Solomon refers to some interesting historical examples including:

The symbolic value of colors, its message for every symbol has a message can only be
understood if its meaning is known. The Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna for instance cannot
be understood unless one knows, that is, he as heard and learned what they stand for. Even
for the uninitiated such art may be beautiful and full of atmosphere, indeed complete as to
its artistic value; but only if one knows that blue means charity and red means love will he
be able to read the paintings and understand their message (page 211)

The symbols were put there to be understood, and that was not even difficult as their
meaning was handed down from generation to generation (page 211).

Colors in Oriental Carpets have a definite meaning only for the initiate (page 217)

In Critique of Modern Art14 Frederick Solomon also quotes Josephus (37 c. 100AD), who
explained the ancient biblical color symbols of the temple at Jerusalem as a symbol of the universe
in his work: The Wars Of The Jews 15, Book V - Chapter 5. Section 4 in: A Description Of The
Temple:
But then this house, as it was divided into two parts, the inner part was lower than the appearance of
the outer, and had golden doors of fifty-five cubits altitude, and sixteen in breadth; but before these
doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered
with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful.
Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation, but was a kind of image of the
universe; for by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine white (?)
flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea; two of them having their colors the
foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the purple have their own origin for that
foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the other. This curtain had also embroidered
upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the [twelve] signs, representing living
creatures.
Another reference is given in the description of Moses' Tabernacle in the Wilderness, for which the
Bible prescribes the use of four elementary colors: blue, scarlet, purple and white. However
Josephus does not explain these colors yet, although these are the same colors which have been
documented for the temple:
HEREUPON the Israelites rejoiced at what they had seen and heard of their conductor, and
were not wanting in diligence according to their ability; for they brought silver, and gold,
and brass, and of the best sorts of wood, and such as would not at all decay by putrefaction;
camels' hair also, and sheep-skins, some of them dyed of a blue color, and some of a scarlet;
some brought the flower for the purple color, and others for white, with wool dyed by the
flowers aforementioned; and fine linen and precious stones, which those that use costly
ornaments set in ouches of gold; they brought also a great quantity of spices; for of these
materials did Moses build the tabernacle, which did not at all differ from a movable and
ambulatory temple.
12
13
14
15

The Symbolism of the Colors Purple, White, Red and Blue

Critique of Modern Art by Frederick Solomon (1970)
Critique of Modern Art by Frederick Solomon (1970)
The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem

These four basic color symbols red, blue, purple and white have been found in many temple
decorations, tomb decorations, medieval bible illustration, sacred paintings, religious garments, as
well as in coat of arms and flags.
The four colors represented the four elements air, fire, sea and earth. Although their symbolism
may have been extended and altered since Josephus, the color symbolism generally formed the
fundamental base for sacred paintings.
Basically the color scheme is fourfold and includes white, which often is referred to as fine linen.
The description notes the absence of the figures of animals
Now on each side of the gates there stood three pillars, which were inserted into the concave
bases of the gates, and were suited to them; and round them was drawn a curtain of fine
linen; but to the gates themselves, which were twenty cubits in extent, and five in height, the
curtain was composed of purple, and scarlet, and blue, and fine linen, and embroidered with
many and divers sorts of figures, excepting the figures of animals.
...
But at the front, where the entrance was made, they placed pillars of gold, that stood on
bases of brass, in number seven; but then they spread over the tabernacle veils of fine linen
and purple, and blue, and scarlet colors, embroidered.
...
It (the priests' vestment) is embroidered with flowers of scarlet, and purple, and blue, and
fine twined linen, but the warp was nothing but fine linen.

Analysis
In textiles twining had been considered as a symbol for stabilizing social patterns. The symbolism
may have been based on intertwining red & blue o purple (magenta as a mixture of 50% red and
50% blue).
In the Bible, purple, red and blue are a color triad which had been prescribed as a divine command
in the temple's architecture and may have been derived from the rainbow's border colors red & blue.
As a mixture of red & blue purple cannot be identified as a singular component within the rainbow's
spectrum. Therefore red and blue are to be considered as opponents and purple as a synthesis
symbol.
Goethe's color circle consists of 6 colors, starting at the bottom with green, which is surrounded by
the primary colors yellow and blue. Further north we find the transit colors yellow-red (orange) and
blue-red (magenta) which culminate at the top color-element red.
Ewald Hering's color circle (1874) had been based on two antipodal pairs yellow& blue,
respectively red & green, which normally will not produce a mix hue.
Purple (magenta) has been considered a divine or imperial symbol which may have been derived
from weaving the border colors of the rainbow. Green may be woven from yellow and blue, but in
contrast to magenta green is a spectral component of the rainbow's spectrum.
Musil, Goethe and Ewald Hering's color circle use yellow and blue as antipodes. Musil and Ewald
Hering's color circle use red and green as antipodes.
Complexity, which may even be complicated by unknown further color systems allowed to consider
nearly any combination of primary colors as antipodes respectively synthesis-symbol, for instance:
Antipodal couple

Synthesis-Symbol

Goethe

Yellow & Blue

Red (or to be more precise: Purple-red)

Musil

Yellow & Blue

Blue & Red

Violet (?)
Purple (as 50% Red + 50% Blue)

Bible

Rood & Blue

Magenta (50% Red + 50% Blue)

Ewald Hering

Yellow & Blue

Blue & Red

Appendix: Complementary color16

Ancient complementary color pairs
The pairs of Complementary color vary depending upon the color model, and how the color is
made. In painting, which uses subtractive colors, the traditional primarysecondary complementary
color pairs, described since at least the early 18th century, were redgreen, yellowviolet, and blue
orange.

Modern complementary color pairs

In the more accurate RGB color model, used to make colors on computer and television displays,
red, green and blue light are combined at various intensities to make all the other colors. In this
system, using additive colors, the complementary pairs are redcyan, greenmagenta, and blue
yellow.
In color printing, another system of subtractive colors, the colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black
are used to produce all printed colors; the CMYK-system complementary pairs are the same as in
the RGB system: redcyan, greenmagenta, and blueyellow.

Contents
Intro..................................................................................................................................................1
1932: Robert Musil's color symbolism............................................................................................2
1874: Ewald Hering's Color wheel............................................................................................2
NCS.............................................................................................................................................2
Purple..........................................................................................................................................2
1810: Goethe....................................................................................................................................3
Goethe's main symbol Red (and its antipodal symbol green).....................................................3
1810: The chromatic circle..........................................................................................................3
1785: Francisco de Miranda............................................................................................................5
Miranda's reports.........................................................................................................................6
The Flag of the Burgers' Guard of Hamburg ............................................................................6
Biblical Color Symbolism...............................................................................................................7
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................9
Appendix: Complementary color ..................................................................................................10
Ancient complementary color pairs..........................................................................................10
Modern complementary color pairs..........................................................................................10

16 Source: Complementary color