by Willowmeana

Created on: December 28, 2008   Last Updated: May 24, 2009

Colours are wonderful. They are powerful forces that creates feelings, stirs emotions, brings back memories, can cause epileptic seizures, and can evoke all kinds of sensory things. White can mean many things: Purity, peace, serenity, surrender, mourning, happiness, holiness, the list goes on and on. The power of white is a vast entity, just as any color. White can bring on as many things to a person as black, or blue, or purple, green, red or any other color. They all bring different things, or even similar things.

There are many times during ones life, if not every day that you stop and stare at an object, or listen to something, or smell something and it takes you back into the past to a good time, a bad time, or just a plain normal memory. These things that trigger past events can also trigger olfactory, gustatory, somaticsensory, auditory memories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_system#V1_.28v ision.29). Colors and shades too, can trigger such memories. But not only does colors remind people of memories, but also objects, or phrases, or even emotions.

So you wish me to discuss the shade of white? White is usually symbolic for things that are positive in America. Since this is where I am from, I am not going to delve into things I do not know, like what white symbolizes in the eastern hemispheres of the world, but instead, will demonstrate that through my own thoughts and some of people I randomly asked. My reasonings for including other peoples thoughts into this? Simple: Because quantity can mean quality when discussing such matters. The power of a color, to each their own I should say, and every person is different, the color has a separate meaning to them then from you, or me.

I will first give you my retrospect on the color. At one point in time it was just a color. Not a very useful color - it was white. It went on walls, it was plain and boring. For what purpose would I have to think deeply on it? And then, some years ago, I became interested in art. I learned many things about colors and shades - white included. So here I was - How had I been so oblivious to the power that this shade, along with all the other colors contained? It made colors lighter, it gives the illusion of reflections, it can be used to show and give a piece of art a certain feeling, or meaning. A white wedding dress means the bride is chaste, a white ribbon stands for the strength of a group fighting against disease. Everywhere I looked, colours had meaning - and white

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>