Color concepts again
Feb. 6th, 2010 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138...I've been unsuccessfully trying to work out another color-coded "elements" set of magatama necklaces: the five (or six) Eastern ones (earth, metal, wood, water, and fire; air/sky was occasionally added to the set in China) or the four Western ones (earth, water, fire, and air; let's ignore "spirit/aether" for now).
The Eastern elemental color correspondences are traditionally formalized, which makes things easier, but I've already done two six-element sets in the past, even though most of those were sold long ago (there's maybe two or three of the original twelve necklaces still in my inventory, if any). I haven't yet tried the Japanese quintet of wind, water, earth, fire, and void/sky.
The Western elemental/color correspondences are much more fluid, or at least I know of several inconsistent sets, mostly filtered through fictional settings:
This site, which I've linked to before, has a wonderful compilation/comparison of multiple elemental systems, but comes to its own conclusions at the end-- which is causing me to meander off the track of my original point, such as it is.
So instead, I've ended up working out two pieces (for "piece" = necklace and matching earrings) of color-coded emotional dyadic symbolism; I've mostly tried to base the color linkages on English-language idioms, but they're bound to be somewhat idiosyncratic (frex blue <- healing <- the Virgin Mary's robes? is the only way I've managed to rationalize that one).
The blue one is sorrow/healing, with teardrop shapes and freshwater pearls; pearls are formed around a core of pain, but the mollusc uses that to form something precious and beautiful.
The yellow one is fear/hope, with long rounded tubes to resemble a draped yellow ribbon and some transformational play with little lemon-shaped beads-- they first appear as single drops, in obviously lemony format; they then combine with other beads to form a sort of stylized bee; and finally in the centerpiece, the lemons form the petals of a flower. I've probably overthought the symbolism, but there's sort of a double idea of lemons/lemonade and bees/honey. It might be one of those things that requires too much explanation, though.
So now I'm pushing around various red beads, with a general idea of double-edged passion: love and/or violence. There are some odd little drops I'd like to use that resemble a closed fist-- I have no idea what their original cultural context was, but they seem like a possible good match (and the only thing I've ever been able to work them into was a notional nod to the goddess Kali's hula skirt of severed hands). Or if I can find more conventional teardrop-shaped drops in red (they're probably around here somewhere), they could probably undergo transformations in a similar way to the lemon, from individual blood drops to clustered flower buds or pomegranate seeds etc.).
So that would complete a red/yellow/blue triad of primary colors, but I'm still curious about finding a similar emotional dyad for green; "jealousy" would be one obvious starting point, or perhaps a more general sense of "possession/acquisitiveness" if material greed is also folded in-- but what would be a good oppositional emotion that's also associated with green? If the "green" holistic/global movement is taken into account, perhaps a dichotomy between selfishness and... um... I'm not sure how to articulate its opposite in this context; taking account of the effects of one's own actions on other people? "Generosity/harvest" would be easier to describe, but doesn't quite feel right to me :|
The Eastern elemental color correspondences are traditionally formalized, which makes things easier, but I've already done two six-element sets in the past, even though most of those were sold long ago (there's maybe two or three of the original twelve necklaces still in my inventory, if any). I haven't yet tried the Japanese quintet of wind, water, earth, fire, and void/sky.
The Western elemental/color correspondences are much more fluid, or at least I know of several inconsistent sets, mostly filtered through fictional settings:
| context? | Fire | Air | Earth | Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Keirsey; JK Rowling | red | blue | yellow | green |
| Katherine Kurtz; Avatar: The Last Airbender | red | yellow | green | blue |
This site, which I've linked to before, has a wonderful compilation/comparison of multiple elemental systems, but comes to its own conclusions at the end-- which is causing me to meander off the track of my original point, such as it is.
So instead, I've ended up working out two pieces (for "piece" = necklace and matching earrings) of color-coded emotional dyadic symbolism; I've mostly tried to base the color linkages on English-language idioms, but they're bound to be somewhat idiosyncratic (frex blue <- healing <- the Virgin Mary's robes? is the only way I've managed to rationalize that one).
The blue one is sorrow/healing, with teardrop shapes and freshwater pearls; pearls are formed around a core of pain, but the mollusc uses that to form something precious and beautiful.
The yellow one is fear/hope, with long rounded tubes to resemble a draped yellow ribbon and some transformational play with little lemon-shaped beads-- they first appear as single drops, in obviously lemony format; they then combine with other beads to form a sort of stylized bee; and finally in the centerpiece, the lemons form the petals of a flower. I've probably overthought the symbolism, but there's sort of a double idea of lemons/lemonade and bees/honey. It might be one of those things that requires too much explanation, though.
So now I'm pushing around various red beads, with a general idea of double-edged passion: love and/or violence. There are some odd little drops I'd like to use that resemble a closed fist-- I have no idea what their original cultural context was, but they seem like a possible good match (and the only thing I've ever been able to work them into was a notional nod to the goddess Kali's hula skirt of severed hands). Or if I can find more conventional teardrop-shaped drops in red (they're probably around here somewhere), they could probably undergo transformations in a similar way to the lemon, from individual blood drops to clustered flower buds or pomegranate seeds etc.).
So that would complete a red/yellow/blue triad of primary colors, but I'm still curious about finding a similar emotional dyad for green; "jealousy" would be one obvious starting point, or perhaps a more general sense of "possession/acquisitiveness" if material greed is also folded in-- but what would be a good oppositional emotion that's also associated with green? If the "green" holistic/global movement is taken into account, perhaps a dichotomy between selfishness and... um... I'm not sure how to articulate its opposite in this context; taking account of the effects of one's own actions on other people? "Generosity/harvest" would be easier to describe, but doesn't quite feel right to me :|
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no subject
on 2010-02-08 01:28 am (UTC)Hmm... green.... that is a tricky one; as you note, it's associated with envy and with nature, and those aren't opposites. And if you wanted to do a "rebirth" kind of theme, it seems like it would need to go from brown into green, which might screw up the colorscheme (yeah, I have no pretensions about being able to design anything, really)
no subject
on 2010-02-08 03:50 am (UTC)Fascinating info about the Bynum book; Google only has enough teeny snippets of it to be tantalizing (no surprise, since it was only published a few years ago). Maybe I'll shift the focal red shapes to some long fang/claw-shaped drops; I know from past experience that they can combine into great flower-petal forms. Or just mess around with several different red designs in parallel... it's probably something about this time of year. At least I'm not plagued with inchoate visions of pink instead :b