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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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)
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