رنگ و فرهنگ 2

		Color and Culture A discussion of Eva Heller's book Wie Farben Wirken from the perspective of Intercultural Communication by Deborah Griggs
		The Point of Departure
Basic perspective		The basis for Heller's book lies in the historical, psychological, and cultural meaning of color. The occasion for the book was a "color test" administered to 1888 people in which she asked the participants to assign one of 13 colors to 200 extremely diverse concepts such as love, tranquility, originality, envy, safety, cleverness. etc. One of the most gratifying aspects of Heller's criteria for discussing the meaning of color is that her categories are clearly defined, effective in use, and readily accessible to the lay person. She divides the response to color into psychological, symbolic, cultural, political, traditional, and creative effects. From our point of view as "interculturalists", of course, culture would most likely be at the top of our classification hierarchy, since we are including history, symbolism, and to a great extent psychology as elements of the larger concept of culture. However, the difference in hierarchical arrangement has no effect on the usefulness of the discussion within each category. The elements remain the same: we will merely build a slightly different picture from them.
		Heller's Classification System
Psychological and Symbolic Effects		Falling into the category of psychological effects are the most basic automatic-unconscious reactions and associations called forth by any given color. These responses consist of internalized personal experience.  For example, we all observe fire to be mainly red; in industrialized countries we may see electric burners, heating units, and such turn red with heat. We experience red as something hot and internalize this experience to create an automatic association or reaction to the color. Symbolic effects occur as the result of communicated and not necessarily personal experience. Sensory experience passes through the filter of analysis and theoretical structures, gaining abstract meaning. Color develops sign value. Within the framework of intercultural communications, the passing of such information from one generation to the next would make this a cultural experience. Pre-existing associations from the world of our beliefs and values are passed on with or without the support of personal experience. Along this vein, Heller emphasizes the process of abstraction and generalization in symbolic meaning, as opposed to the automatic-unconscious aspect of psychological response to personal experience.
Collective Responses		To the category of cultural effects Heller assigns such aspects as geographical meaning, e.g., the value of green to a culture dependent on agriculture or the value to a desert culture, where green is rare. Political effects of colors include such overt symbolism as that of flags and heraldry. Traditional effects may be historical aspects of color, such as the means of production, the economic factors in procuring color, etc. and the associations or meaning which arise due to these factors. Many colors became associated with royalty, for example, because they were expensive and difficult to procure: royal blue (indigo), certain shades of red or purple. Creative effects are those created by marketing (the color of wine bottles), fiction, visual art, etc.
Activity		Explore the psychological and symbolic effects of color and how they may relate to culture.
		Heller's Analysis of Red and Black
		Having defined the categories which she will use to discuss the "effects" of color, Wie Farben Wirken presents a loosely structured collection of detailed comments describing how we experience color and arguing how the meaning of colors has, in some cases, developed.
Heller on the color red...		Heller's discussion of red demonstrates the breadth of her perspective. She begins by citing the universal empirical experience of the color red as blood and then shows how this primary association reasonably leads to a connection between red and passion, in both a positive and negative sense. Many people become red in the face when they are angry; others turn red when they are ashamed or embarrassed. Anything that causes the blood to race therefore has an association with the color red in nature. Associations such as these make up Heller's empirical, sensory or natural associations. (53) Moving to symbolic associations, she describes the connection of blood to such religious ritual as sacrifice and communion or to beliefs in the magic properties of blood, etc. and then cites common traditional practices in which this connection was transferred from the substance itself to the color red. "In folk magic red yarn or ribbons were used in attempts to exorcise disease.... Small children wore red caps to protect them from demons or the evil eye of the envious." (52) Fire is another experience with red. Things that are hot, often turn red. Moving to the level of abstraction, temperamental people may be seen to have a "fiery" nature. Under traditional associations or effects Heller presents one her many descriptions of the history of dyes, in which she consistently shows the connection between economic value and cultural meaning. In the case of red, the brightest and most beautiful non-fading reds were both difficult and costly to obtain. Kermes red, for example, was made from plant parasites who lived on a particular berry-producing host plant. Waiting until the parasites had drunk the red juice of the berries, laid their eggs, and then become immobile (the parent body being future food for the eggs), craftspeople scraped the lice from the leaves and fermented the bodies to make a dye. Approximately 140,000 leaf lice were needed to make 1 kilo of dye, enough to color about 10 kilos of wool. (59) Another red, krapp red, was expensive because, up until the 16th Century, it had to be imported from Asia Minor. (60) Heller uses this explanation to demonstrate how red became an exclusive color and thus the color of royalty. She cites laws in Germany during the middle ages which regulated the use of color, which made wearing red a capital offense for non nobility. (58)
Red: the intercultural perspective		What are we looking for in trying to discover additional cultural aspects within Heller's discussion than those she consciously presents? For example, in describing the empirical experience with the color red, she does not mention that "flushing" or turning really red in the face happens to people of a specific kind of light-skinned complexion. To what degree is color change distinguishable in people of darker complexions? Empirical experiences are not universal to all groups. Heller makes this point often by noting different color symbols in diverse environments, for example, the meaning of green for a desert culture and why green thus may have become a sacred color for Mohammed. She is aware of cultural bias, but cannot present her comments without calling on this bias, even where she is trying to transcend it.
Heller on the color black...		Heller's analysis focuses on the negative aspects of black, as indicated her own introduction to the color: The deepest black in the world is that of black velvet. In space there's a deeper black, "absolute black." As defined by Physics, absolute black is the color of a non-illuminating body which absorbs all light... (89) and are the spontaneous associations with black. In the world of symbol, black becomes the color of evil, the color of negation. (89)
Black: the intercultural perpective		Few of us would probably argue against Heller's thesis that Western culture generally attaches negative meanings to the color black. It is perhaps for this reason, that she does not discuss the psychological and natural experience with the color that might lead to a negative association. This is unfortunate. She does not discuss, for example, that blackness is inherently connected to the physical and universal experience of night and that night is dangerous for animals with relatively poor hearing, smell, and night vision, i.e., for humans. Nor does she consider the meaning of night to northern cultures, where night is additionally associated with winter, a season traditionally related to physical hardship and the threat of cold. Thus, the fear of being lost, being surprised by natural enemies, or perishing by cold, may be associated with blackness. Moreover, the vastness of the sea and space, which Heller previously associates with blue, are to the modern mind not blue in their ultimate depths, but black. What the light shows may be blue, what we imagine beyond the blue is blackness. Finally, for those of us who associate sleep with a state of not-seeing, as well as with night, we may also associate death with blackness. Having said that, we must consider other possibilities, e.g., that in snowbound regions, where extreme cold is a constant threat, or in desert cultures, where light can be associated with extreme heat, white may compete with black as a negative symbol. Also in cultures where bodies are not buried but burned, fire and light rather than cold darkness, may be the images of death. A more detailed discussion of the diversity in the basic cultural experience with the color is important since many other, less naturally and more culturally induced meanings may lean on these associations. The natural negative associations with blackness, for example, have historically been used by "white" racists as a basis for mistrusting or devaluating people with "black" skin. Alone the fact that, where the designation of skin color is concerned, a vast range of gray, pinkish or beige tones suddenly become white and the most diverse browns become condensed into the idea of black, instead of the more obvious adjectives light and dark can be the basis for discussing cultural perception. Why would a species capable of creating and using hundreds of color definitions so stubbornly decide that the world is divided into black, white, yellow and red people? Only in the "light" of natural, everyday experience can we begin to suspect a difference between cultural and natural symbolism.
Conclusion		Although cultural symbolism may make convenient use of natural symbolism, it is a different process entirely, since, as can be seen in the case of red, psychological reactions to natural associations are evaluative and are learned. This is not Heller's realm and so the superficial discussion of just how a symbol evolves may not be critical. However, to us it must be because symbols are powerful moments of cultural expression.
		Wie Farben Wirken by Eva Heller, Rowohlt Verlag 1989. Dr. Heller studied Sociology and Psychology in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main
		Copyright on all images and text by Deborah Griggs. Free for use in educational activities with proper citation.

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