The color once deemed too loud is so now
THINGS happen in their own time. Orange, a color so impervious to subtlety only the bold and brash and the irredeemable once embraced it, has become, well, just right. Like blue eyeshadow and neon clothing, orange has filtered into the collective color consciousness, becoming yet another agreeable, acceptable perk-up shade to brighten our days. Orange, dare we say, is the new pink.
The color has become so tempered to our way of seeing that even combinations with equally peppy colors come off as totally funky. Hence, orange with bright-wattage yellow, orange with green, orange with blue. Of course, if your color sensibilities are not that optimistic, then you can settle for the orange plus neutral approach—orange with browns and whites and their off-shades are a flattering combination.
Orange has long been associated with radiant energy, health, vitality and the intensity of the sun. It also is taken as a blend of the ideologies of red and yellow, the perfect marriage of love (red) and wisdom (yellow). Saffron, for instance, indicates the union of love of God, which is red, and the Sacred Word, which is gold. The various shades of orange likewise imply certain virtues. Orange-brown indicates warmth and intimacy, brick orange signifies the forces of personality controlling the mind, golden-orange, the awakening of true wisdom.
Because of its energetic quality, orange has been used in color healing for its alleged revitalizing and invigorating qualities. It is also for this same association that orange long has been the least favorite color of adults, it simply takes too much energy.
Of course, that’s changing now.
I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the smell of an orange is not the smell of a grapefruit. I can also conceive that colors have shades and guess what shades are. In smell and taste there are varieties not broad enough to be fundamental; so I call them shades…. The force of association drives me to say that white is exalted and pure, green is exuberant, red suggests love or shame or strength. Without the color or its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness.
Thus through an inner law of completeness my thoughts are not permitted to remain colorless. It strains my mind to separate color and sound from objects. Since my education began I have always had things described to me, with their colors and sounds, by one with keen senses and a fine feeling for the significant. Therefore I habitually think of things as colored and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction asserts its right and accounts for the rest. Inclusive of all, the unity of the world demands that color be kept in it whether I have cognizance of it or not. Rather than be shut out, I take part in it by discussing it, happy in the happiness of those near to me who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow.
-- Helen Keller
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