Color symbolism

[11] In the Catholic Church, the Virgin Mary is most often depicted wearing blue, to symbolize being "full of grace" by divine favor.

It is one of the most attention-grabbing colors in human vision, and is often used to attract the eye (traffic cones, safety vests, etc.).

In Western culture, it is considered a negative color and usually symbolizes death, grief, or evil but also depression.

[23] However, in some Asian and Slavic cultures, as well as Ancient Egypt, white represents death and/or mourning.

[24] There is an urban legend that pink was a masculine color before the mid 20th century,[citation needed] based on evidence of conflicting traditions before about 1940.

Del Giudice (2012) argues that pink-blue gender coding has been broadly consistent in the UK and the US since it appeared around 1890.

[25] Color plays an important role in setting expectations for a product and communicating its key characteristics.

Car manufacturer Volkswagen ran a commercial in Italy with a black sheep in the middle of a larger flock symbolizing those who owned a VW Golf as unique and self-assured among a crowd of others who were not.

Largely because the dyes for these colors could only be sourced from precious pigments, religious figures like Madonna, Cardinals and the Virgin were seen in scarlet and purple.

[26] There is a general disagreement over whether reactions to color and their symbolism are a result of cultural conditioning or of instinct.

Several studies concluded that color is part of the social learning process because of the significant symbolism within the culture.

Warning signs are coded differently as a danger is symbolized by green in Malaysia and red in the US and Mexico.

This confusion often leads to Western media outlets using incorrect or reversed headline images to accompany reports of a major economic upturn or downturn in an Asian market.

[28] Prior to its being widely studied in a scientific context, color symbolism was theorized upon by curious individuals in other humanities.

These early theoreticians include German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in his Theory of Colours) and Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky (in his Concerning the Spiritual in Art, among others).

Although color treatises such as these are often unscientific (Kandinsky, for instance, was heavily influenced by Theosophy), they occasionally find resonance with artists, philosophers and others working in "softer" subjects.