Color Project Paper Example: Association of People and Cultures Around the World With the Green Color

Color has a lot of significance among cultures, and this significance varies across these cultures. Color has always had significance on social issues such as religion, politics, and cultures. One of the colors that evidently exhibit varied significance across cultures is the green color. This paper will review the significance of the green color across different cultures around the world.

Among the Chinese, the green color has a negative significance as far as marriage issues are concerned. For instance, offering a green hat to a married Chinese man would imply that the mans wife had been or is unfaithful in marriage.

In most European countries, green has always been a color to symbolize hope as portrayed in Divine Comedy by Divine. However, it must be noted that the early Christians had a different perspective of the green color. The negative perception by Christians was driven by the fact that the color was often preferred in most pagan ceremonies, which forced the early Christians to ban this color. The ban was never eternal as it was established that Christians later associated the green color with agape often preferred during the Eucharistic love and feast. In Judaism, green was associated with curative powers while dark green was associated with fertility. Today, green is associated with Catholicism and is evident in some flags such as the Irish flag. Also, in Europe, before the twentieth century, Father Christmas was always dressed in green.

In traditional Greek theatre, it has been stated that the green color is associated with despair as well as hopelessness CITATION Dil06 \l 1033 (Dilloway). During some circumstances, the Greeks also associated green with menacing connotations. The Japanese Theatre also preferred green dress for figures considered to be evil or sinister combined with other colors like blue. Among the Thai, the artist depicted anger with green as they perceived that a body turning green was a symbol of anger. Elsewhere, in Malaysia, green is often associated with disease or danger while most Spanish cultures associate the color with envy. The color also elicits positive perception in the United States as it is associated with safety, harmony, growth, and health. In Arabic culture, a green-toothed depiction symbolizes a healthy individual prone to eating leek and spring onions.

The Islamic religion also associated green color with holiness as it is believed that the angels who attended to Prophet Mohammed were dressed in green Turbans. An Islam wearing a green turban is known as sharif and is said to belong to the ancestry of Prophet Mohammed. According to the Islamic culture and belief, green stir up stirs up good emotions like comfort and relaxation. Egyptians also perceived green as the color for fertility as well as regeneration CITATION San14 \l 1033 (Busatta).

According to Al-Adaileh, the cultural context of Jordan associates green with more positive phenomenon such as prosperity, agriculture, and safety. The same depiction has been recognized internationally through the formation of organizations such as Green Movement, which was a movement aimed to enhance food production among third world countries. Green has also been a famous color as far as the efforts to curb global warming are concerned.

Green is a color of great significance across many cultures around the world. This information is very important for artists as there is need to establish the cultural significance of the color before depicting a person or an object in green. In some cultures such as Chinese, there are negative connotations associated with green while in some cultures such as Arabic, the color elicits positive feelings.

Works Cited

BIBLIOGRAPHY Al-Adaileh, Bilal A. "The connotations of Arabic color terms." 2012. <http://www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/al-adaileh/ada-001.pdf>.

Busatta, Sandra. "The Perception of Color and The Meaning of Brilliance Among Archaic and Ancient Populations and Its Reflections on Language." Cultural Anthropology (2014): vol. 10(2) pp. 309-347.

Dilloway, Laura. An exploration into color symbolism as used by different cultures and religions. New York: Design Press/Tab Books, 2006.