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Linda Mayoux Creative Notes for Activism

Chinese Colour Theories

Tag: China

  • Chinese Colour Theories

    Chinese culture attaches certain values to colours, like which colours are considered auspicious (吉利) or inauspicious (不利). The Chinese word for “colour” is yánsè (顏色). In Classical Chinese, the character sè (色) more accurately meant “colour in the face”, or “emotion”. It was generally used alone and often implied sexual desire or desirability. During the Tang Dynasty, the word yánsè came to mean ‘all colour’. A Chinese idiom with the meaning “many colours” or “multi-coloured”, Wǔyánliùsè (五顏六色), can also mean ‘colours’ in general.

    In Chinese mythology, the goddess, Nüwa, is said to have mended the Heavens after a disaster destroyed the original pillars that held up the skies, using five coloured-stones in these five auspicious colours to patch-up the crumbling heavens, accounting for the many colours that the skies can take-on.

    Theory of the Five Elements (Wuxing 五行)

    In traditional Chinese art and culture, black, red, qing (青) (a conflation of the idea of green and blue), white and yellow are viewed as standard colours. These colors correspond to the five elements (五行) of water, fire, wood, metal and earth, taught in traditional Chinese physics. Throughout the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, China’s emperors used the Theory of the Five Elements to select colors. Other colors were considered by Confucius as ‘inferior’.

    ElementWoodFireEarthMetalWater
    ColorBlue / Azure / GreenRedYellowWhiteBlack
    Directioneastsouthcenterwestnorth
    PlanetJupiterMarsSaturnVenusMercury
    Heavenly creatureAzure Dragon
    青龍    		Vermilion Bird
    朱雀    		Yellow Dragon
    黃龍    		White Tiger
    白虎    		Black Tortoise
    玄武
    Heavenly Stems甲, 乙丙, 丁戊, 己庚, 辛壬, 癸
    Wufang ShangdiCāngdìChidiHuangdiBaidiHeidi
    PhaseNew YangFull YangYin and Yang balanceNew YinFull Yin
    EnergyGenerativeExpansiveStabilizingContractingConserving
    SeasonSpringSummerChange of seasons
    (Every third month)    		AutumnWinter
    ClimateWindyHotDampDryCold
    DevelopmentSproutingBloomingRipeningWitheringDormant
    Livestockdogsheep/goatcattlechickenpig
    FruitChinese plumapricotjujubepeachChinese chestnut
    Grainwheatlegumericehemppearl millet
    Yellow

    Portrait of the Hongwu Emperor in a silk yellow dragon robe featuring embroidered the Yellow Dragon

    Yellow of a golden hue is considered the most beautiful and prestigious color.[2] The Chinese conception of yellow (黃, huáng) is inclusive of many shades considered tan or brown in English and the primary association is with the earth rather than the sun. The Chinese saying Yellow generates Yin and Yang implies that yellow is the center of everything. Associated with but ranked above brown, yellow signifies neutrality and good luck. Yellow is sometimes paired with red in place of gold.

    The Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilisation. Yellow was the emperor’s color in Imperial China and is held as the symbolic color of the five legendary emperors of ancient China, such as the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Dragon is the zoomorphic incarnation of the Yellow Emperor of the centre of the universe in Chinese religion and mythology. The Flag of the Qing dynasty featured golden yellow as the background. The Plain Yellow Banner and the Bordered Yellow Banner were two of the upper three banners of Later Jin and Qing dynasty.

    Yellow often decorates royal palaces, altars and temples, and the color was used in the dragon robes and attire of the emperors.[2] It was a rare honour to receive the imperial yellow jacket.

    Yellow also represents freedom from worldly cares and is thus esteemed in Buddhism. Monks’ garments are yellow, as are elements of Buddhist temples. Yellow is also used as a mourning color for Chinese Buddhists.

    Yellow is also symbolic of heroism, as opposed to the Western association of the color with cowardice.[3]

    Black

    Black (黑, hēi), corresponding to water, is generally understood as a neutral color.

    The I Ching or Book of Changes regards black as Heaven’s color. The saying “heaven and earth are black” was rooted in the observation that the northern sky was black for a long time. Ancient Chinese people believed Tiandi or the Heavenly Emperor resided in the North Star. The Taiji symbol uses black and white or red to represent the unity of yin and yang. Ancient Chinese people regarded black as the king of colours and honoured black more consistently than any other colour (??). Laozi said know the white, keep the blackand Taoists believe black is the colour of the Tao.??

    Black is also used in many negative contexts in idioms and common names. “Black help” (黑幫, hēibāng) is the usual name for Chinese organized crime and the Thick Black Theory of the late Qing intellectual Li Zongwu (李宗吾, 1879–1943) is an exhortation to Machiavellianism.

    In modern China, black is used in clothing, especially in professional contexts. Black has less association with mourning than white in traditional Chinese culture but formal black jackets and slacks have become associated with international professionalism.

    White

    White (白, bái) corresponds with metal among the Five Elements and represents gold (?) and symbolises brightness, purity, and fulfilment. Light-coloured skin is highly valued by many Chinese, especially in consideration of women as potential brides.

    White is also the traditional colour of mourning, although white wedding gowns have become more popular since the Opening Up Policy.

    Red

    See also: Vermilion § Chinese red

    Red (t 紅, s 红, hóng), vermilion (丹, dān), and crimson (赤, chì) are associated with masculine yang energy and fire, good fortune and joy. Red is the traditional color used during Chinese New Year and other celebrations, including weddings and wedding gowns. Chinese reds are traditionally inclusive of shades English might consider orange or warm brown.

    A hongbao—a red envelope stuffed with money, now frequently red 100 RMB notes—is the usual gift in Chinese communities for Chinese New Year, birthdays, marriages, bribes, and other special occasions. The red color of the packet symbolizes good luck. Red is strictly forbidden at funerals as it is traditionally symbolic of happiness. The names of the dead were previously written in red, so it is generally somewhat offensive to use red ink for Chinese names in contexts other than official seals.

    In the People’s Republic of China, red remains a very popular color and is affiliated with and used by the Communist Party and the government.

    Blue / Green

    Main article: Qing (color)

    Old Chinese did not make a blue-green distinction, having a single “verdant” color (青, qīng) that covered both. The clear blue sky and fresh green vegetables were considered shades of a single color which could even include black as its darkest hue in some contexts. Modern Standard Mandarin does make the blue-green distinction using lǜ (t 綠, s 绿, “leafy”) for green and lán (t 藍, s 蓝, “indigo“) for blue.

    Qīng was associated with health, prosperity, and harmony. It was used for the roof tiles and ornate interior of the Temple of Heaven and in other structures to represent heaven. It is also the colour of most jade as well as the greenware pottery that was developed to imitate it.

    Separately, green hats are associated with infidelity and used as an idiom for a cuckold. This has caused uneasiness for Chinese Catholic bishops, who, in ecclesiastical heraldry, would normally have a green hat above their arms. Chinese bishops have compromised by using a violet hat for their coat of arms.

    Intermediary colours

    The five intermediary colors (五間色 wǔjiànsè) are formed as combinations of the five elemental colors. These are:[6]

    • 綠 lǜ “green”: The intermediary colour of the east, combination of central yellow and eastern blue
    • 碧 bì “emerald-blue”: The intermediary colour of the west, combination of eastern blue and western white
    • 紅 hóng “light-red”: The intermediary colour of the south, combination of western white and southern red
    • 紫 zǐ “violet”: The intermediary colour of the north, combination of southern red and northern black
    • 硫 liú “horse-brown”: The intermediary colour of the center, combination of northern black and central yellow

    Resources

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture

    https://ltl-taiwan.com/chinese-colors/#chapter-1

  • Nadav Kander

    Kander’s website (flash based)

    Nadav Kander (born December 1, 1961) is a London-based photographer, artist and director, known for his portraiture and landscapes.

    Kander was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. His father flew Boeing 707s for El-Al but lost his eye and was unable to continue flying. His parents decided to start again in South Africa and moved to Johannesburg in 1963. Kander began taking pictures when he was 13 on a Pentax camera. He states the pictures that he took then and until he was 17, although unaccomplished, have the same sense of quiet and unease that is part of his work today. After being drafted into the South African Air Force, Kander worked in a darkroom printing aerial photographs. It was there he became certain he wanted to be a Photographer. He moved to London in 1986, where he still resides with his wife Nicole and their three children.

     Yangtze – The Long River (2010)

    Kander is best known for his Yangtze – The Long River series, for which he earned the Prix Pictet Prize. See images

    [wpdevart_youtube]QHZ5VhYveKg[/wpdevart_youtube]

    Kander uses the course of the Yangtze as a strategy to travel through the hugely diverse topography and geography of China. Kander made several voyages along the course of China’s Yangtze River, travelling upstream from mouth to source over a period of three years.

    The actual river features prominently. Using the river as a metaphor the journey begins at the coastal estuary, where thousands of ships leave and enter each day, and moves past renowned suicide bridges, coal mines and the largest dam in the world – the Three Gorges Dam. Further inland we encounter Chongqing – the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet. Kander never photographed further than twenty miles from the river itself. In the shadow of epic construction projects we see workers, fishermen, swimmers and a man washing his motorbike in the river. Dense architecture gives way to mountains in the upper reaches towards the river’s Tibetan source – a sparsely populated area where the stream is mostly broken ice and just ankle deep. The photographs are dominated by immense architectural structures where humans are shown as small in their environment. Figures are dwarfed by landscapes of half completed bridges and colossal Western-style apartment blocks that are rapidly replacing traditional Chinese low-rise buildings and houseboats.

    In Kander’s images, we are also confronted with a terrifying reality: this time it is not the feral landscape that startles us, but the bleak facts about man’s unstoppability. Kander manages to communicate a sense of its epic scale, and also the environmental impact the habitations along its banks are having upon the climate more generally. His murky, smog-filled scenes are unashamedly value-laden – to show how Kander feels China is losing its roots.

    His working method: he does not plan everything in advance. But uses the photographic process as a means of discovering more and more what resonates with him. He went back to China 5 times, taking fewer but more focused pictures each time.

    Other works

    In 2010- 2012 Kander photographed a series of nudes – Bodies. 6 Women. 1 Man – in his London studio. Coated in white marble dust and set against the void of the photographer’s studio the subjects serve as a study of the human condition.

    Rooted in an interest in the ‘aesthetics of destruction’ Kander’s most recent project Dust explores the vestiges of the Cold War through the radioactive ruins of secret cities on the border between Kazakhstan and Russia. Will Self has said These images do not make beautiful what is not, they ask of us that we repurpose ourselves to accept a new order of both the beautiful and the real.

    On 18 January 2009 Kander had 52 full colour portraits published in one issue of The New York Times Magazine. These portraits were of the people surrounding US President Barack Obama, from Joe Biden (Vice President) toEugene Kang (Special Assistant to The President). This is the largest portfolio of work by the same photographer The New York Times Magazine has showcased in one single issue.[3]

    In July 2012 Kander exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London with a series of portraits celebrating London’s hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2014 Nadav was among the 18 photographers chosen to be a part of Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London, and toured, which explored the ability of architectural photography to reveal wider truths about our society.

    Kander is a Trustee of the The Lowry. He is represented by Flowers Gallery – London, M97 Gallery – Shanghai, Blindspot Gallery – Hong Kong and Camera Work Photographie – Berlin.

    Publications

  • John Thomson

    edited from Wikipedia article

    Google images

    John Thomson (14 June 1837 – 29 September 1921) was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer and traveller. He was an accomplished photographer in many areas: landscapes, portraiture, street-photography, architectural photography. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artifacts of eastern cultures for his Victorian audience.  He was however more concerned with the socio-economic situation of the people whose land he visited than landscape as a subject in  itself (Jeffrey, 1981, p. 64).

    On his return home, his pioneering work documenting the social conditions of the street  is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism.  He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881. His publishing activities mark him out as an innovator in combining photography with the printed word.

    The son of William Thomson, a tobacco spinner and retail trader, and his wife Isabella, Thomson was born the eighth of nine children in Edinburgh.  After his schooling in the early 1850s, he was apprenticed to a local optical and scientific instrument manufacturer, thought to be James Mackay Bryson. During this time, Thomson learned the principles of photography and completed his apprenticeship around 1858. In 1861 he became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.

    South East Asia 1862-1872: Singapore, Malaya, Sumatra, Siam, Cambodia and China

    Singapore

    In April 1862, Thomson left Edinburgh for Singapore to join his older brother William, a watchmaker and photographer, beginning a ten-year period spent travelling around the Far East. Initially, he established a joint business with William to manufacture marine chronometers and optical and nautical instruments. He also established a photographic studio in Singapore, taking portraits of European merchants, and he developed an interest in local peoples and places. He travelled extensively throughout the mainland territories of Malaya and the island of Sumatra, exploring the villages and photographing the native peoples and their activities.

    Siam and Cambodia

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    After visiting Ceylon and India from October to November 1864 to document the destruction caused by a recent cyclone, Thomson sold his Singapore studio and moved to Siam. After arrival in Bangkok in September 1865, Thomson undertook a series of photographs of the King of Siam and other senior members of the royal court and government.

     Prea Sat Ling Poun, Angkor Wat, 1865.

    Inspired by Henri Mouhot’s account of the rediscovery of the ancient cities of Angkor in the Cambodian jungle, Thomson embarked on what would become the first of his major photographic expeditions. He set off in January 1866 with his translator H. G. Kennedy, a British Consular official in Bangkok, who saved Thomson’s life when he contracted jungle fever en route. The pair spent two weeks at Angkor, where Thomson extensively documented the vast site, producing some of the earliest photographs of what is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

    Thomson then moved on to Phnom Penh and took photographs of the King of Cambodia and other members of the Cambodian Royal Family, before travelling on to Saigon. From there he stayed in Bangkok briefly, before returning to Britain in May or June in 1866.

    While back home, Thomson lectured extensively to the British Association and published his photographs of Siam and Cambodia. He became a member of the Royal Ethnological Society of London and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1866, and published his first book, The Antiquities of Cambodia, in early 1867.

    There have however been accusations of plagiarism. In 2001 Phiphat Phongraphiphon, a Thai independent researcher in historical photography, published claims that Thomson plagiarised works by Thai court photographer Khun Sunthornsathitsalak (Christian name: Francis Chit) and published them as his own. Evidence to Phiphat’s claims include an analysis of a photograph in which the temple Wat Rajapradit, which was built before Thomson arrived in Bangkok, is missing.

    Travels in China 1868-1872

    Island Pagoda, about 1871, from the album, Foochow and the River Min

     

     

    Images from Travels in China

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    After a year in Britain, Thomson again felt the desire to return to the Far East. He returned to Singapore in July 1867, before moving to Saigon for three months and finally settling in Hong Kong in 1868. He established a studio in the Commercial Bank building, and spent the next four years photographing the people of China and recording the diversity of Chinese culture.

    Thomson travelled extensively throughout China, from the southern trading ports of Hong Kong and Canton to the cities of Peking and Shanghai, to the Great Wall in the north, and deep into central China. From 1870 to 1871 he visited the Fukien region, travelling up the Min River by boat with the American Protestant missionary Reverend Justus Doolittle, and then visited Amoy and Swatow.

    He went on to visit the island of Formosa with the missionary Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell, landing first in Takao in early April 1871. The pair visited the capital, Taiwanfu, before travelling on to the aboriginal villages on the west plains of the island. After leaving Formosa, Thomson spent the next three months travelling 3,000 miles up the Yangtze River, reaching Hupeh and Szechuan.

    Thomson’s travels in China were often perilous, as he visited remote, almost unpopulated regions far inland. Most of the people he encountered had never seen a Westerner or camera before. His expeditions were also especially challenging because he had to transport his bulky wooden camera, many large, fragile glass plates, and potentially explosive chemicals. He photographed in a wide variety of conditions and often had to improvise because chemicals were difficult to acquire. His subject matter varied enormously: from humble beggars and street people to Mandarins, Princes and senior government officials; from remote monasteries to Imperial Palaces; from simple rural villages to magnificent landscapes.

    Street Life in London

    Images from Street Life in London
    Thomson returned to England in 1872, settling in Brixton, London and, apart from a final photographic journey to Cyprus in 1878, Thomson never left again. Over the coming years he proceeded to lecture and publish, presenting the results of his travels in the Far East. His publications started initially in monthly magazines and were followed by a series of large, lavishly illustrated photographic books. He wrote extensively on photography, contributing many articles to photographic journals such as the British Journal of Photography. He also translated and edited Gaston Tissandier’s 1876 History and Handbook of Photography, which became a standard reference work.
    In London, Thomson renewed his acquaintance with Adolphe Smith, a radical journalist whom he had met at the Royal Geographical Society in 1866. Together they collaborated in producing the monthly magazine, Street Life in London, from 1876 to 1877. The project documented in photographs and text the lives of the street people of London, establishing social documentary photography as an early type of photojournalism. The series of photographs was later published in book form in 1878.

    The Crawlers, London, 1876-1877

     

     

     

     

    He was elected a member of the Photographic Society, later the Royal Photographic Society, on 11 November 1879. With his reputation as an important photographer well established, Thomson opened a portrait studio in Buckingham Palace Road in 1879, later moving it to Mayfair. In 1881 he was appointed photographer to the British Royal Family by Queen Victoria, and his later work concentrated on studio portraiture of the rich and famous of High Society, giving him a comfortable living. From January 1886 he began instructing explorers at the Royal Geographical Society in the use of photography to document their travels.

    After retiring from his commercial studio in 1910, Thomson spent most of his time back in Edinburgh, although he continued to write papers for the Royal Geographical Society on the uses of photography. He died of a heart attack in 1921 at the age of 84. In recognition of his work, one of the peaks of Mount Kenya was named “Point Thomson”.

    A large collection of his glass negatives was donated to the Wellcome Library.  Some of Thomson’s work may be seen at the Royal Geographical Society’s headquarters in London.

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    Selected publications

    • China Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868 -1872, River Books 2010.
    • The antiquities of Cambodia, 1867
    • Views on the North River, 1870.
    • Foochow and the River Min, 1873.
    • Illustrations of China and its people, 1873-1874 [1]
    • Street life in London, 1878
    • Through Cyprus with a camera in the autumn of 1878, 1879
    • Through China with a Camera,[7] 1898