Connotations of Yellow: Where Do They Come From?
Yellow’s symbolism can be explained by the color of (i) sunshine, (ii) gold, (iii) symptoms of sickness, and (iv) the brightest pure hue.
If you’re not a Medium member, read an ungated version of this article.
According to my survey of the top four websites on color connotations (see my introductory article for the survey methodology), connotations associated with yellow range from
(i) caution, (ii) cheerful, (iii) cowardice, (iv) deceit, (v) disease/sickness, (vi) energy, (vii) freshness, (viii) happiness,
to
(ix) honor, (x) hope, (xi) intellect, (xii) jealousy, (xiii) loyalty, (xiv) optimism, (xv) sunshine, and (xvi) warning.
Much of these connotations can be explained by four facts about yellow.
- The sunlight is yellow-tinted.
- Gold exhibits shiny yellow colour.
- Yellow is often the color of symptoms of illness.
- Yellow is the brightest pure hue.
1. Sunshine
We perceive (xv) sunshine as yellow-tinted light, as Vincent van Gogh did in his paintings:
Consequently, it is plausible that yellow represents various characteristics of the sunshine.
First of all, the sun provides visibility and heat, both essential for humans to survive. With yellow-tinted light, we therefore feel (ii) cheerful, (viii) happy, (x) hopeful, and (xiv) optimistic.
One of the best examples of using yellow to evoke these positive connotations is the interior of Germain, a restaurant in Paris, designed by India Madhavi in 2009:
A sparky yellow polygon sculpture of a giant woman’s lower body, a piece of art by Xavier Veilhan, welcomes visitors, stirring their interest in who she is. That is an appropriate attitude for diners who should be interested in their dinner companions. The color of yellow enhances the positive feelings that enrich a dinning experience.
The sunlight is also the source of (vi) energy for plant growth and, in recent years, solar power generation.
Rufino Tamayo’s painting “Animals” features the yellow background, enhancing the energy of snarling dogs:
Third, the sunshine is always newly emitted by the sun. It never decays. The association of yellow with (vii) freshness is likely to be a result of this quality of sunshine.
Edward McKnight Kauffer, a graphic designer in the first half of the 20th century, chose the yellow background for designing the poster of Daily Herald, a newly launched newspaper for the Labor Party in UK (source: V&A):
The freshness conveyed by the color of yellow, together with soaring birds in the cubist style — previously unknown in commercial graphic design at the time — delivers the sense of a fresh beginning.
Finally, the sun was worshiped as a god in many ancient societies due to its omnipotent quality. As the phrase “God knows” suggests, a god is believed to know everything. It is not surprising, then, that the sun, and the color of yellow as a result, has become associated with (xi) intellect.
In the Chinese myth, the first human emperor, succeeding to the previous three divine emperors, is known as the Yellow Emperor, who was believed to have invented the Chinese medicine, the bow and arrow, etc.
[I cannot find any modern examples of using yellow to indicate intellect. If you know any, post a comment below.]
2. Gold
The color of yellow sometimes represents gold. Some of the connotations of yellow thus come from the characteristics of gold.
First, gold keeps its shine and beauty forever. The ever-lasting quality of gold associates yellow with (xiii) loyalty, unfading support for someone or something.
Historically, the Chinese emperors would bestow a solid gold seal to foreign kings in the surrounding countries (Korea, Japan, Mongol, Vietnam, etc.) to recognise their territorial authorities. It can be argued that the Chinese emperors chose gold as a symbol of the eternal loyalty from these foreign kings to the Chinese imperial authority:
Second, gold is valuable. It is the only metal that’s coloured and eternally beautiful (copper is another coloured metal, but it gradually corrodes). And there is very little of it on the earth.
Valuable gold is thus used as an award for people’s achievements, such as the Olympic gold medals. Hence, yellow’s association with (ix) honor.
People envy the person who owns the scarce and valuable gold. Thus, yellow is associated with (xii) jealousy. Some of these people may trick the owner to give up the gold. Hence, yellow as the symbol of (iv) deceit.
Apparently, yellow’s association with jealousy and deceit originates from a legend on Prophet Mohammed and his wife Aisha. Aisha gave red roses to Mohammed upon his return from battle fields. The red roses, however, turned into yellow once thrown in the river, as Mohammed suspected Aisha’s infidelity (Source: The Complete Language of Flowers, written by Sheila Pickles in 1998).
This legend, however, doesn’t explain why yellow was chosen to symbolise Mohammed’s jealousy and Aisha’s alleged deceit of her husband. Perhaps the yellow roses in the river is a metaphor of alluvial gold, an object that causes jealousy.
3. Symptoms of illness
A symptom of illness tends to be yellow-ish. A flu causes yellow mucus in the running nose and at the sore throat. An eye disease may cause yellow discharges at the edge of an eye. Infected wounds cause yellow pus. A disease known as jaundice turns the skin and the eyes into yellow.
Yellow’s association with (v) disease/sickness is likely due to these yellow symptoms of illness.
This is why sodium-vapour lamps, purely yellow light, makes us look sick, and its use is limited to highways:
The association of yellow with (iii) cowardice comes from the English phrase “yellow-bellied”, which means coward. It might be plausible that cowardice may have been likened to a disease in the belly: the abdomen often symbolises a person’s attitude and feeling as in the phrases like “my gut feeling”. A yellow belly might then become the metaphoric symptom of cowardice.
4. The Most Noticeable Hue
Yellow is the most noticeable hue to human eyes. This is a scientific fact: the following two paragraphs are a rough summary of Blauch (2014).
We perceive colours through cones, a type of cells on the retina of human eyes. There are three kinds of cones: the first activated with red light, the second with green, the third with blue. The blue cones are a lot less abundant than the other two (which explains why pure blue is dark and consequently difficult to see against the black background).
While red and green lights activate only one kind of cones, respectively, yellow lights activate both the red-sensitive and green-sensitive cones. Consequently, the total number of activated cone cells, which translates into how bright the color is perceived as, hits the maximum with yellow light.
This scientific fact on yellow is utilised in our daily life: yellow is used to signal (i) caution and (xvi) warning by attracting attention. Examples include signals for hazardous situations in industry, road maintenance equipment, and, in the United States, school buses and taxicabs. Hi-vis jackets for road construction workers also feature the color of yellow:
For this purpose, yellow is often combined with black, to make yellow even more brilliant in contrast (and perhaps also to invoke the image of a wasp). Traffic signs are a good example. Even if a car is moving fast, its driver can notice it due to the brightness of yellow signs.
The yellow as the sign of caution and warning is similar to the red as a sign of danger. While red signals the imminent fatality from bleeding (see my earlier article, Kudamatsu 2021, for detail), that is not the case with yellow. It’s just meant to induce cautionary behaviour, as exemplified by the difference between a red card and a yellow card in a soccer match.
Applications in art and design
The attention-grabbing, sunshine, and gold qualities of yellow are skillfully combined with its symbolism of sickness in Świerzy Waldemar’s poster art:
The poster is about a film featuring a woman’s dead body. No one wants to see a movie if its advertising poster shows a dead body. Waldemar manages to hint a dead woman with long-haired head in yellow without sacrificing more attractive aspects of yellow.
Another skillful application of yellow comes from modernist architecture:
Here, the linear shape of yellow associates it with the rays of sunlight. With floor-to-ceiling glass walls, the yellow-framed facade emphasizes what living in this house is like: full of sunlight.
References
Blauch, David N. (2014) “Color”, Virtual Chemistry Experiments (site discontinued; archived on February 16, 2016)
Kudamatsu, Masa (2021) “Connotations of Red: Where Do They Come From?”, Origins of Color Connotations, May 20, 2021.
