Yellow
If our eyes could separate the colors of the spectrum and view the world one color channel at a time, the change might startle us. Try picturing the view around you in shades of yellow. My own reaction is yuck! I miss the reds, blues and greens—but take away all the yellow and the world might feel cold or lifeless.
The meaning and feelings yellow evokes are hard to pin down. As the color of sunshine, yellow is a happy, warmly energetic color suggesting life and joy—until cultural associations rise up reminding us of hazard signs or caution lights. Then yellows warn us of potential danger. A yellow bellied dog stirs thoughts of cowardice and deception.
In the USA yellow roses symbolize friendship and wearing yellow ribbons symbolizes a woman’s hopeful wait for a beloved man who has gone away to war. But in Egypt, yellow is a sign of mourning; in Mexico it signifies death. In Japan it’s the color of courage and to Hindus in India it represents the gods.
I see the yellows in this particular painting as vibrant life bathing dormancy. I also see the dynamic invisible curtain of human limitations that blind us to the full range of spiritual energies pervading he tangible realm of matter and measurement.
This yellow says, “Yes. Take hope. Soak in my warmth. Live and grow. But you can only live and grow so far. Unseen realms aren’t fully opened to you. Your life of physical senses is constrained by time and space. Look through these earthly pigments into yellows impossible to imagine and rest in accepting limits and ambivalence.” After all,
But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
1 Corinthians 15:46
