The Creative Background of China's Colors

Color comes from nature. By observing the natural scenery, sunrise and sunset, and time series changes between heaven and earth, China ancestors came to the view that red, cyan, yellow, white and black are the five basic colors in the universe, thus constructing the color theory of "five colors view". The concept of "five colors" was first recorded in the ancient document Shangshu Geisha, which recorded the dialogue between Shun, Yu and Yu. In addition, the ancients determined the five directions of east, south, west, north and middle according to the five elements of earth, wood, fire, water and gold, and established a relationship with color; Moreover, many concepts, such as power and status, philosophy and ethics, etiquette and religion, were integrated into color, and gradually merged into a unique color culture system, which eventually became an important part of China traditional culture.

Chinese traditional color culture is the reflection of political economy, social customs, literature and art, folk festivals, ideas and aesthetic standards, with rich and colorful connotations and wide applications. Since thousands of years ago, all aspects of Han traditional culture have been related to color, such as clothing, architecture, painting, calligraphy, jade, porcelain, handicrafts, home furnishings, diet, traditional Chinese medicine, etc., which also shows that predecessors attached importance to color.

Starting from the Zhou Dynasty in 1 1 century BC, China gave colors a special meaning and divided them into "positive color" and "intermediate color". Among them, "positive color" is the five colors mentioned above, while "intermediate color" is composed of different "positive colors" in different proportions and belongs to secondary color, so it is also called "idle color". In the Warring States Period, Sun Tzu's Art of War once pointed out: "There are only five colors in color, and the change of five colors can't win the view", which means that colors can be ever-changing and countless, but they can't be separated.

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