Color has Meaning(s)
When I started cataloging my daughter's artwork, I began to consider color names. I was familiar with the Pantone color matching system, so I started there. Since then, I've learned a LOT about identifying colors and their multifarious meanings.
Multifarious means diverse: "having or occurring in great variety,"... but I love the way it rhymes with nefarious (flagrantly wicked or corrupt). [https://www.merriam-webster.com/]
It reminds me of Humpty Dumpty's argument from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass
...there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’
We can also make colors mean many different things. When Pantone announced a shade of white called Cloud Dancer to be their 'color of the year' for 2026, I thought it was a cop out... but Lida Zeitlin-Wu saw something nefarious.
Cloud Dancer’s implications of whiteness as part of an aspirational lifestyle inevitably raised alarm bells. Journalists and social media users were quick to zero in on the questionable optics of choosing white at this political moment, when white nationalism is essentially mainstream...
Lida is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. From her web site: "Her research and teaching primarily focus on the commodification and rationalization of sensory experience and selfhood—particularly color and flavor—under technocapitalism."
She does a very good job at taking apart the "Cloud Dancer" issue here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/pantone-color-year-cloud-dancer-whiteness-fascism-eugenics/
