Colors in Iconography

In iconography certain shapes and gestures indicate certain things about the subject presented.  The same goes with colors.  Below is a quick guide as to what the most common colors denote in iconography.  In iconography, color can sometimes express just as much as words

Blue

Theotokos Enthroned

Blue is usually associated with heaven, majesty, the mystical life, and mystery. It is associated with the sky and thus the infinite and everlasting world.  It is often used on Christ’s outer garment. A darker blue is associated with the Mother of God, who brings together the terrestrial and celestial.

Red

Mother of God of the Sign

Red is the most common color in iconography. Being the color of blood and fire, it is the color of heat, love, vitality, life, and sacrifice. The Seraphim always hover in a red celestial fire and the martyrs are usually clothed in red. It is also the most common color on the Mother of God and is often worn by Christ in iconography.

Gold

Pantocrator

Gold is linked with the glory of God, with sanctity, the imperishable, splendor, divine energy, and the eternal day spoken of in Revelation 21. It even symbolizes the divine nature itself.

Purple

St. Justinian

Purple is associated with wealth and power. In ancient times it was seen as the color of the emperor- only the emperor could write in purple ink, wear purple clothes and boots, and sit on a purple throne- it was strictly forbidden to be worn by anyone else.   Purple was sometimes used in the bindings of the Book of Gospels in the liturgy. It can be found in some icons of the Blessed Virgin.

 

White

The Ascension

White is the color of purity, the divine word, cleanness, innocence, wholeness, simplicity, and is sometimes used with what the Orthodox Church calls the mystical “uncreated light” experienced by Peter, James, and John at the Transfiguration. White can be found in the garments of angels, the swaddling bands of babies, and the burial cloths of the dead. Those who wear it are always considered righteous- people who do good, are just, and walk by the truth. Only a righteous person can be clothed in white.

St. Anastasia

Green

Green signifies earth’s vegetation, natural living things, fertility in a general sense, freshness, eternal renovation, flowering, hope, and youth. It is often used for the clothing of martyrs whose blood, as Tertullian famously said, is the seed of the Church. It can also denote where life began such as in icons of the Annunciation or Nativity.

 

Brown

St. Ephraim of Syria

Brown is linked with earth, inert matter, dust, and all that is transient or perishable. It can be used in mixture with other colors in clothing to symbolize the fragility of human life which is subject to death or of symbolizing holy poverty.

Black

The Divine Ladder of Ascent

Black is the color of death and evil. One often finds it in association with demons or painted in caves to symbolize the darkness of sin or ignorance.  On the clothing of monks (such as the Benedictine habit) it represents renunciation of sin and death to one’s self.

All of these colors add to the rich meaning and diversity found in icons.

 

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