The Celestial Blue and Cobalt Blue: Its Symbology

  • 2019
Table of contents hide 1 The Celestial Blue 2 The Blue color and religion 3 The Cobalt Blue and its meanings 4 The Cobalt Blue in the Islamic culture

Regarding the colors, it should be clarified that they are a secondary property or quality of the entities, that is, when imagining any object, it is always shown with a color that accompanies it at all times, being able to cause positive or negative feelings according to of the given context. Therefore, colors are optical phenomena that have significant qualities . Also, the Celestial Blue and also the Cobalt Blue, are typical colors that are captured more regularly, whether in clothing, cars, or in the color of your room, but what are their meanings?

The Light Blue

The colors have been studied from both mystical and psychological perspectives. Thus, for psychology, there are warm and cold colors. The former are stimulants or exciting; while the seconds are calming. So, both celestial blue and cobalt blue are colors perceived with sympathy and also captured as harmonics most of the time, but why?

It should be taken into account that the blue color is par excellence - for human perception - the color of the sky. Heaven represents in parallel, the archetype of the spiritual . With this, we intuit that the light blue color; It is the tone of good qualities, and of the virtues that transcend passions. Ultimately, the color of the spirit, of the starry vault, which in the psychic plane, is translated (or symbolized) as cognitive activity.

In this way, the blue sky implies the color of the sky, which since our ancestors has remained and has been captured as we see it today. In this sense, the blue color can symbolize what remains perennial, the deep, the fantasy, being also the color of eternity where God dwells . For this reason, it is a color that inspires tranquility, hope and blessings.

The color Blue and religion

As it has been seen, the blue sky is the color of the sky, symbol of the eternal and where the gods live . It is not surprising that this quality is manifested in the color of much of the Hindu gods . Also in the Egyptian civilization, the mask of the pharaohs; It was painted - his beards and hair - of that color. Similarly, for the Egyptians, there was a god who had blue skin, this was Amun .

On the other hand, for astrology, the blue color is classically assigned to the planet Jupiter, (whose god is Zeus) and its domicile is in the constellation of Sagittarius. On the other hand, for the Islamic culture the colors are also very relevant, thus for the wise Arabs in the insan al kamil ; -or treatise of " the perfect man " - it is postulated that the sky of jupiter; whose color is blue; It is associated with meditation and cognitive activities. It is also said that, that sky is inhabited by angels who have the archangel Mikael ( מיכאל ) as sovereign.

In addition, in the Judeo-Christian religions the light blue color has great preponderance. Many of the roofs and domes of its temples and churches; They were painted blue. Even the star of David on the flag of Israel is of that color. It is not surprising that the color of the latter is due to a meaning of protection, which in parallel is reflected in the blue of the famous Hamsa, or mano de F tima used to scare away the evil eye .

Cobalt Blue and its meanings

The Blue cobato, is a blue whose hue is deeper and more intense than that of the blue sky. The term cobalt, comes from the German Kobold that translates gnomo . Since the middle ages, the quality of being guarded by forest gnomes was attributed to the homonymous metal, because this metal shines in the dark as if they were eyes of gnomes especially in the caves. So the cobalt blue color has a connotation of protection and connection with the elementals.

Cobalt blue in Islamic culture

However, for Islamic wisdom, the cobalt and indigo blue color did not have such good qualities, but rather something dark, as told in the " treatise of the perfect man." There is affirmed the existence of seven levels of the " limbo of the earth ", each with its specific colors. They were:

  1. the land of souls, (its color is gray)
  2. The land of devotions, there are Jinns or geniuses who believe in God (their emerald color)
  3. The land of nature, where the Jinns who deny God live
  4. The land of concupiscences, where demons are found and their color is blood red.
  5. the land of exorbitancy,
  6. The land of impiety, its color is black, and refers to the entrance of the world of darkness
  7. The land of miseries, where it is pure density and is the substrate of hell.

Of all these planes, the 5th level, called “the land of exorbitancy ”, attracts attention, because there the demons live there. That dimension is characterized by being a cobalt blue (or also indigo). Hence, one of the meanings of the aforementioned shade of blue is that of greed and excessive excess .

However, outside the interpretation of Islam, with everything seen it can be seen that the colors cobalt blue and light blue are colors of a passive nature, cold, and have a spiritual and ideal meaning for psyche, representing the nobility and Intelligence, trust and independence.

Author: Kevin Samir Parra Rueda, editor in the great family of Hermandadblanca.org

More information in:

  • Chevaler, J. (1986). Dictionary of symbols. Barcelona, ​​Spain: Editorial Herder.
  • Heller, E. (2008). Psychology of color, how colors act on feelings and reason. Barcelona, ​​Spain: Editorial Gustavo Gili.

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