RESOURCE: colour symbolism

30th Sep 2021

The four colours associated with cardinal directions for the Maya; illustration by Luis Garay

In response to a question we’ve just received, we’ve prepared a short introduction to the symbolism associated with particular colours for the ancient Maya. We’ve already uploaded a piece on the colours they identified with world directions (link below) - a construct most fully documented among the ancient Maya (Miller & Taube); here we consider their choices of colours in general cultural practice.
(Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore).

Mayanist scholars all agree that, in their day, Maya buildings were, in the words of Philip Arnold, ‘awash in vibrant colours’, the stone surfaces predominantly painted bright red ‘to provide a dramatic contrast to the dominant green of the surrounding forest’ (Schele & Friedel) (pic 1), resulting in ‘an astonishing brilliancy of colour’ (Spinden). Unsurprisingly, red had long been associated with human blood, blue with both the daytime sky and water, and yellow with the sun. How much more difficult it is today to interpret and to read the texts carved into massive stone stelae when the all-important original colours have faded and gone, leaving bewildering detail presented in monotone...

Colour was utilised ‘to its fullest expressive force... to differentiate components of the imagery and also... to identify precious materials such as jadeite and quetzal feathers, which were important visual markers of status’ (Reents-Budet). Green hues symbolised the life-giving maize plant ‘not only as the source of sustenance but also as the sacred material from which humans were formed... Jade evoked the Maize God, permanence, and the essence of beauty’ (Miller). Significantly, Mayan languages do not distinguish between blue and green as separate colours (Stone & Zender) - something epitomised in the shimmering tail feather colours of the quetzal in flight, endlessly evoking turquoise-blue and green in equal measure. When depicting specific colours in their script, blue and green - generally linked to the central axis mundi of the Maya world - shared the same glyphs (pic 3, right/centre).

Brightness, luminosity and iridescence played a central role in Mesoamerican aesthetics generally (Domenici), brilliance being linked to the Nahua (Central Mexican) concept of tonalli, ‘a life essence manifested in the form of light and heat’. In their painting - particularly in codices and on ceramic vases - the Maya consistently preferred the use of organic colours, from flowers, plants and animals since ‘they produce very brilliant, bright colour hues, especially if compared with the duller tones of most mineral pigments.’ Painting materials were perceived in essence as ‘flowery’ matter (see picture 6), reflecting the deep historical connection between flowers and elegant speech.

Body painting was an important aspect of ritual Maya life. ‘Warriors painted themselves black and red: “In order to show ferocity, and, to appear more fierce and valiant [they] painted their eyes and noses and the whole face, body and arms with black and red” [pic 4]. Prisoners were painted in black and white stripes, and the priests were painted blue’ (Morley).
In terms of specific colours used in codex painting, Domenici, in his analysis this same year (2021) identifies the following:-
• black: vegetal carbon black
• red: grouped into two main families; iron oxides (hematite) - only employed on Maya codices - and those extracted from cochineal insects - used both on Maya manuscripts (even if quite rarely) and on all Nahua (Aztec) and Mixtec codices.

• blue colours ‘are among the most famous products of ancient Mesoamerican technology’. ‘Maya Blue’ - a hybrid pigment composed of indigo and a palygorskite base - has been found on a large number of pre-Hispanic manuscripts. The rare palygorskite clay is only found in the Yucatán peninsula
• yellow/orange/brown - the most varied and complex range of colours: since yellows are extremely rare in Maya codices, we’ve omitted them from this short introductory article
• greens: again complex since green colours were usually produced by mixing or superimposing blue and yellow ones. In most cases a yellow dye was mixed with a blue hybrid pigment. In a different group of greens, that today have a brownish or mustard-like appearance, used to depict feathers, crocodiles etc., the blue component is often not present at all; ‘the exact composition of these mustard-looking greens, as well as the degradation processes that seem to have affected their visual appearance, is one of the most intriguing open problems to be tackled in the future.’

Sources consulted, not in order:-
• Mayas: Revelation of an Endless Time (2015), INAH, Mexico City
• Domenici, Davide (2021) ‘The Flowery Matter of Chant: The Use of Organic Colours in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican Codex Painting’, in Flower Worlds” Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, edited by Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner, University of Arizona Press
• Morley, Sylvanus G. (1947) The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press
• Reents-Budet, Dorie (1994) {itailcPainting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period, Duke University Press
• Schele, Linda & Freidel, David (1990) A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya, William Morrow & Co., New York
• Miller, Mary & Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames and Hudson Ltd.
• Miller, Mary (2009) ‘Extreme Makeover’, Archaeology, Jan/Feb 36-42
• Montgomery, John (2006) Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs, Hippocrene Books, New York
• Arnold, Philip P. (2001) ‘Colours’, The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Mesoamerican Cultures edited by Davíd Carrasco, vol. 1, Oxford University Press
• Spinden, Herbert J. (1975) A Study of Maya Art, Dover Publications
• Stone, Andrea & Zender, Marc (2011) Reading Maya Art, Thames and Hudson Ltd.

Picture sources:-
• Main: image scanned from Popol Vuh - A Sacred Book of the Maya retold by Victor Montejo, illustrated by Luis Garay, Groundwood Books, Toronto, 2009
• Pic 1: art piece by Themetraders, London, commissioned for schools by Mexicolore, 2014
• Pix 2 & 6: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 3(L): image scanned from Schele & Freidel (see above); pic 3(R): graphics scanned from Montgomery (see above) and Stone & Zender (see above)
• Pic 4: image scanned from Ancient Maya Paintings of Bonampak Mexico, Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1955
• Pic 5: photo downloaded from https://www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/codex-tro-cortesianus-codex-madrid.