A culture of color

A culture of color

中国色彩，美得令人心醉

When it comes to color, our first reaction is mostly the seven-tone spectrum of the rainbow. Color has a particularly important and prominent role in China in both the language and aesthetics. Some rarely used Chinese characters are assigned a specific color, and these figurative prototypes have developed into poetic images with the changing of the times.

说到颜色，我们的第一反应往往是彩虹的七色光谱。色彩在中国的语言文字和美学中都占据着特别重要和突出的地位。一些生僻字指代着特定的颜色，而随着时代的变迁，这些作为比喻原型的汉字已演变成为特定的诗歌意象。

Incorporating Chinese colors and their cultural essence into the campus is what educators at Yunjin Primary School in Chongqing believe a first step toward reviving the traditional aesthetic consciousness - using Chinese colors and patterns to ingeniously design their school logo and build up cultural meaning.

重庆市云锦小学的教育工作者认为，复兴中国传统审美意识的第一步是将中国色彩及其文化精髓融入校园教育--用中国色彩和图案巧妙地设计学校标志，构建学校的文化意义。

According to designers for the school, Chinese colors are the precipitation and quintessence of Chinese culture, as well as the best educational resource for cultivating aesthetic qualities and cultural self-confidence.

给云锦小学做设计的设计师表示，中式色彩是中国文化的沉淀与精髓，也是培养审美素养和文化自信最好的教育资源.

Recently more attention has been given to the topic partly as a result of the increasing popularity of Chinese costume dramas. Whether it's the smashing TV series The Story of Yanxi Palace, or the historical costumes presented in the series The Longest Day in Chang'an that restored the standard color cards of the Tang Dynasty, all these authentic renderings have taken the audience by storm and aroused in them a yearning for Chinese classical colors.

近年来，在中国古装剧热潮的带动下，中式色彩这一话题受到越来越多的关注。无论是轰动一时的电视剧《延禧攻略》，还是《长安十二时辰》中再现唐朝传统配色的历史服饰，其中真实的色彩展现彻底征服了观众，并使他们对中国古典色彩产生了向往。

Low saturation color systems are featured and the restrained color matching, subdued and somber, consists mainly of muted whites and grays, complemented by beige, cream, almond and grayish blue. Many netizens claim that the color palette of The Story of Yanxi Palace strikes a remarkable resemblance to colors used by Italian painter Giorgio Morandi. The colors exude understated vintage quality.

这些电视剧的配色特点是色彩饱和度偏低。这种柔和且较为暗淡的配色方式比较克制，主要由不明亮的白色和灰色组成，辅以米色、奶油色、杏仁色和灰蓝色。许多网友表示，《延禧攻略》的色彩搭配与意大利画家乔治.莫兰迪(Giorgio Morandi)常用的颜色十分相似。这类色彩流露出低调、不张扬的典雅品质。