Bringing colour to life: Orange

Dutch orange, saffron, amber, ginger, minium and nude.  Coral, terracotta, peach, apricot and tangerine.  Call it what you will, orange was described by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) as 'warm red, intensified by a suitable yellow'.

But I've had a love-hate relationship with the colour orange most of my life - is it because I'm a child of the 70's I wonder?  Just like with blue cheese, red wine and olives though, as I've grown older I'm finding myself, however, willing to dabble with the odd flash of orange every now and then.  

​It's autumn here in the UK, and at this time of year there's a lot of orange about, as Terry found when she visited Forde Abbey in Somerset to see the pumpkin and squash harvest ripening in the sunshine.

Here in Hampshire the garden  still  has plenty of colour, with orange coloured flowers, leaves and berries galore. 

The colour orange is named after the fruit, which was probably first cultivated in China before spreading west across the world. In Sanskrit it is narangah, naranja in Spanish, orenge in French and of course orange in English; but it wasn't until sometime during the sixteenth century that orange was used as a name for the colour, up until then English speakers referred to yellow-red (geoluhread).

Orange is a secondary colour, sitting between red and yellow and above brown in the colour wheel and  seems forever in danger of sliding one way or another and often down below.  Until  relatively recently, no doubt due to the advent of digital mixing, it was difficult for the colour to appear 'pure' and in its own right.
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When paired with blue, its complimentary colour from across the colour wheel, the colour scheme is zingy and never dull - although I don't think the Buddhist monks were concerned at all about that when they hung their freshly washed robes out to dry in the court yard underneath the blue shutters!

Just look at the stunning colour scheme of this traditional wooden house on the island of Suomalinna, just a short ferry trip from Helshinki, Finland

and again here on a canal side tin shack of a shop in Kerela, India.

Orange cloth, often associated with Hinduism and which would have originally been dyed with saffron, has been worn in parts of India for over 2000 years. The Hindu festival of Holi to celebrate the coming of spring sees children and young people throwing coloured paints everywhere.  Originally the colour orange would have come from natural plant-based sources such as turmeric but nowadays it is increasingly a water-based commercial pigment; and hopefully washable!

From the cheerful orange marigolds piled high on rugs laid out on the roadside, rows of bright orange plastic jugs strung across a market stall to the huge namaste hand gesture of greeting on the terminal wall in Delhi airport - the colour orange is everywhere across India.

It's in many other far eastern countries too as I found out last year, as I cycled around Myanmar- it is also the traditional  colour of Buddhist monks' robes.

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Many brands have harnessed the power  and energy of the colour orange - Penguin, Lufthansa, TNT, Mastercard and MacDonald's, to name but a few.

Festive, fun, happy and joyful.  Optimistic, balanced, ambitious and energetic.  Always flamboyant, warm enthusiastic and generous, vibrant, expansive and organic: orange is a versatile colour.

 ​It's the national colour of The Netherlands and their royal family is the house of Orange-Nassu; in Thailand it is the symbol of Thursday.  

And it's the colour of a perfect sunset.

So let's raise a glass, perhaps a Seville Gin garnished with a slice of fresh orange?, and toast the colour orange - have a happy weekend!

Hazel & Terry