Abstract
Colour in China has a long history of artistic, symbolic, religious, and mythological use. This paper takes the idea of colour as a meaningful element within Chinese society and introduces the use of visual colour grammar as a new way to identify and breakdown the use of colour within political art and propaganda posters. The use of colour has been adapted by visual linguists into its own unique visual grammar component, relaying much more information than just a symbolic transfer from sign to signifier. Meaning within political posters can be derived from regularities in use, presentation, and conventional meanings. Colour as a visual grammar component is expressed through the three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
 This paper explores how the Chinese views on colour interconnects with the metafunctions of colour to look at the political posters of the PRC. I will discuss both the approach to art as a text that can be ‘read’ through visual grammar and present colour in the Chinese context as more than a symbol making device but as a meaning component in and of itself.
Highlights
That colour has cultural and artistic meaning is a fairly universal concept
Some of the earliest known colour-work items are the Yangshao pottery fragments found in archaeological digs, illustrations from Buddhist manuscripts, and embroidery (Yang, 2010)
Interpersonal, and textual uses of colour to look at Chinese political art, this article demonstrates how colour can be used to interpret imagery on an individual basis as well as a tool for analysis to look at political shifts across time
Summary
That colour has cultural and artistic meaning is a fairly universal concept. In Western society, people wear black to a funeral and know that calling someone “yellow” is an insult, meaning cowardice. Interpersonal, and textual uses of colour to look at Chinese political art, this article demonstrates how colour can be used to interpret imagery on an individual basis as well as a tool for analysis to look at political shifts across time.
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