While working on my preparations, my tutor gave me ideas on backgrounds, how I can use the ethnical backgrounds of the models to paint the portrait backgrounds for each individual. I thought about it and came to a conclusion that I want to use abstract and colourful designs for backgrounds and I thought I could incorporate traditional national or flag colours of their origin countries and ethnicities to create abstract backgrounds. This way it will make the artistic process more enjoyable and meet my concept ideology.
My models have extremely diverse backgrounds, like Ghana, Malaysia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Morocco and more.
In this post I will research the ethnical colour theory of each of the ethnical backgrounds.
Ghana
The Ghanian flag was adopted in 1957 upon the independence of the country. As the designer of the flag of Ghana states: "I decided on the three colors of red, gold & green because of the geography of Ghana. Ghana lies in the tropics and blessed with rich vegetation. The color Gold was influenced by the mineral rich nature of our lands and Red commemorates those who died or worked for the country’s independence." - Mrs. Theodosia Salome Okoh (n.d.) (Embassy of Ghana, Germany, n.d.).
Flag of Ghana
Malaysia
The Malaysian flag, which was designed by Mohamed Hamzah and officialised in 1950, is made up of 14 equal-width red and white stripes representing the 13 states of Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Melacca, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak, Perlis, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, Penang, Terengganu, and the Federal Territory.
Colours also have a meaning, as stated by the archived talkmalasia.com website:
The red hue represents courage, whereas white represents purity.
The dark blue canton in the upper left quarter represents Malaysian unity.
The crescent moon in the dark blue canton symbolizes Islam, Malaysia's national religion.
The 14-pointed star represents the union of the thirteen states and the federal government.
The crescent moon and star are yellow, which depicts the Rulers' royal colour (web.archive.org, 2010).
Flag of Malaysia
Indonesia
The flag has a lengthy history and is made up in 1945 with just two red and white stripes. It was initially connected with the Majapahit empire, which ruled eastern Java from the 13th to 16th centuries, and it incorporates traditional color symbolism: red for courage and white for honesty (Smith, 2019).
Ukraine
After Ukraine left the soviet union and became independent, in 1992 the Ukrainian flag was officialised by the Supreme Ruthenian Council. Ukraine's flag consists of blue and yellow, and according to Podgorica (2023), the blue colour represents the endless sky combined with golden (yellow) fields of wheat.
The flag of Ukraine
Nigeria
Smith (2020) states that in 1960 the design by Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi, who was a Nigerian students designer in London, was officially taken as a national Nigerian flag. The hues included a 2:1 ratio of green and white, in which green represented the rich agriculture of Nigeria and white meant unity and peace.
Morocco
Although Morocco adopted their flag in 1915, Morocco gained independence from France in 1956. At first, the Moroccan flag was red with no added elements, where the red represented the blood of their ancestors and unity (CIA.gov, n.d.). When the green pentagram called the Solomon's seal was added, the green seal created an Islamic meaning of paradise, peace and wisdom (edarabia.com, n.d.).
The flag of Morocco
Algeria
White represents peace, compassion, and charity, green represents optimism for improvement and a brighter future. Red represents the necessity of hard effort in achieving riches and the crescent and star represent Islam as the major religion of Algeria (Mfa.gov.dz, 2023).
The flag of Algeria
Jordan
The flag, adopted in 1928, gathers the colours black, green, white and red, where the colours are Pan-Arab, symbolizing the Abbasid (black band), Umayyad (white band), and Fatimid or Rashidun caliphates (green band). The red chevron represents the Hashemite dynasty and the Arab Revolt.(Macdonald, 2023). As well as some countries listed above, Jordan is also a Muslim country and the flag includes this aspect within the seven ended star, representing the seven verses of Al- Fatiha as well as the seven hills Amman was built on (www.kinghussein.gov.jo, n.d.).
The flag of Jordan
India
The National Flag adopted in 1947, is a horizontal tricolor with saffron at the top, white in the center, and green at the bottom in equal proportions. The ratio of the flag's width to its length is two to three. The chakra is represented as a navy-blue wheel in the center of the white ring (www.india.gov.in, n.d.).
The flag of India
This research is going to help me with symbolism of the backgrounds individualised for each model and their ethnical traditions.
References:
Embassy of Ghana, Germany (n.d.). Flag | The Embassy of the Republic of Ghana, Berlin, Germany. [online] Ghanaian Embassy Berlin. Available at: https://ghanaemberlin.de/about-ghana/flag/#:~:text=The%20Meaning%20of%20the%20Flag [Accessed 22 May 2024].
web.archive.org. (2010). Malaysia Flag | All Malaysia. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101015055303/http://all.talkmalaysia.com/the-malaysian-flag/ [Accessed 22 May 2024].
Smith, W. (2019). Flag of Indonesia | Britannica. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-Indonesia [Accessed 23 May 2024].
Podgorica, U.S.E. in (2023). 5 symbols of Ukrainian independence. [online] U.S. Embassy in Montenegro. Available at: https://me.usembassy.gov/5-symbols-of-ukrainian-independence/#:~:text=The%20Ukrainian%20flag [Accessed 22 May 2024].
Smith, W. (2020). Flag of Nigeria | Britannica. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-Nigeria [Accessed 22 May 2024].
CIA.gov. (n.d.). Details. [online] Available at: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/morocco/flag/ [Accessed 22 May 2024].
edarabia.com. (n.d.). Flag of Morocco – Colors, Meaning, History 🇲🇦. [online] Available at: https://www.edarabia.com/morocco/flag/#:~:text=Both%20the%20colors%20red%20and [Accessed 22 May 2024].
Mfa.gov.dz. (2023). State symbols. [online] Available at: https://embvienna.mfa.gov.dz/discover-algeria-1/state-symbols-1 [Accessed 22 May 2024].
Macdonald, I. (2023). Flags of the World: Jordan. [online] www.crwflags.com. Available at: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/jo.html [Accessed 22 May 2024].
www.kinghussein.gov.jo. (n.d.). The National Anthem of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. [online] Available at: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/jo_anthem.html [Accessed 22 May 2024].
www.india.gov.in. (n.d.). National Symbols| National Portal of India. [online] Available at: https://www.india.gov.in/india-glance/national-symbols#:~:text=The%20National%20Flag%20is%20a [Accessed 23 May 2024].
I left a comment on here last week, seems to have disappeared.
ReplyDeleteHow are you using this research in your project? Are these going to make up your colour palette? What about other national symbols? Remember we talked about Kahlo and how she used symbols in her work - to tell a story, to create a narrative background and not just a visual one.