Let it be red

Red is the first colour of the rainbow, a prime colour, which means that it cannot be created from other colours. If you mix red with yellow you get orange, with blue you get violet, which are secondary colours. When using graphics programs, you get the perfect red colour under the hexadecimal number #FF0000 or by giving the RGB value 255, 0, 0. But what kind of connotations do people associate to this colour?

Skoflek István diaképei (kardinális pinty) - Kuny Domokos Múzeum, CC BY It is almost impossible to list what a certain colour that is formed at a given wavelength of light can represent. Aristotle matched red with fire from the four elements of the world. Hippocrates paired it with the sanguine human type. Red is a warm colour; one associates it with intensity, energy, action, attention, speed, dynamics and riot, thus it is often the colour of revolution. Red also means warning; you can find it in nature on some poisonous plants and animals – for example the fly-agaric is a frequent illustration in children’s books, but some poison dart frogs also use this colour in order to deter its enemies. Humans also use red if they want to call attention to danger or prohibition, for example on traffic lights: ‘red means stop’.

In blazonry, red means valiancy. The red colour in our national flag represents the power. Red is also the colour of love, affection, passion, the heart, eroticism, desire and sexuality – that is the reason why an area with brothels is often called a ‘red-light’ district. If you see the words ‘red’ and ‘flower’ written side by side, most people think of a red rose immediately. Curiously, bees cannot see the red colour, thus the pollination of red flowers does not depend on them.

Royal Szálló, Budapest, 1970-es évek eleje - Magyar Kereskedelmi és Vendéglátóipari Múzeum, CC BY-NC-ND The red colour appears in many adverts, on leaflets, posters and labels as well. It is not just a coincidence, because red is stimulating, has an encouraging, urging effect, it attracts attention and makes you act. That is why it is used in trade at discounts and sales, or in the food industry to increase consumers’ appetite. Just think of all the products in your fridge with red logos on them.

In visual art, the symbology of colours has been used from the beginning, but film art can use it only since the invention of the coloured film. You can find a lot of clips on the internet, which deal with the colour schemes that certain directors use on purpose during film-making. Jean-Pierre Jeunet used green-gold-red colours predominantly in Amélie. Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List was black and white basically, except for two scenes, where only the red colour appears. In the composition you can watch Stanley Kubrick’s reds if you are old enough, because Kubrick paints horror, tension and violence red.

Translated by Zita Aknai

Recommendation

“The yellow is the finest.

…Reams and reams of letters could I write in yellow ink to her, the little schoolgirl of my dreams. I'd scrawl something that looks like Japanese, then try a bird, most intricately scrolled.” – Dezső Kosztolányi wrote this in the poem I dream of coloured inks. If you look up to the sky, you see the sun yellow, but its colour is white actually, which means it contains all the colours. Colour depends on the wavelength of light: humans perceive the light yellow between 565 and 590 nanometres wavelength.

Blue hour

One of the best occasions for taking city photos is when the sun is disappearing on the horizon or when it hasn’t appeared yet. The sky is blazing in the most beautiful shades of blue, the orange lights of the city have just been lit or they are still on. Plenty of this kind of photos can be found on the internet. Almost every second findings of the search word ‘Budapest’ were made during the ‘blue hour’. The blue colour of the sky is caused by the atmospheric light dissemination; without the atmosphere the sky would be black.

Sacred or profane? Nudes in fine arts

Depicting naked human bodies is an ancient need of art; this need can be self-knowledge, scientific curiosity, attraction to beauty or arousal of thirst. A nude can be a study, a practice, a realistic image aspiring objectivity, or a figure that bears the artist’s marks or an allegory by chance. All these depend on the approach of the age, the artistic style, the artist’s personality and intentions. Our exhibition and gallery will show how these things developed in painting and photography mostly.

Spring buzzing

The bitter weather of winter is over and as you feel less and less cold in the morning, you take out your spring overcoats and shoes from the deep of wardrobes. First, snowdrops and crocuses spring up from the soil; buds appear on trees and bushes – and you hope that an unexpected frost does not spoil the yearly apple and plum yield. Nature is waking up, migratory birds return to their abandoned nests.

Masterpieces from the golden age of banknote designing

Pengő and korona were regarded as real masterpieces with their special banknote designing solutions in artistic aspects. Beyond the meticulously elaborated patterns that reflect the sophisticated graphical-artistic culture of the period, their speciality is that their portraits show not only famous persons (like Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos) but also common people, for example Palóc girl from Bény Valéria Rudas, and Rózsi Tóth on the 5 pengő banknotes, or Lúcia Lendvay from Székesfehérvár, who posed on the 1 billion millpengő banknotes. Despite their anonymity, the persons of “money models” sometimes got into the focus of media and public interest.

The best pictures of adventurous festivals

People have always searched for occasions when they could take part in social experiences, either ancient pagan rituals, early Christian meetings, field jamborees of the 1800s or festivals of the modern age. But why is feasting good? – you can ask. Besides amusement and the possibility of leaving your comfort zone, the recreation with picturesque environment, art and adventurous experiences might help you obtain a refreshing new way of seeing things.

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