• Fernando Perla
    5
    I am Fernando. I am from Lima, Peru. I am new to this forum.

    I have one question: what colors are best suited for representing the Apollonian and Dionysian principles? And, why?
    Thank you.
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    Apollo is most associated with the sun, truth, illumination, and so mainly gold, and yellow.

    Dionysus is the god of intoxication, freeing us from the cycles of death and rebirth through his mysteries, and being associated with wine, his colours are purple, and green.

    Representing the known and the unknown, sanity and insanity, order and chaos, society and nature, constraint and freedom law and rebellion.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    Of course @wosret is right, but I think of Apollonian as cold hard reason, blue as a the blade of a sword, masculine, phallic, ironic and Dionysian as earthy green/brown/grey, the earth as mother, soft, feminine, creative and irrational.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Of course wosret is right, but I think of Apollonian as cold hard reason, blue as a the blade of a sword, masculine, phallic, ironic and Dionysian as earthy green/brown/grey, the earth as mother, soft, feminine, creative and irrational.Cavacava

    Don't get yourself turned on about it, he only asked about the colors.

    I think that black and white to show their opposing forces would be better. There are no other colors that show the extremes as well as black and white.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k
    You think Apollonian/Dionysian are opposites or are they complementary?
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    You think Apollonian/Dionysian are opposites or are they complementary?Cavacava

    Both, you cannot have a magnet without both poles.
    Beauty is not appreciated without ugliness'

    Opposites are what make the world go round.

    Ying - Yang
  • Fernando Perla
    5
    Would blue and red be appropriate colors for representing the Apollonian and Dionysian, respectively? Blue being calm and red being emotional and instinctive.
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    Wine and blood (redness), part of the Dionysian inventory, convey the violence of necessary facts of life, consuming what releases you momentarily from want, the spirit we can't stop.

    My current mythic play image is the blue tetrahedron which eats people in order to get work done, just like the hateful pressure washer that my boss makes me use. It eats up my patience. It is blood hungry, wants me to caress it for its evil (non) purposes. Men are bottles of wine to it. I feed it grapes as a means to someone elses end. Smash it to pieces I say.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    I'd go for purple and white. Purple for all the reasons already given. White to signify the purity and balance of reason.
  • praxis
    6.2k


    Red is a romantic color, whereas Dionysian is creative, spontaneous, and emotionally driven so a warmer and more energetic color may represent it better, such as orange.

    Reason and discipline are emotionally neutral so gray might work well.

    Graphic design or art project?
  • Fernando Perla
    5
    By any means, can red represent the Apollonian?
  • Fernando Perla
    5
    I just wanted to have a color that embodies the Apollonian in order to be more in touch with it, and I also wanted to know what colors represent the Dionysian in order to avoid them.
  • praxis
    6.2k
    Then I suppose you might generally avoid colors that inspire passion, which could be any color. Maybe avoid color saturation.
  • Fernando Perla
    5
    Red is the most yang color for the Chinese. If we regard the Apollonian as being yang and the Dionysian as being yin, can red, being so visceral, represent the Apollonian principle?
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