What Does the Color Scarlet Symbolize?
The color scarlet symbolizes courage, passion, force, joy and heat. In the earlier centuries, it was an expensive color that represented the upper classes of society and the wealthy. It is also a symbol of lust and sin, particularly prostitution and infidelity.
The positive associations of the color scarlet, which is a bright red tending toward orange, derive from its likeness to the color of human blood.
The Biblical Book of Isaiah and the Book of Revelation associate the color with sin and prostitution.
The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church wear scarlet as a color of the blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs.
The name of the color is probably of Persian origin. In the ancient and medieval times, people obtained the scarlet dye from the scale insects of the Mediterranean region.
