ANTONYM
COMPARE
MOVING AXIS
BUILDING BLOCK
QUOTES
Critical situation: black 35%, grey 18%, brown 14%, …
Heller (1989)
Semanticus F. Alpaerts suggests in De Denkbeeldige Ruimte (1980) that the I Ching or Book of Changes, originating from mythical antiquity, is the first semantic lexicon of mankind. In this Chinese classic, unquestionably one of the most influential books in the world’s literature, 64 chapters are coded with a double triplet line code called hexagrams.
Alpaerts used the Wilhelm (1971) translation to show a possible connection between the code lines from the I Ching and the codon encoding in the Semantic Colour Space. The open (- -) and closed (—) lines from the I Ching correspond with respectively the 0’s and 1’s from his semantic coding system. This way he could associate the concepts described in the 64 chapters of the I Ching, with the eight primary colours and their combinations (8×8) from his classification. Later, his hypothesis was confirmed by a comparative research he conducted on the similarities between his keyword-colour classifications, in which the concepts from the I Ching form an important part, and the empirical data from sociologist Eva Heller’s word-to-colour association study (Alpaerts, 1993).
The following list includes I Ching chapter titles with links to pages in the DSD (between brackets: if the title is not in the DSD, a synonym), chapter numbers, digital coding (hexagram), and colour combinations.
chapter title | chapters | hexagram | colour combination |
---|---|---|---|
creative heaven | 1 | 111:111 | YL:YL |
the receptive | 2 | 000:000 | BL:BL |
difficulty at the beginning | 3 | 010:001 | GR:BK |
youthful folly (inexperienced, foolish) | 4 | 100:010 | BR:GR |
waiting | 5 | 010:111 | GR:YL |
the fight | 6 | 111:010 | YL:GR |
the army | 7 | 000:010 | BL:GR |
the all-encompassing | 8 | 010:000 | GR:BL |
the taming power of the small (newborn) | 9 | 110:111 | WH:YL |
performing | 10 | 111:011 | YL:PL |
peace | 11 | 000:111 | BL:YL |
standstill (stagnation, blocking) | 12 | 111:000 | YL:BL |
fellowship with men (together, community) | 13 | 111:101 | YL:RD |
great possessing (imperium) | 14 | 101:111 | RD:YL |
humbling | 15 | 000:100 | BL:BR |
rage (rancor, attack) | 16 | 001:000 | BK:BL |
pursue | 17 | 011:001 | PS:BK |
correcting (addressing) | 18 | 100:110 | BR:WH |
nearing, rapprochement | 19 | 000:011 | BL:PL |
viewing (perception) | 20 | 110:000 | WH:BL |
biting through (stick-it-out) | 21 | 101:001 | RD:BK |
adorning (embellish) | 22 | 100:101 | BR:RD |
splitting apart (slivering) | 23 | 100:000 | BR:BL |
the turning point | 24 | 000:001 | BL:BK |
innocence | 25 | 111:001 | YL:BK |
the taming power of the great (steering) | 26 | 100:111 | BR:YL |
the corners of the mouth, providing nourishment (feeding, grooming, open mouth) | 27 | 100:001 | BR:BK |
great exceeding (overloaded) | 28 | 011:110 | PL:WH |
the abyss | 29 | 010:010 | GR:GR |
the clinging, fire (flame, attach) | 30 | 101:101 | RD:RD |
influence, wooing (courtship) | 31 | 011:100 | PL:BR |
duration, constancy | 32 | 001:110 | BK:WH |
retreat | 33 | 111:100 | YL:BR |
the power of the great (powerful) | 34 | 001:111 | BK:YL |
progress | 35 | 101:000 | RD:BL |
darkening of the Light (hiding) | 36 | 000:101 | BL:RD |
family | 37 | 110:101 | WH:RD |
polarising (contrasts) | 38 | 101:011 | RD:PL |
obstruction | 39 | 010:100 | GR:BR |
liberation | 40 | 001:010 | BK:GR |
reduction | 41 | 100:011 | BR:PL |
increase, beneficial, useful (growth, functional) | 42 | 110:001 | WH:BK |
resoluteness, determination | 43 | 011:111 | PL:YL |
meeting | 44 | 111:110 | YL:WH |
gathering together, massing (assemble) | 45 | 011:000 | PL:BL |
pushing upward | 46 | 000:110 | BL:WH |
oppression, exhaustion (depletion, sucked out) | 47 | 011:010 | PL:GR |
the well | 48 | 010:110 | GR:WH |
revolution, moulting | 49 | 011:101 | PL:RD |
the cauldron (terrine) | 50 | 101:110 | RD:WH |
the arousing, shock, thunder | 51 | 001:001 | BK:BK |
keeping still, mountain (still, not moving) | 52 | 100:100 | BR:BR |
development, gradual progress | 53 | 110:100 | WH:BR |
the marrying maiden (concubine) | 54 | 001:011 | BK:PL |
abundance, fullness | 55 | 001:101 | BK:RD |
the wanderer, travelling (wanderlust) | 56 | 101:100 | RD:BR |
the penetrating, wind | 57 | 110:110 | WH:WH |
the joyous, lake (gay) | 58 | 011:011 | PL:PL |
dispersion, dissolution, (scattering) | 59 | 110:010 | WH:GR |
limitation, moderation (delimitation, restriction) | 60 | 010:011 | GR:PL |
inner truth | 61 | 110:011 | WH:PL |
preponderance of the small (unremarkable, incompetent) | 62 | 001:100 | BK:BR |
after completion | 63 | 010:101 | GR:RD |
before completion | 64 | 101:010 | RD:GR |
A sharp angle is associated with ‘shocking’ or ‘exciting’, because of the acute change in the direction of the movement. However, a rounded corner is seen more as ‘relaxed’ (Kreitler and Kreitler, 1972).