Project Notes

Different colors can mean so many different things. Back in the times of Nazi Germany, colors had great social and cultural importance. Colors can be warning signs, they can be labels, or distractions. In the book “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak there were many color associations, the narrator Death, placed great importance on color and saw it as a distraction from the gruesome reality of life, and his/her job. Death said “I vacation in colors”, what I believe he/she meant was that he used color to escape from all of the gruesome realities of human existence. Death said “first I see the colors, then the humans” this causes me to believe that Death does not like seeing humans, and uses color as a way to see past us. In my “portrait of color” I made Death's image a wide scale battle scene that has been covered with beautiful colors. When you first see the picture all u see is the colors, and it looks like an abstract art piece in which the artist splashed different colors of paint on the canvas. If you look closely you will notice that each color is a person in battle. I believe that is how death would see the battle. He doesn't see the hatred in all of us, he sees the colors. I did not use specific colors for any specific reason. There are many different meanings of different colors in society. There have been these different meanings for as long as society has existed. In the setting of the book thief during Nazi Germany, colors have great importance. Red was for communism, yellow was the color of the stars that were painted on the doors of jewish houses and businesses, brown was the color of the uniforms worn by the Nazi party, blonde hair and blue eyes indicated that you were the perfect Aryan race. Red is the universal color for communism, the communists were hated by the Nazis. To be a communist in Nazi Germany was basically a death wish. The Jews were one of the other groups hated and persecuted by the Nazis. Jewish families houses and businesses were often vandalized, every house had a large yellow star of David painted over the door. These stars were warnings to the people not to shop at the Jewish stores, or to give their services to Jewish families. If you wore a brown uniform in Nazi Germany you were either a soldier or a ranking member of the Nazi party, you didn't have to worry about much if you were a strong member of the Nazi party. If you had blonde hair and blue eyes you also didn't have to worry so much about being persecuted. Hitler considered blonde haired and blue eyed people to be part of the perfect Aryan race, which is ironic because he had brow hair and brown eyes. Hitlers idea of the Aryan race was way off target, because historically true Aryans were middle eastern and were not blonde haired and blue eyed. Its hard to read “The Book Thief” and not have your perspective changed. “The Book Thief” has changed the way I look at the colors on flags, and the colors people wear. For the section of my project were I portrayed how I see color, I made it a strip of caution tape saying”warning the colors you are seeing may affect your opinion” because now when I see certain colors I subconsciously form negative or positive opinions about the person, business, country, or even the sunset. Now when I see a red flag I associate it with communism, or a brown uniform I associate it with the Nazi party. Overall colors can mean many things, they can be welcoming or judging. I see color the same as death because now when I see a person wearing a certain color I automatically form an opinion about the person and am distracted from who they really are.