Colour and emotion
The colours of nostalgia
Sepia brown, faded yellow and warm gold are the colours of nostalgia, taken from old photographs, ageing paper and early colour film.
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Nostalgia is sepia. Its colours are the brown of old photographs, the yellow of ageing paper and the warm, slightly faded tones of early colour film. This palette is recent. It comes from the way photographs were made and the way prints and pages age, and people have learned to read it as 'the past'. Many languages also call a fondly remembered time golden. Psychologists study nostalgia closely, but hardly at all in relation to colour, so this pairing belongs to photography and design.
What studies find
The word nostalgia was coined in 1688 by a Swiss medical student, Johannes Hofer, for the homesickness of soldiers. Modern research, much of it led from the University of Southampton, treats it as a mostly warm, bittersweet feeling that can lift mood and a sense of belonging. Colour is not part of that work, and large colour and emotion surveys do not include nostalgia. What can be said comes from history. Sepia toning, common from the late nineteenth century, turned the silver in a print into a more stable brown compound so that it would last. Old photographs are brown by design as much as by age.
In language
A happy past is golden in many tongues. English has 'golden days' and 'golden oldies', Hindi has 'sunehre din', German 'goldene Zeiten', and Chinese 'huangjin shidai', a golden age. Spain calls its great age of art and letters the Siglo de Oro. Japanese speaks of 'sepia-iro no omoide', sepia-coloured memories, and Chinese describes old photographs and letters as fanhuang, 'gone yellow'. English warns against seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses. Indian English has its own word. Old film songs that never lose their appeal are 'evergreen', a colour of memory that refuses to fade.
Around the world
Every country's nostalgia has the colours of its own old media. In the United States it is the saturated look of mid-century colour film and advertising. In Japan, 'Showa retro' recalls the faded signs and warm lamps of the post-war decades. In India it is hand-painted film posters and the tints of old studio portraits. In Mali, the black and white studio portraits by Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé have become the treasured image of the years around independence. Germans who miss aspects of the former East Germany speak of Ostalgie. The feeling is shared, and each place fills in its own palette.
Where it is used
Film makers signal a flashback by warming and softening the image, or by fading it towards sepia. Early phone photo apps, from about 2010, became popular with filters that imitated aged film. Brands revive old packaging and muted 1970s browns, oranges and avocado greens to suggest a trusted past. Wedding photographers still offer sepia. The effect depends on what each generation remembers. People who grew up with digital cameras may feel nostalgia for the look of early pixels and video tape. Sepia works today because it was the colour of the family album for a century, and that will change.
Nostalgia in colour, place by place
Fond memories are 'sepia-coloured', sepia-iro no omoide, and 'Showa retro' design revives the faded signs and warm tones of the post-war decades.
In Indian English, old film songs that never lose their appeal are called 'evergreen', and fondly remembered times are 'sunehre din', golden days.
Old photographs, books and letters are described as fanhuang, 'gone yellow', a common image for the passing of time.
Black and white studio portraits by Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé in Bamako are cherished as the look of the years around independence.
The warm, saturated look of mid-century colour slide film has become the standard film and advertising shorthand for an American childhood.
The word nostalgia was coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer, a Swiss medical student, to describe the homesickness of Swiss soldiers abroad.
Spain remembers the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the time of Cervantes and Velázquez, as the Siglo de Oro, the Golden Age.
From the table of meanings
Gabriel Garcia Marquez kept a yellow rose on his desk for luck, and yellow butterflies follow a lover in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Readers mourned him with yellow paper butterflies.
Luck and prosperityLove and desireNostalgiaSource: One Hundred Years of SolitudeThe blue flower, die blaue Blume, comes from a novel by Novalis. It became the emblem of German Romanticism and stands for longing for what cannot be reached.
Love and desireNostalgiaSource: Blue flowerEach November people pin on a red paper poppy to remember those killed in war. The flower grew on the battlefields of Flanders in the First World War.
Protection and healingDanger and warningNostalgiaSource: Remembrance poppyPale pink is the colour of cherry blossom. In spring people picnic under the trees for hanami, flower viewing, and the short bloom is a common image for how brief life is.
Nature and renewalFestival and celebrationJoyNostalgiaSource: Cherry blossomFor the Day of the Dead, altars and graves are covered in orange marigolds, cempasuchil. Their colour and scent are said to guide the souls of the dead home.
Sacred and holyMourning and deathNostalgiaSource: Day of the DeadCountry cottages and barns are painted Falu red, a deep red with white trim. The paint is made from the waste of the old copper mine at Falun.
Nature and renewalNostalgiaSource: Falun redThe Dala horse, a carved wooden horse from the province of Dalarna, is usually painted a reddish orange with a harness in white, green, yellow and blue. It is sold as a symbol of the country.
Festival and celebrationNostalgiaSource: Dala horsePurple is tied to the old capital, Hue, where schoolgirls and women were known for violet ao dai. In songs and poems it is the colour of faithful, wistful love.
Love and desireNostalgiaSource: HuếColours that carry nostalgia
Also part of it, and being written: Brown.
Sources and further reading
- Photographic print toning on Wikipedia
- University of Southampton: What nostalgia is and what it does
- University of Illinois Preservation Self-Assessment Program: Photographic prints
Original text by the Rang desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Meanings of colour vary from place to place and person to person. If we have something wrong, tell us.