A Study on the Relationship between Images of Colors Derived from Plants and Color Names

The colors have a close to our life and there are many color names derived from plants in Japan. This study aimed to analyze relationship people and plants and investigated what the images of colors derived from plants related to the color names. Surveys on color images of abstract and concrete were conducted with adults who lived in the metropolitan area and in urban areas. The subjects were surveyed about images of similar colors derived from plants(3 type of similar two colors; pink, green and yellow) and asked to select a pair of color names(momo or pink, midori or green, yamabuki or lemon) corresponding to the color. The subjects were simultaneously presented with two similar colors and asked to give their perceptions of each color against 13 polar opposite pairs of terms or phrases using a Semantic Differential Scale, and asked to select the number of the 16 items concerned with life such as clothes and food. With the pink colors, many subjects did not feel opposite abstract images between these two similar colors and felt the same concrete images such as 'cosmetics' and 'clothes', and these color names such as momo and pink are confused. With the green colors and the yellow colors, many subjects felt opposite abstract images between these two similar colors such as 'natural - artificial' and 'rural - urban' and different concrete images such as 'plants' and 'plastics', and these two similar colors are distinguished by the color names such as 'midori - green' and 'yamabuki - lemon'. The results revealed that there are two patterns in the relationship colors derived from plants, color images and color names. In the pattern which images of colors derived from plants are connected with artificial things irrelevant to plants, the color names corresponding to the two similar colors are confused. On the other hand, in the pattern which images of colors derived from plants are connected with plants and artificial things, the two similar colors are distinguished by their color names. So demographics influenced the images of color, younger subjects compared with older tend to obviously distinguish images of colors derived from plants, and there are images of color influenced by the environment as a child. In both patterns, images of colors derived from plants are influenced by artificial things and natural colors are limited among many people. These results indicate that there are a few opportunities to see colors of plants which are full of variety. These results suggest that it is necessary to recognize colors derived from plants in relation to plants and to educate regarding the nature of plants, therefore landscape architecture focused on colors of plants is required.