About Culture

Before discussing about ‘Color and its relationship with Culture’ we need to clarify the meaning of culture. We need to understand the genesis and spirit of culture that revolves around human life. Culture can be defined as the behaviour, way of life, its beliefs, artistic expression, and societal institutions that is passed from generation to generations. In traditional societies culture is considered ‘the way of life for the entire society (community)’. We need to understand the characteristics of culture and its relationship.

The spirit of culture is expressed through tradition. In this connection UNESCO 2002 bulletin on culture writes, "...culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs". Diversity in geographical conditions has produced enormous varieties in cultural diversity. Culture is one of the cornerstones of human civilization. Human civilization produced enormous cultural diversity. Cultural diversity and richness inspired human beings to produce diverse artifacts. Thus, the cultural diversity has produced the harvest of rich artifacts throughout the world. The artefact created by such cultures for ages have also indicated their nature of close interactiveness.

Human civilization from the very early period had built a respectful harmonious relationship with the ‘land community’. Every ancient traditional society had created an interactive bond between man and nature. Incas, Mayans, Pre-Colombian American-Indians, Benin culture, Polynesians, Australian aborigines, Indian sub-continent, Chinese, etc. have exhibited the strong interactive relationship between man and nature through various artifacts and social activities. Every myth and tale is based on natural sciences through experience and observation. Such relationship is strongly built on the close cultural, ritualistic and community interactive participations.