The rainbow has been a favorite component of art and religion throughout history.
The rainbow has been a favorite component of art and religion throughout history.
The rainbow has found a place in the mythological systems of many cultures. It is sometimes personified as a deity, such as the Greco-Roman messenger goddess Iris, or the Aboriginal Australian Rainbow Serpent.
In Albanian folk beliefs the rainbow is regarded as the belt of the goddess Prende, and oral legend has it that anyone who jumps over the rainbow changes their sex. [1]
In other cultures it may represent a bridge or an archer's bow. In Judaism and Christianity, the rainbow is associated with God's protection, as it is described in the Book of Genesis (9:11–17) as a sign of the covenant between God and man.
Rainbows are generally described as very colourful and peaceful. The rainbow occurs often in paintings. [2] Frequently these have a symbolic or programmatic significance (for example, Albrecht Dürer's Melancholia I ). In particular, the rainbow appears regularly in religious art (for example, Joseph Anton Koch's Noah's Thank Offering). Romantic landscape painters such as J. M. W. Turner and John Constable were more concerned with recording fleeting effects of light (for example, Constable's Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows ). Other notable examples appear in work by Hans Memling, Caspar David Friedrich, and Peter Paul Rubens.
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In contemporary visual art, the rainbow often appears as well, notably in Peter Coffin's Untitled (Rainbow), 2005, [3] and in Ugo Rondinone's Hell, Yes!, 2001. [4] Like many other cultural references to the rainbow, these either emphasize the possible sublimity of the natural world or the cheerfulness, joy, and celebration often culturally associated with a profusion of colors.
In 2012, American artist, Michael Jones McKean created a large-scale artwork, The Rainbow. [5] The project created, impart, a fully sustainable prismatic rainbow using thousands of gallons of pressurized harvested rainwater, at times stretching several city blocks in size. [6]
In heraldry the rainbow proper consists of 4 bands of colour (Or, Gules, Vert, Argent) with the ends resting on clouds. [7] Generalised examples in coat of arms include those of the towns of Regen and Pfreimd, both in Bavaria, Germany; of Bouffémont, France; and of the 69th Infantry Regiment (New York) of the United States Army National Guard.
The rainbow inspires metaphor and simile. Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse highlights the transience of life and Man's mortality through Mrs Ramsey's thought: "it was all as ephemeral as a rainbow".
Wordsworth's 1802 poem "My Heart Leaps Up" begins:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!...
The Newtonian deconstruction of the rainbow is said to have provoked John Keats to lament in his 1820 poem "Lamia":
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine –
Unweave a rainbow
In contrast to this is Richard Dawkins; talking about his 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder , wrote:
My title is from Keats, who believed that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. Keats could hardly have been more wrong, and my aim is to guide all who are tempted by a similar view, towards the opposite conclusion. Science is, or ought to be, the inspiration for great poetry.
Rainbow flags tend to be used as a sign of a new era, of hope, or of social change. Rainbow flags have been used in many places over the centuries: in the German Peasants' War in the 16th century, as a symbol of the Cooperative movement; as a symbol of peace, especially in Italy; to represent the Tawantin Suyu, or Inca territory, mainly in Peru and Bolivia; [8] by some Druze communities in the Middle east; by the Jewish Autonomous Oblast; to represent the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls since the early 1920s, and as a modified symbol of gay pride and LGBT social movements since the 1970s. [9] [10] In the 1990s, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela described the newly democratic South Africa as the "rainbow nation", also alluding to its diversity and multiculturalism.
The rainbow was adopted as a symbol of hope during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during periods of lockdown. Households worldwide displayed home-made images of rainbows in their windows, often alongside positive messages. [11]
The rainbow has been a symbol of ethnic and racial diversity. Various Rainbow Coalition movements have used the rainbow as a metaphor for bringing together people from a broad spectrum of races and creeds. [12]
The Rainbow Bridge (pets) is said to be an afterlife for pets, where deceased animals wait to be reunited with their humans owners once they too pass on. 'Gone to the Rainbow Bridge' and 'helped across the Rainbow Bridge' are used as euphemisms for a pet dying or being being put to sleep, respectively.
The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil.
Ronald James Padavona, known professionally as Ronnie James Dio, was an American heavy metal singer. He fronted and founded numerous bands throughout his career, including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven & Hell.
Rainbow are a British/American rock band formed in London and Los Angeles in 1975 by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Established in the aftermath of Blackmore's first departure from Deep Purple, they originally featured four members of the band Elf, including their singer Ronnie James Dio, but after their self-titled debut album, Blackmore fired these members, except Dio, recruiting drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboardist Tony Carey. This line-up recorded the band's second album Rising (1976), while Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978) saw Bob Daisley and David Stone replace Bain and Carey, respectively. Long Live Rock 'n' Roll was also the last album with Dio before he left the band to join Black Sabbath in 1979.
Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the naval ensign flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century. The vast majority of such flags flew the motif of a human skull, or “Death's Head”, often accompanied by other elements, on a black, dark brown or dark blue field, sometimes called the “Death's Head flag” or just the “black flag”.
A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that appears as a multicolored arc that forms with the sunlight reflecting water.
Care Bears are multi-colored bears, painted in 1981 by artist Elena Kucharik to be used on greeting cards from American Greetings. They were turned into plush teddy bears and featured in The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings (1983) and The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine (1984) before headlining their own television series called Care Bears from 1985 to 1988. They also had multiple feature films including: The Care Bears Movie (1985), Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation (1986), and The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland (1987).
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder is a 1998 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author discusses the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scientist.
Rainbow Brite is a media franchise by Hallmark Cards, introduced in 1984. The animated Rainbow Brite television series first aired in 1984, the same year Hallmark licensed Rainbow Brite to Mattel for a range of dolls and other merchandise. A theatrical feature-length film, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, was released by Warner Bros. in 1985. The franchise was rebooted in 2014 with a three part mini-series released on Hallmark's online streaming video service, Feeln. A line of new merchandise by Hallmark online and in its shops debuted in 2015.
Ashley Stephen Hutchings, MBE, sometimes known in early years as "Tyger" Hutchings, is an English bassist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founding member of three noteworthy English folk-rock bands: Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band. Hutchings has overseen numerous other projects, including records and live theatre, and has collaborated on film and television projects.
"Lamia" is a narrative poem written by the English poet John Keats, which first appeared in the volume Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems, published in July 1820. The poem was written in 1819, during the famously productive period that produced his 1819 odes. It was composed soon after his "La Belle Dame sans Merci" and his odes on Melancholy, on Indolence, on a Grecian Urn and to a Nightingale and just before "To Autumn".
The rainbow has been a favorite component of mythology throughout history among many cultures around the world. Abrahamic traditions see it as a covenant with God to preserve the world from a second flood. Whether as a bridge to the heavens, messenger, archer's bow, or serpent, the rainbow has served as a symbol for millennia. There are myriad beliefs in a complex diversity with several repeated themes.
The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many different Aboriginal peoples. It is a common motif in the art and religion of many Aboriginal Australian peoples. Much like the archetypal mother goddess, the Rainbow Serpent creates land and diversity for the Aboriginal people, but when disturbed can bring great chaos.
The Rainbow Bridge is the theme of several works written first in 1959, then in the 1980s and 1990s, that speak of an other-worldly place where pets go upon death, eventually to be reunited with their owners. One is a short story whose original creator was long uncertain. The other is a six-stanza poem of rhyming pentameter couplets, created by a couple to help ease the pain of friends who lost pets. Each has gained popularity around the world among animal lovers who have lost a pet or wild animals that are cared for. The belief has many antecedents, including similarities to the Bifröst bridge of Norse mythology.
"Bein' Green" is a song written by Joe Raposo, originally performed by Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog on both Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. It later was covered by Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and other performers. Bein' Green is considered the signature song of Kermit the Frog.
Push may refer to:
Richard Hugh Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter. He was a founding member and the lead guitarist of Deep Purple, playing jam-style hard rock music that mixed guitar riffs and organ sounds. He is prolific in creating guitar riffs and has been known for playing both classically influenced and blues-based solos.
Bettina Bush, also known professionally and simply as Bettina, is an American actress and pop music singer.
Ugo Rondinone is a Swiss-born artist widely recognized for his mastery of several different media—most prominently sculpture, drawing and painting, but also photography, architecture, video and sound installation—in the largely figurative works he has made for exhibitions in galleries, museums and outdoor public spaces around the world. He has never limited himself to a particular material, no more than he has to a single discipline. Lead, wood, wax, bronze, stained glass, ink, paint, soil and stone are all tools in a creative arsenal that the artist has employed to extend the Romantic tradition in works that are as sensitive to the passage of time as to the nuances of body language and the spoken word.
Hong or jiang is a Chinese dragon with two heads on each end in Chinese mythology, comparable with rainbow serpent legends in various cultures and mythologies.
Rainbow Brite is a 1980s animated series based on Hallmark's media franchise of the same name. Produced by DIC Enterprises with animation provided by Japanese TMS Entertainment, the show began as a part of DIC's Kideo TV syndicated anthology package. In this series, Rainbow Brite uses her magical belt to protect the colors of Rainbowland from the bumbling Murky & Lurky.
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