The Fascinating History of the Color Red

By Dov Michaeli, MD, PhD

• Medically reviewed by Patricia Salber, MD, MBA
• Update April 14, 2021

The first color to be registered in our ancestors’ brains was most likely red, the color of blood (danger) & fire (power).

Human responses to the color red are really interesting. In some people, it evokes a sense of unease, as if something menacing or risky is lurking. Think of the red traffic light that warns us that if we cross disaster may strike. Or, the flashing red lights you see in the rearview mirror when a police car signals you need to pull over. And then there is the red fire engine, wailing and rushing off to an unknown disaster somewhere.

Further, we often use the color red in language when we want to connote something negative:

• a failing company is “in the red”
• the enraged person “sees red”
• banks redline loans to buyers that live in poor neighborhoods

Others look more positively on the color. Advertising specialists and graphic designers tell us that red connotes a sense of power, of virility, of breaking down conventions:

• The red flag of the revolutionary left,
• the red garb of Catholic cardinals,