By Edmund Smith-Asante. All Rights Reserved ©
A thousand reasons have been given for the wearing of red on St. Valentine's Day. However, a
story goes that a very bored French Queen around the 16th century, who decided to create a game in order to
entertain herself (https://www.herculture.org/blog/2016/1/28/why-do-we-wear-red-for-valentines-day). She gathered all the men and women in her court and gave
them each tasks to carry out.
Men
were asked to write poetry and songs, and bring chocolates and red roses to the
women. On the other hand, women would dress in their finest clothes, and stain
their lips and cheeks a shade of red and sing complimentary words to their men.
The
Queen called this- the game of love. Eventually, these little practices of
chivalry in love are what we now call the modern day romance.
If you look back at the game played by the French Queen,
the color red seems to be a recurring detail, red roses and red lip stains. But
the question still stands, why is red so significant on Valentine’s Day?
For so long, the colour red was said to represent the
blood red of the beating heart, and that heart was the ultimate symbol of love.
In Edmund Leighton’s painting God Speed, a
lady gives her knight a red token of love as if to say that my beating heart
will always be yours even when we are apart.
Today red tokens come in various forms,
such as a ruby ring, red rose and even red fluffy pillows.
Well, the colour red is still very much the
in-thing on Valentine’s Day and to celebrate the day, #Edmages reposts some of
the images of ladies in red as captured over the years by yours truly.
Have a happy Val’s Day. #canonshots
#ladiesinred #portraitphotography
