Yellow has been used for a very long time. It was easy to produce this color with minerals or plants. It was frequently used during antiquity too. During the Middle Ages, yellow was used for two different purposes in painting. First, more gold yellows were used for the saints’ halos or to represent someone’s wealth or power. On the other side, dull yellows were used to represent sins. It is why Judas was often painted wearing yellow then since he betrays Jesus Christ for money. Yellow becomes more popular in the arts during the modern era. We can give as an example the use of yellow in Klimt’s painting The Kiss and Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
To start with, yellow is called gold when it is used for national flags. However, yellow is the less used primary color for flags. This color is often used to represent a country’s prosperity. In the case of Brazil, for example, yellow was first used to represent the empress Marie-Leopoldine of Austria’s family. Since Brazil is now a republic, this color is today associated with the great natural resources of the country like gold. Yellow is also present on the national flags of many countries like Germany, Belgium, Jamaica, Sweden, Ukraine, Togo, and even the Vatican.