Red is one of the strongest colors, it's blood, it has a power

In the words of Keith Haring—“Red is one of the strongest colors, it’s blood, it has a power with the eye. That’s why traffic lights are red I guess, and stop signs as well… In fact I use red in all of my paintings.”—we hear the voice of an artist who understood that color is not mere decoration, but symbol and force. The color red, he reminds us, is bound to the essence of life itself, for it is the color of blood, the river that flows through every being. To place red upon the canvas is not to paint an object, but to invoke vitality, danger, passion, and command.

The ancients knew well the power of this hue. In Rome, the generals returning in triumph were cloaked in purple trimmed with red, for it was the color of Mars, god of war, the emblem of strength and conquest. In temples, sacrifices stained the altars with blood, and the people believed that in this crimson offering, life and death touched the divine. To wear or to paint with red was to summon power that could not be ignored.

Haring, with the instinct of the seer, linked this truth to the everyday world: the stop signs and traffic lights that halt us are red not by accident, but by ancient instinct. The eye cannot look away from it, the heart quickens before it, and the mind obeys. This is no small lesson—for it teaches that art, like law and ritual, draws its force from the same wellspring of human perception. The artist and the ruler both understand that red commands.

Yet Haring’s confession that he used red in all his works shows more than practical wisdom—it reveals his desire to infuse his art with immediacy, urgency, and life. His paintings, vibrant with movement and energy, carry the same throb as the bloodstream, the same call as the beating heart. Just as warriors in ancient battlefields painted their shields with red to terrify foes, Haring painted with it to awaken, to demand attention, to declare that art, too, must be alive.

Thus, let us learn: colors are not neutral—they are voices of the soul. To use red is to summon the primal, to awaken what lies deep within the body and spirit. In life, as in art, we must remember that every hue carries a weight, and the strongest of them, red, binds us to our origins, reminding us that we are creatures of blood, passion, and fire. To wield it is to wield life itself.