Orange (colour) philosophy of ancient China, orange was the colour of transformation. In China and India, the colour took its name not from the orange fruit, but from saffron, the finest and most expensive dye in Asia. According to Confucianism, existence was governed by the interaction of the male active principle, the "yang", and the female passive principle, the "yin". Yellow was the colour of perfection and nobility; red was the colour of happiness and power. Yellow and red were compared to light and fire, spirituality and sensuality, seemingly opposite but really complementary. Out of the interaction between the two came orange,
Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis painting is a reference to Goethe’s "Theory of Colour", which explains the colour yellow as being the first colour transmitted from light. The form of the painting is circular, symbolising the construction of the human eye, changing the focus of a typical linear splitting of space to a more subjective portrayal. The colour yellow is typically optimistic, but Turner captures the negativity of yellow by attaching the colour to a light that is subject to change. The morning sun aspect of the colour is something transient. "Light and Colour" was among three paintings stolen from a Frankfurt museum in 1994.