Flag of Venezuela
The current eight stars flag of Venezuela was introduced in 2006. The basic design includes a horizontal tricolour of yellow, blue, and red, dating to the original flag introduced in 1811, in the Venezuelan War of Independence.
Further modifications have involved including a set of stars, multiple changes to the placement and number of stars and inclusion of an optional coat of arms at the upper-left corner.
The flag is essentially the one designed by Francisco de Miranda for his unsuccessful 1806 expedition to liberate Venezuela and later adopted by the National Congress of 1811. It consisted of three equal horizontal stripes of yellow, blue and red. Miranda's flag is also the inspiration for the flags of Colombia and Ecuador. The flag of the short-lived Republic of Spanish Haiti was also based on Miranda's tricolore and resembles the current Venezuelan flag. This original design was first flown on 12 March 1806, at Jacmel, Haiti, as Miranda's expedition prepared to make the final leg of its voyage to Venezuela. The flag was first flown over Venezuelan soil at La Vela de Coro, on 3 August. Until 3 August 2006, Flag Day was celebrated in Venezuela on 12 March. Since 2006 it has been celebrated on 3 August.
Miranda gave at least two sources of inspiration for his flag. In a letter written to Count Semyon Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda stated that the colours were based on a theory of primary colours given to him by the German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Miranda described a late-night conversation he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the United States Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant by this:
"'First he explained to me the way the iris transforms light into the three primary colours […] then he proved to me why yellow is the warmest, noble and closest to [white] light; why blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, a distance that evokes shadows; and why red is the exaltation of yellow and blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of light into shadow."
'' It is not that the world is made of yellows, blues, and reds; it is that in this manner, as if in an infinite combination of these three colours, we human beings see it. […] A country starts out from a name and a flag, and it then becomes them, just as a man fulfills his destiny."''
After Miranda later designed his flag based on this conversation, he happily recalled seeing a fresco by Lazzaro Tavarone in the Palazzo Belimbau in Genoa that depicted Christopher Columbus unfurling a similar-coloured flag in Veragua during his fourth voyage.
In his military diary, Miranda gave another source of inspiration: the yellow, blue and red standard of the Burgers' Guard (Bürgerwache) of Hamburg, which he also saw during his travels in Germany. The idea of the flag is documented in his 1801 plan for an army to liberate Spanish America, which he submitted unsuccessfully to the British cabinet. In it Miranda requested the materials for "ten flags, whose colours shall be red, yellow and blue, in three zones."
The symbolism traditionally ascribed to the colours is that the yellow band stands for the wealth of the land, the red for courage, and the blue for the independence from Spain, or "golden" America separated from bloody Spain by the deep blue sea.
Further modifications have involved including a set of stars, multiple changes to the placement and number of stars and inclusion of an optional coat of arms at the upper-left corner.
The flag is essentially the one designed by Francisco de Miranda for his unsuccessful 1806 expedition to liberate Venezuela and later adopted by the National Congress of 1811. It consisted of three equal horizontal stripes of yellow, blue and red. Miranda's flag is also the inspiration for the flags of Colombia and Ecuador. The flag of the short-lived Republic of Spanish Haiti was also based on Miranda's tricolore and resembles the current Venezuelan flag. This original design was first flown on 12 March 1806, at Jacmel, Haiti, as Miranda's expedition prepared to make the final leg of its voyage to Venezuela. The flag was first flown over Venezuelan soil at La Vela de Coro, on 3 August. Until 3 August 2006, Flag Day was celebrated in Venezuela on 12 March. Since 2006 it has been celebrated on 3 August.
Miranda gave at least two sources of inspiration for his flag. In a letter written to Count Semyon Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda stated that the colours were based on a theory of primary colours given to him by the German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Miranda described a late-night conversation he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the United States Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant by this:
"'First he explained to me the way the iris transforms light into the three primary colours […] then he proved to me why yellow is the warmest, noble and closest to [white] light; why blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, a distance that evokes shadows; and why red is the exaltation of yellow and blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of light into shadow."
'' It is not that the world is made of yellows, blues, and reds; it is that in this manner, as if in an infinite combination of these three colours, we human beings see it. […] A country starts out from a name and a flag, and it then becomes them, just as a man fulfills his destiny."''
After Miranda later designed his flag based on this conversation, he happily recalled seeing a fresco by Lazzaro Tavarone in the Palazzo Belimbau in Genoa that depicted Christopher Columbus unfurling a similar-coloured flag in Veragua during his fourth voyage.
In his military diary, Miranda gave another source of inspiration: the yellow, blue and red standard of the Burgers' Guard (Bürgerwache) of Hamburg, which he also saw during his travels in Germany. The idea of the flag is documented in his 1801 plan for an army to liberate Spanish America, which he submitted unsuccessfully to the British cabinet. In it Miranda requested the materials for "ten flags, whose colours shall be red, yellow and blue, in three zones."
The symbolism traditionally ascribed to the colours is that the yellow band stands for the wealth of the land, the red for courage, and the blue for the independence from Spain, or "golden" America separated from bloody Spain by the deep blue sea.
National flag
Country - Venezuela
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