Sleeping Beauty establishes a palette of meaning by associating certain hues and saturations with certain qualities of character. Everything painted in black, green, scarlet, or sickly purple hues is evil. These colors mark Maleficent’s clothing, her castle’s interior, and the atmosphere outside of her castle. These colors are also heavily saturated, deep and harsh, and often fit into a coded shape pattern. The darker colors usually appear in less pleasing, angular shapes, such as Maleficent’s sharp, lanky dress, her jagged castle jutting into the sky, or her talon-like fingers.
Aurora and her father’s kingdom are painted warmly in an array of bright colors: oranges, blues, pinks, and yellows. Anything rendered in these colors in the film appears happy, friendly, relaxed, and loving. The borders around these colors are less harsh, more softly edged. Aurora’s soft profile, the sumptuous feast of Hubert and Stefan, and the cuddly animals of the forest are colored in this spectrum. Every dominant color in the film corresponds to a specific person or place. Samson’s white hide, Merryweather’s blue dress, and Maleficent’s henchmen’s brownish cast all indicate something crucial about their characters.