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Weaving the Rainbow: Visions of Color in World History
Author(s): Robert Finlay
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Source: Journal of World History, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec., 2007), pp. 383-431
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Weaving
the Rainbow:
Visions of Color inWorld History
ROBERT
University
FIN LAY
of Arkansas
wrote his last work, Remarks on Colour, during
Wittgenstein
to
?a
visit
in
Vienna
1950 and while dying of cancer in Cambridge
IUDWiG
a return to a theme of his
the following year. The slim book represented
for he had dealt with the thorny problem of the logi
earliest writings,
in Tractatus Philosophico-Mathematicus
cal structure of color concepts
on
sets
Colour
forth a broad range of what Wittgen
(1908).1 Remarks
a color?
is white not considered
"puzzle questions": Why
mere
What makes bright colors bright? Are "pure" colors
abstractions,
never found in reality? What
is the relationship
between
the world
Is there such a thing as a
of objects and the world of consciousness?
"natural history of color"? Faced with more conundrums
than answers,
that the logic of color perceptions
could be
Wittgenstein
despaired
an inability to bring the concepts
into some
clarified: "there ismerely
kind of order. We
stand there like the ox in front of the newly-painted
stall door."2
reflections on color took place upon a fault line divid
Wittgenstein's
from those of Johann
ing the followers of Isaac Newton
(1642-1727)
von Goethe
remarked
that he
Wolfgang
(1749-1832).
Wittgenstein
found Newtonian
questions
interesting but not gripping, and although
stein
called
1
The Duty of Genius
(New York: Free Press, 1990), pp.
Ray Monk,
Ludwig Wittgenstein:
Some Philosophical
Problems from Wittgenstein
Colour:
(Oxford: Basil
J.Westphal,
561-568;
11.
Blackwell,
1984), pp. 6-7,
2
Remarks on Colour,
ed. G. E. M. Anscombe
and trans. Linda L.
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
McAlister
and Margarete
of California
Sch?ttle
Press, 1978), p. 16e.
(Berkeley: University
Journal ofWorld History, Vol. 18, No. 4
? 2007 by University
of Hawai'i Press
383
384
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
he was
of Goethe,
he regarded his
toward the intentions
sympathetic
a
as
no
more
"it isn't
than
outline:
makeshift
(1810)
Theory of Colours
.
a
can
at
it...
Nor
is there
be
with
all.
Nothing
theory
predicted
really
or
crucis
the
could
decide
for
which
any experimentum
against
theory."3
in his
crucis of 1666, described
In Newton's
renowned
experimentum
to
scientist
used
demonstrate
the
that sun
glass prisms
Optiks
(1704),
a
mixture
of
of
different
colors,
rays
light) comprised
light (or white
rev
as previously
not a uniform, pure substance,
thought. A stunning
it provoked wonder
and controversy
well into the nineteenth
that his findings
about the composite
century.4 Newton
recognized
commonsense
to age-old,
nature of light ran counter
"I
assumptions:
above the rest appears Paradoxi
perswade my selfe that this assertion
call, &L it iswith most difficulty admitted."5
elation,
Newton
adopted the term "spectrum" (from Latin specere, "to look")
to characterize
his rainbow image of seven colors. His analysis moved
to those of
and painting
color theory from the realms of philosophy
and optics: he showed that color is not an inherent prop
mathematics
since Aristotle
b.c.e.) had main
erty of objects, as everyone
(384-322
tained, but instead is an illusion arising from the response of human
"For the Rays to speak properly
"In them there is nothing
else
to stir up a Sensation
of this or
is not green, the sky is not blue.
the cause of pure sun
championed
of light.6
visual apparatus to emissions
are not coloured," Newton
declared.
than a certain Power and Disposition
that Colour."7 Roses are not red, grass
A
Goethe
century after Newton,
in passionate
and
experience
subjective
light
3
tones:
"we find this eighth
see Monk,
toward Newtonian
attitude
On Wittgenstein's
questions,
p. 561.
and the
Newton
the Muse: Newton's
Demands
Optiks
Hope Nicolson,
Poets (Princeton,
Press, 1966); and Raymond
N.J.: Princeton
University
Eighteenth-Century
inArt, Myth,
and Science (Uni
B. Fraser, The Rainbow Bridge: Rainbows
L. Lee and Alistair
of the experi
For a description
State Press, 2001), pp. 207-241.
versity Park: Pennsylvania
mentum
or, A Treatise of the Reflections,
crucis, see Isaac Newton,
Inflec
Refractions,
Optiks;
in
and Gale E. Christiansen,
tions & Colours
1952), pp. 26-63;
of Light (New York: Dover,
Isaac Newton
and His Times
the Presence of the Creator:
(New York: Free Press,
1984), pp.
Ibid.,
p. ne.
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
4
See Marjorie
134-137,
443-446.
still attracts
In the Presence of the Creator,
in Christianson,
Cited
p. 102. The paradox
S. Smith,
"Human
attention:
the New York Times ( 19 July 2005) featured a synopsis of Glenn
Blue of the Daytime
and the Unsaturated
Color Vision
Journal of Physics 73,
Sky," American
no. 7 (2005): 590-597
6
Science and the Philosophy of Per
Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive
Evan Thompson,
in
Be Colors
"Can There
and H. Guerlac,
ception (London: Routledge,
1995), pp. 4-10;
Before Newton,"
the Dark? Physical Color Theory
Journal of the History
of Ideas 47, no. 1
91-104,
5
(1986):
7
3-20.
Newton,
Optiks,
p. 124.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
385
to its
science of colors] already nodding
wonder of the world [Newton's
and [we must] begin at once ... to
fall as a deserted piece of antiquity,
it from gable to roof downwards;
that the sun may at last
dismantle
."8 Focusing on the complex
shine onto the old nest of rats and owls...
of after-images,
colored
surfaces,
shadows, and reflecting
phenomena
of "physiological
that the existence
Goethe maintained
colors," colors
as actually perceived,
Newton
had
"fettered"
the
that
eyes of the
prove
scientific
with his overwhelming
thereby banishing
authority,
For
Newton's
science reduces Earth
color from human
Goethe,
reality.
to a gray ball revolving
in space, while his own Theory of Colours would
restore color to "the general dynamic flow of life and action which
the
to
in
As
loves
nature."9
says to
present age
recognise
Mephistopheles
a student in Faust, "My friend, all theory is grey, and green the golden
world
tree of life."10
deconstruction
of light troubled
those who
Indeed, the scientific
woman
to
A
exile
of
color
from
life.
the
everyday
objected
conceptual
in the dramatic
Newtonianism
Ladies
Francesco
the
by
for
dialogue
to a
voiced her distress at being "assimilated
( 1712-1764)
Algarotti
on
as
an
with
the
color
her
cheeks
much
of
illu
rainbow,"
supposedly
sion as the pretty trick made by sunshine and water vapor in the sky.11
a dinner party in 1817, John Keats
and the critic
(1795-1821)
lamented
that Newton
had "destroyed all
Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
u
it to a prism."
the poetry of the rainbow, by reducing
Three
years
of
later, however, Keats created poetry from the very disenchantment
At
the rainbow:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There
was
an
awful
rainbow
once
in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
8
von Goethe,
trans. Charles
Lock Eastlake
(Cam
Theory of Colours,
Johann Wolfgang
bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970), p. xliii.
9
contra Newton:
Polemics and the Project for a
Ibid., p. 298; see D. L. Sepper, Goethe
New Science of Color
Press, 1988), pp. 4-7; and Arthur
University
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
G. Zajonc,
"Goethe's Theory
of Color
and Scientific
Journal of Physics
Intuition," American
44, no. 4 (1976): 327-333.
10
von Goethe,
Faust, part one, trans. David Luke (Oxford: Oxford
Johann Wolfgang
Press, 1987), p. 61.
University
11
in Michael
Cited
Patterns of Invention: On
the Historical
Baxandall,
Explanation
of
Pictures
Conn.:
Yale University
Press, 1985), p. 79.
(New Haven,
12
in Penelope
The Immortal Dinner: A Famous Evening
Cited
Hughes-Hallett,
& Laughter in Literary London,
2002), p. 138.
1817 (Chicago: New Amsterdam,
of Genius
386
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2OO7
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine?
Unweave
a rainbow.
. . . 13
In considering
both color vision and color values,
It
bring together natural history and human history.
to understanding
contributes
ing account of evolution
of human nature and cultural patterns.14 The paper
of color vision?or
ining the nature and development
"weaving of the rainbow."
regarded as the evolutionary
this paper aims to
assumes that tak
the interactions
begins by exam
what may be
After discussing
and negative
attitudes
toward color, the historical
of
positive
weaving
is explored by looking at the spectrum of Eurasian
socie
the rainbow
terms of their percep
China, West Asia, and Europe?in
ties?Japan,
tions and evaluations
of color.
Visions
of Color
on color remains split between
those who
speculation
as intrinsically
see the
devoid of color and those who
a
as
of
color
of the
consequence
experience
subjective
straightforward
nature of colors themselves.15
Some
students of color, however,
have
tried to bridge the gap between Newton
("colors are in our heads") and
Goethe
the environmental
("colors are in the world") by emphasizing
context of color vision, the ways in which
the world and the brain col
awareness of hues. In this perspective,
laborate in generating
which has
a
in relating
culture
role
been called "ecological
central
optics,"
plays
Contemporary
see the world
13
in The Complete
Poems of John Keats
"Lamia,"
(New York: Modern
John Keats,
1994), p. 155.
see David Christian,
For works
that share the same assumption,
Maps
of Time: An
to Big History
of California
Introduction
Press, 2004); Fred Spier, The
(Berkeley: University
Structure of Big History:
From the Big Bang until Today (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam
University
Seven Ages of the Cosmos
Press, 1996); Eric Chaisson,
(New York: Colum
Epic of Evolution:
seeWilliam
to world history,
bia University
H. McNeill,
Press, 2006). On relating evolution
1 (1998):
and Theory
and the Scientific
Worldview,"
37, no.
1-13. On
History
"History
Library,
14
see John Tooby and Leda Cosmides,
evolution
and culture,
"The Psychological
Foundations
in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary
and the Generation
of Culture,"
ed.
Psychology
of Culture,
and John Tooby
Press,
(New York: Oxford University
Jerome H. Barklow, Leda Cosmides,
1992), pp.
15
The
19-136.
views are set forth, respectively,
in C. L. Hardin, Color for Philosophers
opposing
Mass.: Hackett,
Color and Color Perception: A
1988) and David R. Hilbert,
(Cambridge,
and
Realism
for the Study of Language
(Stanford, Calif.: Center
Study in Anthropocentric
Information,
1987).
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
387
the head to the heart, Newton
the visual system to the natural world,
in his attack on Newton,
to Goethe.16
In truth, as Goethe
suggested
are never far removed
from scientific
conclu
cultural considerations
sions. Thus Newton
identified seven primary colors in the spectrum to
in the musical
itmatch with the seven notes
make
scale, a correspon
of the divine harmony of nature.17 While
dence he saw as confirmation
science guided his refraction of light through the prism,
experimental
dictated
cultural assumptions
the number of colors he toted up.
since the 1960s,
builds
upon what experimenters
optics
Ecological
and
of
armed with
have
electron
DNA,
microscopes
knowledge
research for the first time provided
revealed about color vision. Their
the
for the Young-Helmho?tz-Maxwell
evidence
physiological
on
s
be
from
Newton
ory. Based
finding that any color could
produced
a mixture
and polymath
of at least three spectral colors, the physician
that all color sensations
Thomas
could
Young
(1773-1829)
proposed
in the retina that are sensitive,
be derived from three processes
respec
(1856),
tively, to blue, green, and red.18 In his Physiological Optics
von Helmholtz
extended
Herman
trichromatic
(1821-1894)
Young's
direct
("three-color")
theory of vision
in the retina?blue,
three hypothetical
by proposing
photo
absorb specific
green, and red?that
of light, thus accounting
for the principal
facts of color
wavelengths
mixture
of color perception.19 While
and the mechanism
Newton
it within
removed color from objects, Young and Helmholtz
located
pigments
of retinal physiology.
the complexities
same time as Helmholtz,
at
the
James Clerk Maxwell
Working
both
color
the splitting of light
studied
and
perception
(1831-1879)
in
three lines of investigation
by the prism. He aspired to reconcile
the Physiologists
and the Artists
have
color theory: "The Opticians,
each taken their own branch of this inquiry and have arrived at results,
of each other so that at
which
though all of them true are independent
16
On
see Evan Thompson,
Adrian
and Francisco
Palacios,
J. V?rela,
optics,
ecological
as a Case Study for Cognitive
Color Vision
Science,"
"Ways of Coloring:
Comparative
Behavioral
and Brain Sciences
Colour Vision,
1-74; and Thompson,
15, no. 1 (1992):
pp.
215-250.
17
theMuse,
"Father Castel
Newton
and
Demands
Mason,
Nicolson,
p. 86; and Wilton
and Art Criticism
His Color Clavecin,"
The Journal of Aesthetics
17, no. 1 (1958):
103-116.
to Newton,
colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
the seven prismatic
According
included
(Optiks, p. 50). He evidently
indigo to raise the total to the requisite
see K. McLaren,
for indigo and violet;
of seven; purple now is substituted
"Newton's
10, no. 4 (1985): 225-229.
Indigo," Cotar Research and Application
18
Colour Vision in theNineteenth
Paul D. Sherman,
Century: The Young-Helmholtz-Max
well Theory
(Bristol: Adam Hilger,
1981), pp. 1-18.
19
Ibid., pp. 81-92.
and violet
number
388
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
to each other."20 In the 1860s, after Max
first sight they seem opposed
determined
that the dynamic
and electric
interplay of magnetic
fields propelled
their movement
he
calculated
the speed
through space,
came
to
movement
of that
and
the astonishing
conclusion
that it was
same
area
as
In
for the speed of light.
of phys
the
that estimated
the
that light itself is an electromagnetic
ics, he thus demonstrated
phe
well
nomenon.
with Newton's
the discovery
mechanics,
Coupled
provided
with
Einstein
(1879-1955)
insight about the constant
speed of
light that led in 1905 to his theory of relativity.21 In the study of retinal
that light interacts with
physiology, Maxwell
proved mathematically
structures in the retina to give rise to the sensation of sight. In the mat
as they
ter of color vision, he showed that electromagnetic
vibrations,
impinge on the human retina, increase in frequency from the red to the
Albert
blue end of the visible spectrum.
Maxwell's
work revealed that Earth is saturated in electromagnetic
radiation from the sun, ranging from radio waves whose peak frequen
cies are a dozen kilometers
apart to cosmic rays separated by fractions
of a meter),
of a nanometer
(one billionth
many millions
oscillating
of times a second. Some of the radiation
passes through our bodies
some is experienced
as heat
(X-rays), some burns our skin (ultraviolet),
some
communication
for
and
be
and
may
(radar
(infrared),
employed
ultraviolet
shortwave broadcast).22 Those
(below
rays situated between
400 nm) and infrared (above 700 nm) constitute what is known as "the
visual perception
thus evolved to exploit
visible light octave."23 Human
as the wavelength
a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic
spectrum:
a
billionths
of
the
color change
from
meter,
400
eye
perceives
expands
from blue (400-490
nm) to yel
nm) to green (490-570
progressively
low (570-580
nm) to orange (580-610
nm) to red (610-700
nm).
an
com
is
in
the
first
the
eye
stage
exceedingly
only
Light reaching
in
in
retina
Cones
however.
the
take
visible
process,
light, with
plex
photons
molecule
quanta
representing
(particles
that transforms that radiation
of light) being absorbed by a
into an electrical nerve signal.
20
The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell,
ed.
James Clerk Maxwell,
P. M. Harman
Press, 1990),
University
1:675.
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
21
of the creation
of light from electromagnetic
On Maxwell's
fields and its
discovery
see Michio
Cosmos
for Einstein,
Kaku, Einsteins
(New York: W. W. Norton,
significance
pp. 26-29.
to Practice and Principles
Color: An Introduction
Rolf G. Kuehni,
(New York: John
& Sons,
Wiley
1997), pp. 3-4, 12.
23
inMan,
the Anatomy
and the Histology
S. L. Polyak, The Retina:
of the Retina
Ape,
L. Wall,
The
of Chicago
and Monkey
Press, 1941), p. 403; see George
(Chicago: University
of
Institute
Radiation
Cranbrook
Vertebrate
Hills, Mich.:
(Bloomfield
E;ye and its Adaptive
Science,
1942), p. 1.
2005),
22
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
389
a message
coded in
along as many as six different pathways,
to
structures
is
transmitted
deep in the
frequencies
color-wavelength
a
center of the brain. Short-wavelength
radiation
(with
peak sensitiv
at green),
at
radiation
blue), medium-wavelength
ity
(peak sensitivity
are
at
radiation
and long-wavelength
red)
reconfig
(peak sensitivity
Traveling
into a four-color
which
green, yellow, and red?in
system?blue,
are opposed?that
and red-green
the pairs of blue-yellow
is, they are
two.
of
them
the
other
col
with
each
primaries,
excluding
Secondary
ors function as bridges between
the primaries: green between
blue and
red and blue.24
yellow and red, purple between
yellow, orange between
seen
creates
all
the
colors
This "opponent processing"
system
by human
us
it
the
rainbow.
gives
beings;
ured
and Helmholtz
the speculations
of Young
located color
While
linked
the func
within
the retina, Maxwell's
theory
electromagnetic
to
most
in
existence.
the
fundamental
forces
As the
of
the
eye
tioning
is
color
French painter Paul C?zanne
"the
asserted,
(1839-1906)
place
where our brain and the universe meet."25
The
Weaving
Evolutionary
of
the
Rainbow
on the field of color
of brains and the universe
first encounter
term "the Cambrian
reaches back to what paleontologists
explosion."
From 543 million
the remarkably
short space of 5
years ago, within
of animal phyla expanded
million
from three to
years, the number
of
the
basis
thereafter
for
life on Earth.
the
all
diversity
thirty-eight,
vision
since
Creation
of eyes sparked the Cambrian
led to a
explosion
vast upsurge
in pr?dation, with a premium placed on development
of
a variety of body shapes with defensive
teeth, tentacles,
parts?shells,
on discerning,
adversar
claws, and jaws?and
duping, and devouring
as a sort of weapons
ies. Body color developed
technology,
employed
to hide from predators by means of disruptive
coloration
(camouflage)
or to warn them off by conspicuous
display, that is, by showing bright,
In
hues.26
color
first arose to help determine
who
short,
intimidating
The
ate dinner
24
and who
ended
up on the plate.
David
The Wisdom
Miller,
Press, 2000), pp. 34, 156;
of the Eye (London: Academic
Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology
Arnheim,
of the Creative Eye (Berkeley: Uni
Denis
of the
Press, 1974), pp. 352-353;
versity of California
Baylor, "Colour Mechanisms
Cam
ed. Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau
Eye," in Colour: Art & Science,
(Cambridge:
Press, 1995), p. 104.
bridge University
25
in Thompson,
Colour Vision, p. 215.
Cited
26
as a consequence
of the invention
of the eye, see Andrew
On the Cambrian
explosion
Parker, In the Blink of an Eye: How Vision Sparked the Big Bang of Evolution
(New York: Basic
Rudolf
Books,
2003),
especially
pp.
170-229,
232-233,
261-290.
390
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
The first great turning point in the evolution
of color, with momen
came at the end of the
tous consequences
for the future of humanity,
Cretaceous
years ago). The "crisis of the
period
(135 to 165 million
late Cretaceous,"
when an asteroid collided with the Earth and wiped
out the dinosaurs,
their great opportunity.27
gave mammals
They had
to 230
in
evolved
from mammal-like
the
Permian
280
(from
reptiles
into marsupial
million
and placental mam
years ago) and developed
mals during the Cretaceous.
of the dinosaurs,
Dominance
however,
harried them into the night. Taking
refuge in trees, our remote ances
tors made a living as nocturnal
animals
insectivores,
small, squirrel-like
for the most part, none bigger than an opossum
(or about the size of a
toaster
oven).
nature
the reign of the dinosaurs,
still lacked most of its
During
colors: plants did not produce flowers and colored
leaves until late in
the Cretaceous,
and birds, bees, and butterflies
had not yet evolved
to feast on their sucrose-laden
nectar.28 Since colors cannot be seen
on rods,
to concentrate
in the dark, the vision of mammals
evolved
structures
in
retina
vision
color-blind
the
that
mediate
(or achromatic)
in dim light. In all likelihood, mammals
lost a wavelength
cone, and
cones
to
their vision came to rely on rods supplemented
receptive
by
In other words, after mammals
found sanctuary
only two wavelengths.
in the night forest, they gave up trichromatic
vision
in favor of the
visual acuity provided by massive numbers of rods adapted to deal with
the shifting grays of a nocturnal
environment.29
survived with
They
a
two-color
vision,
(dichromatic)
only
nearly
indistinguish
modality
vision. They were no more able to see colors
able from monochromatic
can discriminate
than is a color-blind
hundreds
person: trichromatics
a
of colors, dichromatics
shades
of
few.
just varying
in the world
the 4,301
(distributed
species of mammals
Among
across twenty-one
four
of
catarrhine
class
orders),
species
primates?a
that includes Old World monkeys,
and
trichro
apes,
humans?regained
27
The phrase comes from Christian,
Maps of Time, p. 125.
28
in theAnimai World
Hilda Simon, The Splendor of Iridescence: Structural Colors
(New
York: Dodd, Mead & Company,
and Nathaniel
Peter W. Lucas,
1971 ), pp. 33-37;
J. Dominy,
"The Sensory Ecology
Daniel Osorio,
and Nayuta
of Primate Food Perception,"
Yamashita,
180.
10, no. 5 (2001):
Evolutionary Anthropology
29
"The Evolution
of Vertebrate
and Photoreceptors,"
Visual Pigments
J. K. Bowmaker,
in Vision and Visual Dysfunction,
vol. 2, Evolution
of the Eye and Visual System, ed. John R.
L. Gregory
and Richard
Fla.: CRC Press, 1991), pp. 73-76; and
(Boca Raton,
Conly-Dillon
Robert D. Martin
and Callum
F. Ross, "The Evolutionary
and Ecological
Context
of Primate
in The Primate Visual System: A Comparative
ed. Jan Kremers
Vision,"
(New York:
Approach,
are about 120 million
cones
rods and 7 million
John Wiley & Sons, 2005), pp. 9-25. There
in the retina.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
391
into daylight after the dinosaurs died out;
matic vision as they emerged
most mammals
remained night dwellers
and dichromatic.
The move
to diurnal existence
of primates from nocturnal
resulted in the human
to that of birds, fish, and
color sense bearing a stronger resemblance
insects than to that of the collateral mammalian
relatives of Homo sapi
ens.30 Like blue jays and bees rather than dogs and cats, human beings
see a wide variety of colors.31
to the
As primates gained superior color vision from the Paleocene
to
time
million
the
for
the
first
world
years ago),
38
Oligoc?ne
(65
into a range of hues. At
blossomed
the same time, other creatures
and plants also evolved
into ecological
and settled
niches.
Flower
buds
and
colored
radiated, developing
ing plants (angiosperms)
fruits;
vivid insects and birds colonized
the plants, attracted by their tints and
their pollen and seeds. Plants,
insects, birds, and
serving to disperse
in tandem, with color playing a crucial role in the
evolved
primates
survival and proliferation
of each. The heart of these developments
lack of cloud cover and there
where
lay in upland tropical Africa,
in selective
fore greater luminance
resulted
pressure for
evolutionary
intense
coloration.32
Catarrhine
vision
trichromatic
primates
developed
by modifica
tion and replication
of an existing
fundamental
mechanism
gene?a
of Darwinian
evolution.33 When
primates gained an additional wave
30
"Evolution
in Conly-Dillon
Christa Neumeyer,
of Color Vision,"
and Gregory, Vision
and Visual Dysfunction,
Insects and Flowers: The Biology of a
pp. 287, 299; and F. G. Barth,
trans. M. A. Biederman-Thorson
(Princeton,
Press,
N.J.: Princeton
Partnership,
University
1985), pp. in-115.
31
see the same colors as birds and bees. Relative
to human
They do not, however,
sight,
the vision of insects and birds is shifted about 100 nm toward the shortwave
end of the spec
in
to
us is
for
the
ultraviolet
trum, thereby allowing
range; hence what appears yellow
sight
seen by the bee as "bee-purple,"
a blend of ultraviolet
and yellow. For a colored
illustration
see Stephen
of how a human
and a dog perceive
the same landscape,
The Truth
Budiansky,
About Dogs: An Inquiry into the Ancestry,
Social Conventions,
Mental Habits,
and Moral Fiber
Familiaris
(New York: Penguin
Books, 2001), p. 120.
o/Canis
32
Robert W. Sussman,
"How Primates
Invented
the Rainforest
in
and Vice Versa,"
Creatures
ed. L. Alterman,
Gerald A. Doyle,
and M.
Prosmians,
of the Dark: The Nocturnal
Press, 1995), pp. 1-10; Gerald H. Jacobs, "The Distribution
Kay Izard (New York: Plenum
and Nature
of Colour Vision
among the Mammals,"
Biological Reviews of theCambridge Philo
and David M. Hunt, Gerald H. Jacobs, and James
sophical Society 68, no. 3 (1993): 413-471;
K. Bowmaker,
"The Genetics
and Evolution
of Primate Visual Pigments,"
in Kremers, The
Primate Visual System, pp. 78-83. On genetic mechanisms
for color mutation
in birds and
see Sean B. Carroll,
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New
Science of Evo Devo
mammals,
and theMaking
(New York: W. W. Norton,
of theAnimal Kingdom
2005), pp. 223-247.
33
Examination
of DNA
of the retinal chromosomes
reveals that the middleand long
on the sex-specific
sit side-by-side
X chromosome
genes, which
gene, share 98
wavelength
percent of their DNA,
sion (or meiosis).
See
that they originally
doubled up in the process of cell divi
indicating
'"Tho' she kneel'd
in that place where
':
J. D. Mollon,
they grew...
392
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2007
the
length sensor, they plunged
deep into the world of color, with
in the green-yellow-red
range of the spectrum.
ability to discriminate
in populations
Random
mutations,
however,
gain ground
only when
to individual
survival value
In the case of
organisms.
they provide
a powerful
sense of color bestowed
a significant nutri
early primates,
itmeant
tional advantage:
they could expand their diet from insects to
the high energy portions
of plants?seeds,
nuts, fruit, and nourishing
a background
of green tropical foliage, fruits stand out
leaves. Against
as yellow, orange, and red while
leaves with the most protein generally
tint. A mammal
vision
have a red or yellowish-red
with dichromatic
would
be effectively
orange, or red would
is not palatable.34
blinded
appear
to these resources,
for anything
to its eyes as dark green, signaling
yellow,
that it
In the very long term, the beginning
of the development
that led
to the huge brain of Homo
to
be
back
tracked
the
neural
sapiens may
over
means
of
called
for
elevation
the
other
of
eye
acquir
redesign
by
restruc
information.
The brain was hierarchically
ing and processing
new skills arising from extensive
tured to accommodate
employment
of
directed
vision,
perception,
frontally
precise hand
sight?depth
at
for
coordination,
scanning
object recognition
predators,
perpetual
a distance,
creation
of
the
of mental
environment,
maps
purposeful
of edible resources by color.
behavioral
responses, and identification
on
their cone-poor
With
vision, our fellow mammals
rely mainly
and auditory
the olfactory
senses; they live and die by the nose and
ear. Whereas
dogs have an infinitely better sense of smell than we do,
the total number of nerve fibers they possess going from the eye to the
brain is 86 percent smaller than in humans. As sight rose to dominance
over smell among the primates,
their eyes grew larger, whereas
their
of Primate Colour Vision,"
and Origins
Journal of Experimental
Biology 146 (1989):
two chances
two copies of the X chromosome,
for
Since
females have
they have
21-38.
a red or green gene. But males
have only one X chromosome,
and if it is defective,
they
is pronounced
the incidence
of red-green
color-blindness
lack a backup; hence
among men
of the population)
and uncommon
among women
(less than 0.5 percent);
(about 8 percent
The Uses
see James T. Enns, The Thinking Eye, the Seeing Brain: Explorations
inVisual Cognition
(New
York: Norton,
2004), pp. 88-89.
34
and the Evolution
of Primate
Katherine
Melton,
"Foraging Behavior
Intelligence,"
in Machiavellian
Social Expertise and the Evolution
Apes
of Intellect inMonkeys,
Intelligence:
and Humans,
ed. Richard W. Byrne and Andrew Whiten
Press, 1988),
(Oxford: Clarendon
of Color, Calories,
Nathaniel
and Peter W. Lucas,
J. Dominy
"Significance
to the Visual Ecology
American
of Catarrhines,"
Journal of Primatology
62, no.
and Wen-Hsiung
and Nathaniel
3 (2004):
J. Dominy,
Svenning,
Jens-Christian
189-207;
in the Evolution
of Primate Color Vision,"
Journal of Human
Li, "Historical
Contingency
of
and his colleagues
the significance
Evolution
44, no. 1 (2003): 25-45. Dominy
emphasize
reddish leaves over fruit as a food resource for early primates.
pp. 285-305;
and Climate
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
393
muzzles turned smaller, retracting to the plane of the face.35 In addition,
sense is connected
to the brain's limbic system, which
the olfactory
monitors
and biochemical
emotional
functions
processes,
regulating
unconscious
behavior
such as the reflex for food, sleep, and sex; but the
to the neocortex,
the seat of conscious
visual sense is linked directly
ness
is
from the outside world
where
information
and understanding,
more
brain
of
the
human
In
half
of
that
than
fact,
portion
processed.36
to handling
vision resulted
Trichromatic
is devoted
visual intelligence.
in great demands being placed on the brain of early primates, helping
ramp up the size of the organ relative to body mass (or the encephaliza
tion quotient)
after
200,000
by a factor of twenty
years
by the time Homo
sapiens emerged
ago.37
in the
its effects on the brain at a critical turning point
Through
to
the eventual
color vision contributed
of primates,
early evolution
of color
of symbols and language. Understanding
human employment
to the conceptual
remains resistant
world
that color
itself, however,
vision helped bring forth. This is a consequence
of the very ubiquity of
in conditions
it is always there,
of darkness or blindness,
color: except
an
condition
of existence,
equivalent
indispensable
impossible to evade,
to a fifth dimension
of space-time.
the four dimensions
complementing
Light itself, the source of color, never stops or slows but always travels
at light speed, roughly 670 million miles per hour; it has no quanta and
no specific frequencies
them.38 In fact,
until humans
actually measure
we
see
never
for
the substance
that
Maxwell
color,
only
light,
suggested
it utterly invisible to both eyes and instru
and speed of the latter make
ments:
"All vision is colour vision, for it is only by observing differences
the forms of objects."39 Light, then, may be
of colour that we distinguish
a notion
concept,
employed
regarded as little more than a serviceable
35
Vertebrate Eye,
See Budiansky,
The Truth About Dogs, pp. in-112,
118-123; Wall,
on Human
and H. Langdon,
The Human
pp. 206-207;
Strategy: An Evolutionary
Perspective
Press, 2005), pp. 28, 56-57.
(Oxford: Oxford University
Anatomy
36
Victor S. Johnston, Why We Feel: The Science of Human Emotions
(Cambridge, Mass.:
and Jonathan H. Turner, The
Perseus Books,
Alexandra
Maryanski
1999), pp. 116-119;
and the Evolution of Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Social Cage: Human Nature
53-54.
46-49,
1992), pp. 36-40,
37
Human
Enns, Thinking Eye, p. 51; Langdon,
Strategy, pp. 134, 150-153,
160-170;
The Prehistory of theMind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and
and Steven Mithen,
The earliest fossils of Homo
Science
and Hudson,
(London: Thames
1996), pp. 229-232.
are dated to 160,000 years ago.
sapiens now known
38
and the Quest
Brian Greene,
The Elegant Universe:
Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions,
the
Ultimate Theory
House,
(New York: Random
for
1999), p. 24. On color as an additional
color effects rather than light, see Patricia Sloane, The Visual
dimension
and on perceiving
Press,
Nature
39
Press, 1989), pp. 100-105,
(New York: Design
of Color
in Sloane, Visual Nature
Cited
of Color, p. 97.
231,
239,
244.
394
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
in the mathematics
of relativity
theory, while color is the reality of liv
which
the
under
the world takes shape. In this
creatures,
ing
modality
as
Goethe
believed,
trumps Newton.
perspective,
Wittgenstein
Yet a paradoxical
of color being all-encompassing,
consequence
a fundamental
is that
and inescapable
element
of the human world,
never
while everyone
there
has
been
about
it,
agreement
experiences
what people actually perceive when
they see and name a color. As a
constituent
is linked to the neocortex;
the
visual
color
of
sense,
part
seem
it
is
but as a psychological
phenomenon,
radically
subjective,
to
matrix
the
emotional
the
of
limbic
system.
ingly reporting directly
of red reach the upper stories of the brain, feelings
While
wavelengths
color typically associated with fire, anger, desire, danger,
about red?a
and bloodshed?bubble
up from its cellar.40 As Goethe
reports, "I have
to whom
its effect was intolerable
if they
known men of education
to see a person dressed
in a scarlet cloak on a grey, cloudy
chanced
to color more on the basis of sub
In short, humans
respond
emotion
than on grounds of rational consideration.
This helps
as well
in
attractions
all
of
color
cultures
the
(chromophilia)
explain
as the nearly universal hostility
in
toward bright color (chromophobia)
day."41
liminal
traditional
Chromophilia
societies.
and
Chromophobia
is a notoriously
Color
every attempt
protean
eluding
phenomenon,
to categorize
it. All human beings with normal
sight possess the same
but what colors individuals
visual equipment;
really see can be diffi
on what one reports
in
last
the
cult to establish,
analysis
dependent
of sensory
color is the only dimension
about them. Endlessly contested,
awareness
that also is taken entirely for granted. Wittgenstein
regarded
in applying
this as an intractable problem
logic to the question of color:
'How blue the sky
of the sky and say to yourself
inten
it
do
you
philosophical
spontaneously?without
that this impression of colour
idea never crosses your mind
tions?the
belongs only to you."*1
"Look
at the blue
is!'?When
40
in Space, Time, and Light (New
See Leonard
Shlain, Art & Physics: Parallel Visions
Morrow
and Company,
York: William
1991), p. 171; and Peter K. Kaiser,
"Physiological
1 (1984):
to Color: A Critical
Cofor Research and Application
9, no.
Review,"
Response
29-36.
41
p. 310.
Theory of Colours,
trans. G. E. M. Anscombe
(Oxford:
Investigations,
Philosophical
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
the ancient
of the blue sky, see Peter
and beguiling
Blackwell,
2001), p. 8ie. On
question
Pesic, Sky in a Bottle (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
42
Goethe,
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
395
the breathtaking
That radical subjectivity,
range of
coupled with
tints created by chemical
there is not even any agree
science, means
ment on the number of colors that exist. The Benjamin Moore
paint
in its stores for selecting named
company keeps 3,400 colored graphics
paints that are created using twelve basic tints. Since any set of graph
to create a unique color, a customer
in principle
ics can be employed
of shades available.
has countless millions
Benjamin Moore
perforce
to concoct
strains the resources of the thesaurus
for its
designations
run
of
shades
the
from
"sweet
thus
the
gamut
nearly fifty
offerings:
pink
naivete"
and "blushing bride" to "hot lips" and "rosy glow."
estimates
The Optical
that the eye can discrim
Society of America
10
inate between
million
and
million
colors; other experts main
7.5
can be distinguished.
tain that no more than about 180 hues effectively
there are some 3,000 English color names, people regularly
Although
use just a dozen. In all cultures, most colors are christened
after specific
as
in
the
such
environment,
things
peach, coffee, gold, turquoise, and
alabaster.43
named colors in
red, the most commonly
cultures are green and yellow.44 From at
con
the Chinese
(ca. 551-479
b.c.e.),
same
ones
are
sidered those the canonical
"five colors" (wucai). The
core
most frequently mentioned
in the Qur'an
and remain the
colors
colors dur
throughout West Asia;
they were also the most prominent
ing most of the European medieval
period as well as in pre-Columbian
After
black, and
of
languages
premodern
least the time of Confucius
white,
the
It is significant
that red, yellow, and green figure in that
Mesoamerica.45
order in the progression
of the visible wavelength
spectrum, whereas
the succession
of black and white
followed by the cluster of red-yel
the order in which
the ability to discern colors
represents
low-green
first was acquired by early primates.
Studies
indicate
that the same
43
in On Signs, ed.
Umberto
Conditions
the Colours We
Eco, "How Culture
See,"
Marshall
(Baltimore:
Press, 1985), pp. 167-168;
Sloane,
Johns Hopkins
University
Blonsky
Visual Nature
Art and Visual Perception,
pp. 332-333.
of Color, pp. 5, 14; and Arnheim,
44
For ease of exposition,
In fact,
white,
black, and gray are referred to here as colors.
is standard
in traditional
societies. On development
such inclusion
in tra
of color naming
see Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality
ditional
and
societies,
Evolution
and Los Angeles:
of California
Press, 1969). But Berlin and
(Berkeley
University
in an invariable
for the universal
of color names
appearance
Kay's argument
evolutionary
won
see Barbara Saunders,
has not generally
for a critique,
The
acceptance;
progression
Invention of Basic Colour Terms (Utrecht:
ISOR, 1992).
45
Susan Bush and Hsio-yen
eds., Early Chinese Texts on Painting
Shih,
(Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1985), p. 109; Erika Friedel, "Colors and Culture Change
in Southwest
and Serge Gruzinski,
The
Iran," Language and Society 8, no. 1 (1979): 51-68;
The Incorporation
into theWestern World,
16th-18th
Conquest
of Indian Societies
of Mexico:
trans. Eileen Corrigan
Centuries,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1993), p. 173.
JOURNAL
396
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2007
in many
five colors possess
the greatest perceptual
salience
cultures
out
most
and that very young children
readily from other
pick them
are influenced
this suggests that color preferences
hues.46 All
power
of color vision:
selective
fully by the early development
evolutionary
that our primate
forebears developed
pressure determined
perceptual
out the color space which
in
remains dominant
that mapped
to colors obviously
around the world.47 The names assigned
to the language used, but the colors universally
selected
vary according
systems
cultures
as most
important
are
the
same
everywhere.
the difficulties
of pinning
semantics
down
color
Nonetheless,
as cul
entire
when
inasmuch
become
complex
studying
populations
tures perceive
and codify color in quite different ways. The people on
an atoll in the Solomon
"don't talk much
Islands, reportedly
Bellona,
about colour here" since they identify only three basic hues: white/
and red, with
the latter encompassing
the conven
light, black/dark,
tional shades of blue, green, brown, and purple.48 At the other end of
view reality as
the Desana
of the Columbian
Amazon
the spectrum,
a stream
and
energies coursing
through plants, animals,
seen
as
a
amount
is
endowed
with
of
individuals;
every person
given
returns to the sun, the treasury and fount of color,
such energy, which
at death. The Huichol
believe
of the Sierra Madre of northwest Mexico
with them in the language of color, a
that gods and spirits communicate
form and always materi
tongue in which hues take geometric
visionary
alize in a kaleidoscopic
array, not as single, isolated tones.49 According
of chromatic
to Garcilaso
de la Vega
(1539-1616)
in his Royal Commentaries
of the
46
in Language
of Color
and Culture,"
"Tutorial on the Importance
James A. Schirillo,
and Charles
"Color
Research and Application
26, no. 3 (2001):
179-192;
J. Lumsden,
and Culture,"
between
Genes
A Possible Concordance
Proceedings
of the
Categorization:
National Academy
82, no. 17 (1985): 5805-5808.
of Sciences in the United States of America
47
to
of Colors: An Adaptation
"The Perceptual
See Roger N. Shephard,
Organization
in Barklow, Cosmides,
and Tooby, Adapted Mind,
of the Terrestrial World,"
pp.
Regularities
in the Primates,"
"The Evolution
of Color Vision
Peter H. Stephenson,
Journal
495-532;
and Berlin
and Kay, Basic Color Terms, pp.
Evolution
2, no. 5 (1973): 379-386;
of Human
Color
14-23,
104-109.
48
talk much
about colour here': A
"'We don't
Rolf Kuschel
and Torben Monberg,
on Bellona
On
the
Semantics
9, no. 2 (1974):
213-242.
Island," Man
Study of Colour
see Anita
in other cultures,
Red
dominance
of the same three colors
Jacobson-Widding,
as a Mode
in the Ritual
White-Black
by Colours
of Thought: A Study of Triadic Classification
(Uppsala: Acta Universe
Symbolism and Cognitive Thought of the Peoples of the Lower Congo
in Cultural Anthropology,
tatis Uppsaliensis,
Studies
1979).
Uppsala
49
of the Andes
"Sweet Colors,
Constance
Classen,
Fragrant Songs: Sensory Models
American
and Hope MacLean,
and the Amazon,"
17, no. 4 (1990):
722-735;
Ethnologist
the Huichol
Indians of Mexico,"
and Shamanic
Vision
"Sacred Colors
among
Journal of
Research 57, no. 3 (2001): 305-323.
Anthropological
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
397
saw a rainbow, a disturbing
sacred symbol, "they
Incas, when Peruvians
and place their hand in front, for they said if
used to close their mouth
their teeth to it, it wore and decayed
them."50
they exposed
the color values of relatively
cultures
When
(as char
sophisticated
some
measure
acterized by density of urban life, organized
and
religion,
a great deal more
of literacy) are taken into consideration,
informa
tion becomes
available
than is the case when examining
primate color
or the color beliefs of remote Amazonian
societies.
the
Still,
sources
on
concentrate
remains
the
per
subject
Surviving
complex.
vision
pay
spectives of the elite?the
wealthy, well born, and powerful?and
to the use and perception
little attention
of color by general popula
art criticism,
tions. And while textiles, painting,
and literature provide
there was virtually no discussion
of color theory in
useful information,
most
cultures
before
1800.
inmost societies. Bright
and chromophobia
coexisted
Chromophilia
was
in
color typically
looked upon with ambivalence:
valued highly
some respects, denigrated
were
in others. Colored materials
sort
of any
pigment from plants and minerals was painstaking
costly, for processing
since it ordinarily
and laborious.
It was also repugnant
required using
such as stale human or animal urine, dung, saltpeter, rancid
ingredients
olive oil, sour red wine, ox and sheep blood, vinegar, and brine of pick
led fish.51 A twelfth-century
European dyeing manual
suggested that a
azure
color is obtained
into
good
by stirring pulverized white marble
water
ismixed
into
hot dung for a day or so, after which
indigo-laden
at the time of Rembrandt
the brew.52 Dutch
pigment manufacturers
a pure white for canvas painting by locking clay
obtained
( 1606-1669)
pots of vinegar and lead in a hot sealed room with buckets of manure
for ninety days so that flakes of lead carbonate
(for lead-white coloring)
could be produced
through acidic action.53
a few literally were worth their
all pigments were expensive,
While
was
in gold. Ultramarine
from the mineral
weight
processed
lapis lazuli,
inAfghanistan;
in seventeenth-century
which was mined
known
Eng
land as "the diamond of all colours," the dazzling blue cost the present
50
Garcilaso
de la Vega, Royal Commentaries
of the Incas and General History
of Peru,
trans. Harold V. Livermore
of Texas Press, 1966),
(Austin: University
1:183. On rainbows
power, see Lee and Fraser, Rainbow Bridge, p. 26.
regarded as possessing malignant
51
Victoria
Books,
of the Palette (New York: Ballantine
Finlay, Color: A Natural History
2002), pp. 186, 230, 240, 287, 369.
52
of Chi
Philip Ball, Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color
(Chicago: University
cago Press, 2001), pp. 93-94.
53
Finlay, Color, pp. no-iii.
398
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
of roughly $2,000 per pound.54 During
the reign of the
day equivalent
Roman
the
Diocletian
famous
emperor
(or Phoeni
(284-305),
Tyrian
murex
eastern
from
derived
the
Mediterranean
shellfish
cian) purple
was used to dye cloth that cost 50,000 denarii per pound?or
the wages
of a skilled craftsman for three years. Saffron yellow came from the thin
stamens of a purple crocus cultivated
in India, Persia, and Asia Minor,
two pounds of which called for harvesting
170,000 flowers. A bright red
came from the kermes scale insect, which
is parasitic on evergreen oaks
are killed with vinegar
after huge quantities
amounts
minute
larvae yields
of vermilion
seven and a half
(diminutive
o?vermis,
"worm"). In medieval
England,
of an
yards of fine scarlet cloth dyed with kermes cost the equivalent
same
artisan's income for almost six years.55 In Europe during the
time,
a small block of woad pigment,
a blue dye processed
from an indigenous
around
the Mediterranean;
and dried in the sun, the
cobalt
China,
plant, was known as "blue gold." In eighteenth-century
a vibrant blue, was worth "twice the
oxide from Persia, used for making
ore yielded
value of gold," since every sixteen ounces of the unrefined
of an ounce of pure pigment.56
just six-tenths
world. An
Brilliant
color was rare in the premodern
individual
or exam
color television,
strolling
watching
through a supermarket,
saturated hues
ining a box of crayons sees a larger number of bright,
in a few moments
in
in a traditional
than did most persons
society
a lifetime. Color
immense
therefore became
endowed with
symbolic
suggesting an actuality beyond
significance,
reality. From the origin of
color coding was a universal
civilized
societies,
conceptual
phenom
enon,
used
for identifying
elements,
tions, physical
and venerated
symbols.57
status, social ranks, cardinal direc
political
moral
virtues,
rituals, holy days,
liturgical
In addition,
the exorbitant
of col
expense
54
c. 1600-1835:
A Study in English Documentary
R. D. Harley, Artists' Pigments,
Sources
Scientific,
(London: Butterworth
1982), pp. 43-45.
55
A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage,
and theQuest for the Color
Amy Butler Greenfield,
100; and
p. 20; Ball, Bright Earth, pp. 65-66,
(New York: HarperCollins,
2005),
of Desire
in Cloth
Scarlet
"The Medieval
and the Economies
of Sartorial
John H. Munro,
Splendor,"
inMedieval
ed. N. B. Harte
and K. G. Ponting
and Clothing
(London: Heinemann
Europe,
Educational
Books,
1983),
56
Michel
Pastoureau,
N.J.: Princeton
University
nese Pottery and Porcelain:
p. 66.
trans. Markus
I. Cruse
Blue: The History
(Princeton,
of a Color,
Press, 2001), p. 64; and Stephen W. Bushell, Description
of Chi
Press,
Being a Translation
of the T'ao Shuo (Oxford: Clarendon
1910), p. 60.
57
in the Geography
in Read
of Religions,"
See Paul Fickler, "Fundamental
Questions
and Marvin W. Mikesell
ed. Philip L. Wagner
ings in Cultural Geography,
(Chicago: Uni
and Jean Filliozat,
"Classement
des couleurs et
Press, 1962), pp. 99-102;
versity of Chicago
in Probl?mes de la couleur, ed. Ignace Myerson
des lumi?res en Sanskrit,"
(Paris: SEVPEN,
1957), pp. 303-311.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
399
that some features of the
ored materials,
dyed cloth, meant
especially
a
sort
of the transcen
of
reflection
world
itself represented
mundane
sacred ceremonies,
dent, elevating
royal celebrations,
public pageants,
revels above everyday experience.
and aristocratic
carnival festivities,
Such events represented
fleeting eruptions of color in a dull brown and
the occasions
hues endowing
with the scintillating
green environment,
a
and
Above
with
manifest
all, as the poet
patent of privilege
splendor.
courts
served as
Thomas
grumbled,
princely
(i605-1635)
Randolph
arenas of color: "As once in blacke I disrespected
walkt
in their Tissues stalkt."58
ing courtiers
Dyed garments were the most visible, widespread,
Where
/
glitter
and extensively
Rural labor
used signs of social status and conspicuous
consumption.
ers and common
fabrics of
dressed in homespun
townsfolk
everywhere
lackluster tones, mainly washed-out
browns, blues, and grays. In north
in natural
ern Europe during the late medieval
shades
period, wool
Clerics were supposed
of tan or gray provided most of the clothing.
of pure white but had to settle for
linen liturgical vestments
since the various whitening
of light gray and yellowish-white
results.59
agents, such as ash, chalk, and magnesium,
yielded muddy
were
some
common
for
hues
In sixteenth-century
clothing
England,
to wear
shades
as "horseflesh,"
"rat's color," "pease porridge," and
"gooseturd,"
In
"fleas belly," "Paris mud," and
France,
eighteenth-century
"puke."60
a
at the same
brown
dark
cloth. In China
identified
"goose-droppings"
known
and "dribbling
time, "camel lung," "rat skin," "nose mucus,"
spittle"
colors.61
numbered
among the disagreeable
the elite could afford or legally wear clothing of certain colors.
Only
low-status persons
almost everywhere
Sumptuary
prohibited
legislation
from dressing in the sort of colors and costumes worn by those in privi
samurai, Chinese
mandarins,
Javanese chiefs,
leged circles. Japanese
Venetian
Swahili oligarchs, Byzantine
Indian Brahmans,
ecclesiastics,
and Maya war
French aristocrats, Spanish hildagos, Aztec
patricians,
riors?all
dressed in costly dyed garments
commoners.
from color-deprived
that set them proudly
apart
58
in Ingrid D. Rowland,
Ancients
and Mod
The Culture
Cited
of the High Renaissance:
erns in Sixteenth-Century
Rome (Cambridge:
Press, 1998), p. 92.
University
Cambridge
59
Pastoureau,
Blue, p. 35.
60
in Jane Schneider,
The Political
"Peacocks
and Penguins:
of Euro
Cited
Economy
and Colors," American
5, no. 3 (1978): 428.
pean Cloth
Ethnologist
61
Panorama
Louis-Sebastien
Mercier,
of Paris: Selections from Tableau de Paris, ed. Jer
trans. Helen
Park: Pennsylvania
and Jeremy D. Popkin
emy D. Popkin,
Simpson
(University
and
State University
Press, 1999), p. 63; Bushell, Description
of Chinese Pottery, pp. 49-50;
R. Sayer, ed. and trans., Ching-t?-ch?n
t'ao-lu or The Potteries of China
(London:
Geoffrey
Routledge
and Kegan
Paul,
1951),
p. 55.
OF WORLD
JOURNAL
400
DECEMBER
HISTORY,
2OO7
the use of
however,
generally
grandees,
disparaged
that "the
Japan, a poet observed
bright shades. In tenth-century
now is obsessed with color, and people s hearts are as fickle as
abound."62 The Chinese
flowers, only idle songs and mutable matters
Daoist classic Dao Dejing,
warning
against love of pleasure and beauty,
asserted that "the five colors will blind the eye" to spiritual perception.63
an ornamental
color represented
For Plato
(ca. 429-ca.
347 b.c.e.),
Color-coded
many
world
of the ephemeral
and capricious,
while Aristo
illusion, the epitome
that "the most attractive
colours would never yield as
tle maintained
of
much pleasure as a definite
colour."64 St. Augustine
image without
are
to
"a
confessed
that
and
beautiful
my eyes
Hippo
delight
(354-430)
varied forms, glowing and pleasant colours," yet he scorned the "queen
sweetness
to sea
of colours" who "works by a seductive
and dangerous
son the life of those who blindly
love the world."65
In the same tradition,
the monastic
reformer St. Bernard of Clair
vaux ( 1090-1153),
who regarded flamboyant
hues as a devilish
cloak
are
"We
thrown over God's Creation,
blinded
colors!"66
exclaimed,
by
Erasmus
stated that "wearing clothes
that
Desiderius
(ca. 1469-1536)
are striped and multicolored
means wanting
to look like mountebanks
In the sixteenth
railed
and monkeys."67
century, a Protestant minister
an
an
as
to
tints
of
offense
idolization
God,
appear
against alluring
ances that subverts spiritual truths:
Every man has fallen
ion,
fangles,
and
garish
in love with himself
clothes
...
in the
... his mind
judgment
is set on fash
of wise
men,
such
[people] are but a blowne bladder, painted over with so many colours,
stuft full of pride and envy ... in whomsoever
such [outward] badges of
vanitie
appears,
it is a sure
token
there
is a stinking
puddle
of vainglory
within.68
62
trans.
in Classic Japanese Verse,
Ooka, The Colors of Poetry: Essays
V. Lento
and Thomas
(Rochester, Mich.:
Katydid Books,
1991), p. 38.
in Jerome Silbergeld,
and Principles of
Chinese Painting Style: Media, Methods,
of Washington
Form (Seattle: University
Press, 1982), p. 26.
64
trans. S. Halliwell
of North
Carolina
Poetics,
Aristotle,
(Chapel Hill: University
of color, see Jacqueline
The Elo
Press, 1987), p. 38. On classical depreciation
Lichtenstein,
Cited
Takako Lento
63
Cited
in Makoto
trans. Emily McVarish
in the French Classical Age,
of Color: Rhetoric and Painting
of California
Press, 1993), pp. 37-54.
(Berkeley: University
65
trans. Henry Chadwick
Saint Augustine,
(Oxford: Oxford
University
Confessions,
Press, 1991), pp. 209-210.
66
in theMiddle
in Herman
Cited
and Divine:
Shades of Meaning
Pleij, Colors Demonic
(New York: Columbia
Press), pp. 3-4.
University
Ages and After
67
in Daniel
in the Ancien
Dress and Fashion
Cited
The Culture
Roche,
of Clothing:
trans. Jean Birrell
Press, 1994), p. 202.
R?gime,
University
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
68
in Foggy London:
in Jane Schneider,
Fashion
Cited
"Fantastical
Colors
The New
ca. 1600, ed. Lena Cowen
in Material
Potential
of the Late Sixteenth
London,
Century,"
Orlin
of Pennsylvania
Press, 2000), p. 118.
University
(Philadelphia:
quence
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
401
to a more secular age, Goethe's
remark still sums up the per
Speaking
in
cultures:
of
contemporary
society
spective
upper-class
"people of
to colours."69
refinement have a disinclination
In most
the elite displayed
societies,
pronounced
chromophobia.
In their eyes, bright color was the province
of barbarians, children,
the
it
irra
and
the
the
rabble,
ignorant;
subjective,
exemplified
superficial,
sensual, disorderly, and deceptive. As an integral
tional, self-indulgent,
as it
color was despised
inasmuch
part of this sweeping defamation,
was seen to be cherished
were
men
who
(all
by women,
agreed) vain,
and driven by emotion.
flighty, foolish, shallow, seductive,
Shape and
line in painting
and
the male;
epitomized Apollonian
self-discipline
color personified Dionysian
abandon and the female.70 The color theo
a secularized Augustinian
rist Charles
Blanc
(1813-1882)
conveyed
tones: "The union of design and color is necessary
to
view in elevated
man
as
woman
man
to
is
union
the
of
and
just
beget painting
beget
over color. Otherwise
its preponderance
kind, but design must maintain
fell
painting
speeds to its ruin: it will fall through color just as mankind
moral
color, the patriarchy maintained
through Eve."71 In depreciating
and social standards as well as aesthetic principles.
is at the root of the virtually uni
The very nature of color vision
versal prejudice
unavoidable
against color itself. The mute,
visibility
to theoretical
it resistant
of color makes
and thereby
understanding
to denounce
critics and philosophers
it as an unruly, disrup
provokes
tive element. While
that
touch, taste, hearing, and smell are modalities
involve physical confirmation
than one sense organ, color is
by more
it in a vulnerable
accessed only by sight, thereby leaving
conceptual
since it cannot be physically
its unique,
corroborated. With
position
color is the common
of human
properties,
experience
disconcerting
in the heav
ity yet remains existentially
subjective.72 Like a rainbow
to grasp and evanescent
it is impossible
in thought;
it transcends
the intellect,
and evades categorization.
language, clouds
Receptive
nor facile explanation,
to neither description
it
color and the feelings
evokes seem beyond reason and control. As the Russian painter Wassily
ens,
69
Goethe,
and Symbolism
70
p. 329;
Theory of Colours,
and Los Angeles:
(Berkeley
see John Gage, Color and Meaning:
Art,
of California
Press,
University
1999),
Science,
pp.
30
II, Cofor Codes: Modern Theories
Shlain, Art & Physics, p. 171; Charles A. Riley
of
in Philosophy,
and Psychology
Literature, Music,
(Hanover,
Painting and Architecture,
Press of New England,
University
1995), p. 6.
71
in Riley, Color Codes, p. 6.
Cited
72
see Mohan
On
of color experience,
the uniqueness
"Our Knowledge
of
Matthen,
in Naturalism,
and Intentionality,
ed. Julian Scott Mclntosh
Colour,"
Evolution,
(Calgary:
of Calgary
Press, 2001), pp. 215-244.
University
Color
N.H.:
JOURNAL
402
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
influ
wrote, "Color is a power which directly
Kandinsky
(i866-1944)
ences the soul. Color
is the keyboard,
the eyes are the hammers,
the
soul is the piano with many
strings."73
The conceptual
difficulties
by color are accentuated
presented
by
another
consideration:
pure saturated colors are primarily
synthetic
ismeagerly
creations
since nature actually
endowed with them. Except
and blossoms?legacies
for vivid birds, beetles, butterflies,
of the late
to the human
is presented
Cretaceous
crisis?the
natural world
eye
a
in
Bril
browns
and
beneath
of
unsaturated
blue.
greens
chiefly
sky
artifacts inherently overstimulate
the visual
liantly colored, man-made
to
endemic
cortex,
thereby
contributing
chromophobia
precisely
Denis
among those social ranks that had access to intense pigments.
out
strain
the
inflicted
Diderot's
Encyclop?die
(1751-1756)
by
spelled
hues:
glowing
Green
is just the right mixture of clear and sombre to please
the sight instead of weakening and troubling it. Hence
strengthen
fact
that many
painters
a green
have
cloth
hung
near
the
place
and
the
where
they work, on which to throw their glance from time to time, and to
relieve them of the fatigue caused by the brightness of the colours. All
the colours, says Newton, which are most brilliant, dull and distract
the minds
of
animals
that
see
. . .whereas
the
rays which
us the idea of green, fall on the eye in such a just proportion,
give animal
in us a very
minds
agreeable
all
the
play necessary,
sensation.74
and
by
this means
produce
in
that they
they
arouse
even in our
strong color is not employed
promiscuously
Significantly,
are
own color-rich
not covered with
surfaces
is, most
society?that
is doubtless
there is a physiological
vivid tones. This
because
and psy
lament that we are
truth underlying
Bernard of Clairvaux's
chological
"blinded
by colors."
on art in East Asia and Europe focused on line and shape?
Writers
what critics such as Georgio Vasari
called disegno (draw
(1511-1574)
for
elements
that
call
and intention;
is,
generally
ing)?that
planning
to
it failed
but since color is obstinately
processes,
cognitive
impervious
73
in Nicholas
Cited
Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness
Humphrey,
(Cambridge,
Harvard University
Press, 2006), p. 19.
74
in Annik
The Birth of Intimacy: Privacy and Domestic
Cited
Pardailh?-Galabrun,
Life
of Pennsylvania
in Early Modem
Press,
Paris, trans. Jocelyn Phelps
University
(Philadelphia:
a century
Almost
Dickens
still took the practice
for
later, Charles
1991), pp. 172-173.
Mass.:
granted:
sight by
University
"A painter who has gazed too long upon
sombre
looking upon a darker and more
Press, 1950), p. 1.
some glaring colour, refreshes his dazzled
tint"; Nicholas Nickleby
(Oxford: Oxford
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
403
to be justified and fostered
in speculative
traditions. Chi
everywhere
nese scholars wrote countless
to
virtues
of
ink
the
paeans
painting but
in
Renaissance
flourished
color in a few words. Art
dismissed
theory
Florence, where line and contour dominated
yet it languished
painting,
in Venice,
the color capital of Mediterranean
from
Europe.75 Recoiling
at the opposite poles of Eurasia, both Con
it presented
the conundrum
fucian
theorists and Western
consigned
philosophers
and perverse
gatory of mere sensation
indulgence.76
The
Historical
Weaving
of
the
color
to the pur
Rainbow
in
and chromophilia
both found expression
chromophobia
them varied accord
leading societies of Eurasia, the balance between
as "the spectrum of the
that may be characterized
ing to a pattern
an ecumene
ecumene." The Eurasian
landmass effectively
constituted
a series
the "inhabited
(from Greek oikoumene,
quarter" of the world)
in communication,
of extensive
however
regional cultures
shaky and
and Pacific.77 There were no strictly
the Atlantic
sporadic, between
While
Eurasian cultures, however:
bounded
territorial divisions
between
just
as the spectrum of the rainbow is "an indefinite variety of Intermediate
so too there was a progression
in
(as Newton
gradations"
explained),
the spectrum of the ecumene.78
some appreciation
all regions of the ecumene
showed
Naturally,
the hues that come to everyone's
eyes, the intrinsi
of diverse
cally pleasing aspects of color, and the universal
availability
it is not surprising that color sooner or later gained a solid
pigments,
in every swath of the premodern
foothold
ecumenical
spectrum. Of
course, justice cannot be done here to most regional traditions of color,
a task that would require a hefty book. Thus, Japanese artists and con
to an aesthetic
noisseurs
devoted
themselves
of subdued beauty, but
of color. Given
75
See Moshe
Barasch, Light and Color in the Italian Renaissance Theory of Art (New York:
York University
"The Art of
Press,
107, 120; and Patricia Rubin,
1978), pp. 90-93,
in Florentine
Colour
of the Early Sixteenth
Rosso Florentino
and Jacopo
Painting
Century:
Art History
Pontormo,"
14, no. 2 (1991):
175-191.
76
See Philip Sohm, Style in theArt Theory of Early Modern
Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge
trans.
and Yu Feian, Chinese Painting Colors,
Press, 2001), pp. 195-196,
198-199;
University
and Amy McNair
Press
Jerome Silbergeld
(Hong Kong and Seattle: Hong Kong University
and University
of Washington
Press, 1988), pp. ix-x.
77
is employed
The concept
H. McNeill,
of the ecumene
The
by William
extensively
New
Rise of theWest: A History of theHuman Community
of Chicago
Press,
(Chicago: University
The Venture of Islam: Conscience
in aWorld
G. S. Hodgson,
and History
1963) and Marshall
of Chicago
Press, 1974).
Civilization,
3 vols. (Chicago: University
78
is cited in Christianson,
In the Presence of the Creator,
The phrase
p. 150.
404
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
cloth and gilded
silk-screen
imports of colorful Chinese
paintings,
often under the sponsorship
of rulers such as the Ashikaga
shoguns of
the Muromachi
created a countervailing
force in
period (1336-1573),
ran
In
for
elite circles.79
literati passion
monochrome
China,
painting
a
much
less prominent
tradition of exuberant,
naturalistic
parallel with
a specialty of artists south of the
in "flower-and-bird"
paintings,
So too,
Yangzi River from the time of the Tang dynasty
(618-906).80
a limited, austere palette,
the ancient Greeks
and from at
preferred
least the time of Plato and Aristotle,
they regarded shape and contour
as superior to color; yet Athenians
the Parthenon
blue, with
painted
in gold and Doric ones in blue-and-red
Ionic capitals
stripes, and they
color
statues of temple gods in vivid colors, including pupils
painted marble
tinted red.81
it is illu
the partiality
for color found everywhere,
Still, whatever
to focus on what was distinctive
in
about color perspectives
minating
as it is revealing
the principal
about sig
regions of Eurasia inasmuch
values of the particular
The following
survey
on color in
about perspectives
the ecumene,
Japan disdained
a remarkably
time developed
nificant
contact.
as about cross-cultural
was exceptional
what
highlights
only
In the spectrum of
the various cultures.
color in basic respects but at the same
of it. China
perception
sophisticated
culture
as well
followed
shared Japan's reservations
about color yet also periodically
of color,
the
the West Asian
lead on it.West Asia
empire
represented
the rainbow
the radiant center of the ecumenical
spectrum, diffusing
and Rome,
Greece
both east and west. Classical
however,
rejected
a European
of color, thereby establishing
West Asia's high valuation
tradition that eventually was overwhelmed
during the
by chromophilia
as
a
Western
of
merchants
modern
consequence
importing
early
period
new
pigments
and colorful
commodities
from around
the world.
Japan:Colors of theMind
a
era (794-1185),
Japanese color values were established
by the Heian
came
centuries
Chinese
of
after
sophisticated
dyeing technology
couple
in
to the islands. Since Japan entered a lengthy era of national
isolation
79
in Muromachi
"The Reception
of Chinese
Models
Gail Capitol Weigl,
Painting
and Miyeko Murase, Masterpieces
35, no. 3 (1980): 257-272;
Nipponica
Japan," Monumenta
J8.
Braziller,
(New York: George
1990), pp. 11, 12-14,
of Japanese Screen Painting
80
dans le tradition
D'o? jai?let le chant: La Voie des Fleurs et des Oiseaux
Fran?oise Cheng,
to the Chang
"An Introduction
P. Chung,
des Song (Paris: Ph?bus,
2000); and Saehyang
Oriental Art 31, no. 2 (1985):
zhou School
of Painting?1,"
146-160.
81
der Plas
Studien zur Polychromie
and Patrik Reutersw?rrd,
Finlay, Color, pp. 126-127;
Svenska
und Rom (Stockholm:
tik: Griechenland
i960), pp. 9-32.
Bokf?rlaget,
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
405
court meant
that
cultural supremacy of the Heian
794, the prolonged
a reference
its color values dominated
the elite and remained
point
on the subject for many
centuries.
In fact, the Heian
for
preference
the
"cold and withered"
colors
of
mind
(hiekareru) metaphorical
para
resulted in an exquisitely
of color, one that
subtle perception
doxically
remains unparalleled
in cultural history.82
Shikibu
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki
the liter
(ca. 978-1016),
Heian
the
often
the
of
ary masterpiece
conveys
values, moods,
period,
in terms of color. The author portrays
of characters
and viewpoints
turn his garden
winter moonlight
her eponymous
hero contemplating
a
a gleaming white:
great deal of the flowers of spring
"People make
and the leaves of autumn, but for me a night
like this, with a clear
moon
on
there is not a trace of color
snow, is the best?and
shining
want
in it." In prizing "the
of striking color," Genji was representative
to fade lay
of aristocratic
ranks.83 The notion of earthly things doomed
occurs over
term aware, which
behind
this perception.
The Buddhist
one thousand times in The Tale of Genji, denotes pathos regarding the
a poignant
evanescence
of mortal
existence,
melancholy
prompted
life drained of vitality and color.84 The concept was
by contemplating
term yugen, which
related to the Zen Buddhist
connoted
lingering
transitional
beauty. Kamo no Chomei,
pathos and an impermanent,
on poetry at the end of the Heian
who wrote extensively
era, influ
entially
expanse
The
denoted
described
of silent
yugen as "like an autumn
sky."85
word for "color"
a beautiful woman
evening
under
a colorless
in ancient
Japan was iro, which
originally
as well as desire for sex with one?the
ideo
Iro
with one person lying on top of another.
gram signifies intercourse,
to evoke the idea of passing time and transient hues.
evolved
came to mean
the verb shimiru (to penetrate)
"to dip
fashion,
In like
in dye"
82
in Theodore
is cited
M. Ludwig,
The phrase
and Momoyama:
Conflict
"Chanoyu
in Rikyu's Art,"
in Tea in Japan: Essays on theHistory
and Transformation
ed.
of Chanoyu,
H. Paul Varley
and Kumakura
Isao (Honolulu:
of Hawai'i
Press,
University
1989), p. 73.
an aesthetic
to poetry,
"Cold and withered"
ideal common
ink painting,
and the
expressed
see Mary
the introduction
of Chinese
dyeing
technology,
in Beyond
the Tanabata Bridge: Traditional Japanese Textiles,
and Hudson,
(London: Thames
Jay Rathbun
1993), pp. 26-29.
83
trans. Edward G. Seidensticker
The Tale of Genji,
Murasaki
Shikibu,
tea ceremony.
On
"The Art of Color,"
Dusenbury,
ed. William
(New York:
A. Knopf,
1987), pp. 340, 345.
84
Ivan Morris, The World
of the Shining Prince: Court Life inAncient
Japan (New York:
and Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks
Books,
Penguin
1979), pp. 207-208;
and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture
Press, 2005),
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Alfred
pp. 233-234.
85
in Haga Koshiro,
"The Wabi Aesthetic
Cited
through the Ages,"
ics and Culture: A Reader, ed. Nancy G. Hume
(Albany: State University
i995)>P-253.
in Japanese Aesthet
of New York Press,
JOURNAL
4o6
and "to absorb
color," while
and
also
OF WORLD
taking
on
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
the nuance
2007
of inconstant
The
looked down
Japanese
flowering
plants in China,
upon peaches
as vulgar and
fading beauty.
the most admired
because of their deep-pink
blooms.
Instead, they esteemed
voluptuous
tint
the delicate
of
whose petals flow
blossoms,
cherry
pinkish-white
taste highlights
ered so briefly.86 In general, contemporary Western
the
rose and resplendent
of the full-blooming
climatic moment
but
tulip,
feelings
and plums,
and ending of things, transi
traditional
Japan favored the beginning
in
tional moments
epitomized
barely opened buds, faded flowers, and
autumn leaves.87
withered
an
In Kokin wakashu
of verse past and present),
(A collection
a
in
of
before
1,111
poems put together
905,
century
Genji,
anthology
in imagery
is conveyed
the melancholy
beauty of autumn and winter
of color being siphoned off by the imagination:
hues lost amid flakes of
a flower
snowflakes
snow, garments dyed by morning mist,
penetrating
wet
robes
with
brocade
shot
with
threads
ing bough,
cherry blossoms,
on the billows of the sea, color soaking into
of frost, flowers blossoming
to the colorless by dissolving
is assimilated
it in simi
the heart.88 Color
les of moisture?fog,
blossoms
ephemeral
clouds, rain, dew, ocean, streams, and frost. After
and autumn foliage, snow figured as the principal
in Japanese poetry.89 Princess Uchiko
appreciation
object of aesthetic
an
wrote
influential
of "chilly flowers blooming
alone
poet,
(807-847),
in the snows reflected
East
India
When
the
Dutch
Company
light."90
finch from the Canary
Islands to
imported a tuneful gray-green-brown
to
it
in
the
seventeenth
bird-lovers
bred
snow-white?in
century,
Japan
it turned a sunny yellow?and
white
still remains the favorite
Europe,
color in Japan.91
a lot of attention
to the dress of the privileged,
Murasaki
devotes
86
87
88
Ooka, Colors of Poetry, pp. 37-38,
40-42,
49.
in Hume,
Donald
Keene,
"Japanese Aesthetics,"
Helen
Japanese Aesthetics
and Culture,
p.
ed. and trans., Kokin Wakashu:
The First Imperial Anthology
Craig McCullough,
Stanford University
Press, 1985), pp. 63-65,
72, 79, 91;
(Stanford, Calif:
'Kokin Wakashu
and the Court Style in Japanese Classical
Brocade by Night:
of Japanese Poetry
and McCullough,
Press, 1985),
Poetry (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
89
Brocade by Night,
p. 360.
McCullough,
90
R. Bradstock,
and Timothy
Judith N. Rabinovitch
pp.
196, 414,
512,
521.
eds. and trans., Dance
of the But
East Asia
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
Poetry from the Japanese Court Tradition
terflies: Chinese
Series, 2005), p. 92.
91
The Past and Future of Human
Richard W. Bulliet, Hunters, Herders,
and Hamburgers:
and Miho
Animal Relationships
(New York: Columbia
Press, 2005), pp. 103-104;
University
on Color
in Japan and other Asian
Studies
Preference
with
Saito,
"Comparative
Regions,
on the Preference
for White,"
Color Research and Application
21, no. 1
Special
Emphasis
(1996):
35-49.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
407
who
favored muted
colors, artful shading, and transitional
(or shibui)
a
wore
a
outer
set
costume
tones.92 Women
of lined
and
heavy
typically
robes in as many as twelve layers. Cloth was rolled up before coloring,
so that it came out in tie-dyed fashion,
shaded slightly darker at the
bottom of the garment. The hem of each robe became successively
lon
colors
ger, as did the sleeve, thereby creating composite,
intermediary
to be glimpsed
the gossamer-thin
material.93 Representative
through
include "pale magenta,"
garment colors mentioned
by Murasaki
"pale
"lilac lined with purple and saffron,"
unfigured pinks and lavenders,"
and "russet lined with yellow." Young girls at an imperial ceremony
are applauded
for their "robes of lavender and pink and various deeper
shades of purple, and yellow-green
jackets lined with green, all appropri
autumn
hues."94
lead of their female counterparts,
the
ately
Following
to the assorted
Heian
also
devoted
attention
considerable
gentlemen
colors
of their attire, and they used costly paper in pastel shades for
lovers, sometimes
sending notes to would-be
by a flower
accompanied
whose hue denoted
the degree of intimacy anticipated.95
Court society in Heian
Japan was rigidly stratified as well as sealed
as the sole center of culture,
off from the wider world.
It functioned
and it was not until well after the twelfth century
that alternative
to
court
for
the
elite
the
of the Ashi
places emerged
gather, especially
court
of
the
Muromachi
The
Heian
fostered an
kaga shoguns
period.96
one
a
in
hothouse
which
environment,
extraordinary
unique culture
of color was created, compounded
of Zen Buddhist
intense
principles,
social inbreeding,
and a leading female role in establishing
fashion.
in propelling
court
stand out as crucial
the Heian
Indeed, women
92
On Heian
colors and shibui tones, see Helen
"Aristocratic
cul
Craig McCullough,
in The Cambridge History
H. Shively
and
of Japan, vol. 2, Heian Japan, ed. Donald
H. McCullough
and
Press, 1990), pp. 394-395;
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University
and Margaret Walch,
The Color Compendium
(New York: Van Nostrand
Augustine
Hope
Reinhold,
1990), pp. 178-179.
93
Richard Bowring,
trans., The Diary of Lady Murasaki
(London: Penguin Books,
1996),
ed. and trans., The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
p. xxx; and Ivan Morris,
(New York: Penguin
ture,"
William
Books,
1971), pp. 269-270.
94
Tale of Genji, pp. 137, 212, 314, 386, 407, 462.
Murasaki,
95
See Morris, World
in the
of the Shining Prince, p. 243, n. 57. The
imperial court
Kamakura
itself on its predecessor,
hence
period
(1185-1333)
closely modeled
delicately
colored robes and pastel billetts-doux
remained
central to elite life; see Karen Brazell, trans.,
The Confessions
Stanford University
(Stanford, Calif.:
Press,
of Lady Nijo
1973), pp. 2, 7,
11-12, 77,83.
96
See Paul H. Varley,
"Cultural Life of the Warrior
Elite in the Fourteenth
Century,"
in The Origins
in the
and Peasants
Courtiers,
Clerics, Warriors,
of Japans Medieval World:
Fourteenth
pp.
Century,
192-208.
ed. Jeffrey P. Maas
(Stanford,
Calif.:
Stanford
University
Press,
1997),
4o8
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2007
sense of color, its emphasis
on transitional
toward its nuanced
shades
and intricate ensembles.
All scientific
studies indicate that females display greater color dis
crimination
and have a larger color repertoire
than do men;
they also
show greater ability in defining colors and in tests of matching
colors.
Girls learn the names of colors earlier than boys, and while
the subse
superiority of adult females may be due to early socializa
cosmetics
with mommy's
and costumes, winning
praise
tion?playing
is likely that their advantage
for gay dresses and glossy ribbons?it
also
is related to genetic
Not only do men
considerations.
suffer far more
recent genetic
than women
from red-green color-blindness,
frequently
one yet knows how
research has revealed
that some women?no
quent
color
vision as a result of having
tetrachromatic
(four-color)
cones.
between
the
middleand
type
long-wavelength
of the hues seen
females have a much more refined discrimination
many?possess
an extra cone
Such
else.97
by everyone
A built-in bias in a closed, face-to-face
society, even if it is exerted
a
can
exert
selection
small
pressure over time;
minority,
by just
powerful
a
in the parlance of evolutionary
it
works
like positive-feedback
theory,
a biologically
If there ever was a place where
escalator.98
determined,
of color among women
could find highly
focused
it surely was at the hermetic
Heian
court, where
expression,
the very conceptual
they played a crucial role in fashion and where
of color
the elite to subtle color discrimination.
negation
impelled
set of conditions
Such a distinctive
would not arise again in history.
in the Kamakura
As Japanese society became more diverse
(1185
court
Muromachi
the
lost its cultural dom
and
periods,
1333)
imperial
the
inance, and bright tones won a larger social space. Nevertheless,
superior
cultural
perception
consummate
in Heian
color sense established
Japan remained a main
stream expression
of Japanese elite culture.
It even became
reinforced
as
in the Tokugawa
thinkers
and reformers looked
period (1615-1868)
back to the culture of the ancient court to define the essence of a "Japa
97
L. Bimler,
A.
Varia
and Kimberly
David
John Kirkland,
Jameson,
"Quantifying
in Color Vision?" Color Research
in Personal Color Spaces: Are There Sex Differences
to
vision
is related
Tetrachromatic
and Application
29, no. 2 (2004):
128-134.
probably
as a result of women
chromosomal
being "carriers" for the genes of dichro
misalignment
women
matic
The number of tetrachromatic
fathers; see Enns, Thinking Eye, pp. 110-112.
tions
to
examination
is necessary
because
considerable
postmortem
see note 33.
and color-blindness,
gender, chromosomes,
in creating
color among peacocks
of positive
feedback
the workings
variegated
see Richard Dawkins,
The Blind Watchmaker:
the Evidence of Evo
and birds of paradise,
Why
lution Reveals a Universe without Design
(New York: W W Norton,
1986), pp. 195-220.
remains
at present
unknown
its incidence. On
determine
98
On
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
409
nese
to foreign
influence.99
sensibility"
(yamato gokoro) in opposition
Heian
color
the
of
values
spacious, abstract
helps explain
vitality
are
in
modern
that
characteristic
of the
character,
designs,
strikingly
out
which
turned
vessels
era,
potters
Tokugawa
during
painted with
an expanse
set
in
swirls of aubergine,
and
black
enamel
tawny orange,
samurai jackets (jinbaori) in which
of snow-white,
and weavers made
circles of white,
yellow, and red fitted into holes cut out of cloaks as
The
as autumn.100
gray
China: Color on theSilkRoad
a prominent
in Chinese
life and art whenever
place
ties
and
commercial
existed
strong political
along the so-called Silk
a network
Road of central Asia,
of trails and oases linking West
and
to
in
same
East Asia.
West
Asia
the
role
color,
Indeed,
regard
played
Color
assumed
to China
itself did toward Japan: that is, the
that China
use
came from a region of the ecumene
of
toward
hues
stronger
impulse
in
that was a distance
As
the native Chinese
away.
Japan, however,
in relation
that had its most remote
tendency was to devalue color, a perspective
to
the beginnings
of Chinese
culture in the Shang era (ca.
origins close
time
B.c.E.). The rulers of that
1570-1045
sought supernatural
guid
ance through
shamanistic
of lines on "oracle bones,"
interpretation
cracks made by heating
cattle scapula or turtle shell. The ancient pro
genitors of Chinese
script, the cracks were read by diviners
ideographic
as linear patterns
that revealed
the will of heaven.
Colorless
oracle
as a magical,
bones functioned
celestial
and greatly stimu
technology,
lated by the early invention
of the writing brush, black ink, and paper,
art set off on a color-denying
that calligraphic
they helped determine
course.101
The
visual
dynamics
of calligraphic
script
also
continued
to be
99
See Ikegami, Bonds of Civility,
Laura W. Allen,
pp. 232-235;
"Japanese Exemplars
for a New Age: Genji Paintings
in Critical
from the Seventeenth-Century
Tosa School,"
on Classicism
in Japanese Painting,
ed. Elizabeth
(Honolulu:
Perspectives
1600-1700,
Lillehoj
of Hawai'i
Press, 2004), pp. 99-132.
University
100
See Yoshiaki
Shimizu,
ed., Japan: The Shaping ofDaimyo
Culture,
(exh.
1185-1868
D.C.: National
of Art,
and Rich
cat.) (Washington,
333-345;
1988), pp. 318-322,
Gallery
ard L. Wilson,
The Potters Brush: The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics
D.C.:
(Washington,
The Freer Gallery
of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian
Institution,
2001),
pp. 46, 67, 138.
101
David N. Keightley,
Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone
Inscriptions of Bronze
China
of California
"The
Press,
Age
(Berkeley: University
1978); and Jonathan Chaves,
as Magic," Oriental Art 23, no. 2 (1977): 200
The Written
Word
Legacy of Ts'ang Chieh:
215.
JOURNAL
4io
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2007
related to patterns of natural phenomena.
Zhu Xie (i 130-1200),
the
most
influential
of what became known as "Neo-Confucian
exponent
available
ism," said that the forms of nature were "patterns of heaven,"
to the artist or sage who empties his mind
to look at them and who
is
one s mind
not "concerned
at externals."102 Emptying
with clutching
to eliminate
extraneous
artist's
worked
the
brushwork
detail,
impelled
to spontaneity,
and thereby revealed
the personality
of the artist. In
contrast toWestern
aesthetic
theory, which valued optic verisimilitude
art spurned the pursuit of what
and faithful representation,
Chinese
was
critics termed "formal likeness" (xingsi). The crucial consideration
the simultaneous
revelation
of natural
forms and the artist's charac
ter, the striving for "spirit resonance"
ideally would be
(qiyun), which
in the untrammeled
manifest
of calligraphic
character
brushwork. Ke
scenes
for
his
famous
of
monochrome
Qian
paintings
(1251-1319),
said that "if one is able not to look at bamboo as bamboo
bamboo,
but to seek its supreme unborn nature beyond all form and color," then
the character of the artist himself may be visualized.103
the inner pattern of natural forms as well as the artist's
Revealing
with
color?indeed,
strong hues were a posi
word for color, se, carried connotations
a baseline
it came
from which
emotion,
and
lewdness,
passion,
luxury.104 In his
Painters
the
Famous
All
influential
Record
(ca.
of
for
Dynasties
immensely
are green without
need
847), Zhang Yanyuan wrote that "[m]ountains
is iridescent without
and the phoenix
the aid of the five
ing malachite,
colors. For this reason one may be said to have fulfilled one's aim when
in the management
of ink [alone]."105
the five colors are all present
traffic on the Silk Road took place
The first substantial
commercial
did not require
individuality
tive hindrance.
The Chinese
of beauty but also referred to
to have overtones
of anger,
the period of the Western
(or Former) Han
(206 B.C.E.-9 ce.),
of luxury products?ivories,
received
the empire
quantities
that because of
sable fur, silver, gold, and dyestuffs. Critics
complained
to
extreme
in finery" and
"women
exotic
the
commodities
go
alluring
during
when
102
Cited
on
mentaries
203.
in John Makeham,
Transmitters
and Creators: Chinese
Mass.: Harvard
the Analects
University
(Cambridge,
103
Commentators
Asia Center,
and Com
2003),
p.
see Wen.
C. Fong,
Bush and Shih, Early Chinese Texts on Painting,
pp. 274-275;
8th to 14th Century
Chinese Painting and Calligraphy,
(New York and
Beyond Representation:
New Haven,
Museum
of Art
and Yale University
Conn.:
Press,
1992), pp.
Metropolitan
4-5.
104
Chinese
p. 27; and
Style, p. 26; Yu, Chinese
Painting Colors,
Painting
Silbergeld,
inMyerson,
Probl?mes de la couleur,
de la couleur en Chinois,"
Jacques Gernet,
"L'expession
pp. 295-301.
105
Bush
and Shih,
Early Chinese
Texts
on Painting,
pp. 62-63.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
411
of aristocratic
that "one color vied with the other" in the decoration
more
extensive
connections
Far
central
and
West Asia
with
palaces.106
were formed in the Tang period. In the mid seventh century, Tang mili
around the
tary forces even seized control of the oasis communities
desolate Tarim Basin on the Silk Road, extending Chinese
sway to the
artisans in Chang'an,
the Tang capital,
borders of Persia. Central Asian
in silver and carved figurines from jade. West Asian
fashioned vessels
woolen
cloth from Syria, colorful
entrepreneurs
imported purple-dyed
rock
silk
from
Persia,
carpets and polychrome
crystal from Samarqand,
on
from the mountains
Silk
and
lazuli
from
Khotan
the
Road,
jade
lapis
of Afghanistan.107
to the Tang opening
to the west.
arts responded
Chinese
on
communities
the Silk Road played the role of middlemen,
of Indian and Persian pictorial methods
ing their versions
is called
such as stylized flowers and exuberant hues.108 What
The
oasis
convey
to China,
the "Tang
international
style" emerged, characterized
by floral motifs and brilliant
at Dunhuang
in the northwest
color.109 Caves decorated
by Buddhists
ern province of Gansu contained
painted statues, rainbow images, vivid
and brightly colored wall murals that
m?ndalas,
embroidery, multihued
art. Indian and Persian coloring were
influenced Chinese
profoundly
on line and contour;
the Buddhist
adapted to the Chinese
emphasis
haloes and a complex
color
tradition,
including polychrome
figurative
into Chinese
aesthetics.110
symbolism, was integrated
With
rebellion
against the Tang regime in the mid eighth century,
on
the Chinese
however,
military
pulled back from their strongholds
the Silk Road,
and during the Song dynasty
northern
(960-1279),
106
are cited
in Martin
The phrases
"Artistic Taste,
the Economy
and the
J. Powers,
in Former Han China," Art History
Social Order
9, no. 3 (1986): 287, 291.
107
et des Hu: Migrations
et
"Des Chinois
de La Vaissi?re
and Eric Trombert,
Etienne
en milieu
chinois
durant
le haut Moyen
des Iraniens orientaux
int?gration
Age," Annales
"The Hejia Village Hoard: A Snapshot
and Valerie Hansen,
59, no. 5-6 (2004): 931-969;
of China's
Silk Road Trade," Orientations
34, no. 2 (2003):
14-19.
108
forces in their own right, not merely
transmit
Central Asia and India were aesthetic
ters of West Asian
but not only is there a meager
literature on their
influences;
secondary
to deal with them.
Eurasian
impact, there also is no room in the present discussion
109
in The Cambridge History
"Iran and China,"
William
Watson,
of Iran, vol. 3:1, The
ed. Ehsan Yarshater
Uni
Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods,
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
in China
"Art and History
from
and James C. Y. Watt,
versity Press, 1983), pp. 537-567;
AD (exh. cat.),
in China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750
the 3rd through the 8th Century,"
Conn.: Metropolitan
Museum
of Art and
ed. James C. Y. Watt
(New York and New Haven,
Yale University
Press, 2004), pp. 2-55.
110
inChina
Sarah E. Fraser, Performing
the Visual: The Practice of Buddhist Wall Painting
and Central Asia,
Stanford University
Press, 2004),
(Stanford, Calif.:
pp. 109
6i8-g6o
trans. Lothian
and Mario Bussagli, Central Asian Painting,
Small
130, 152-153;
(New York:
Rizzoli,
90, in.
1979), pp. 28, 39-40,
JOURNAL
412
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
Liao state of the Qidan
and then the Jin state
(907-1125)
powers?the
off
China
of the Jurchen
from almost all
(1115-1234)?cut
imperial
contact with West Asia.111
In the realm of art, the most
significant
was the decline
of this political
of color and
consequence
upheaval
in
the definitive
This is dramatically
evident
triumph of monochrome.
statues
ceramic
of
Bactrian
While
camels, commonly
styles.
porcelain
the ecumenical
painted with lively realism in vivid colors, represented
of
and
reach
the
perspective
early Tang regime, the renowned
imperial
vases of the Song exemplify
the spirit esteemed
and promoted
by that
and
The
of
self-contained.
hallmarks
subtle,
Tang
dynasty?elegant,
are
ceramics are exotic motifs and painted adornment;
Song porcelains
a
mono
reserved
decoration
and
of
characterized
cool-toned,
range
by
and white.112
(or celadon)
shades, most notably
sea-green
even
more
transition
In
decisive
took
similar,
place in painting.
dominated
and
the Tang period, a landed military
aristocracy
politics
but under the Song, men of the book and culture, recruited
government,
in an examination
classics, took prece
system based on the Confucian
shift
dence over men of the sword and lofty pedigree.113 This political
chromatic
A
was
in artistic practice:
skilled professional
reflected
paint
technically
were
who
the
had
ers,
Tang,
supplanted by Confucian
prevailed during
to calligraphic-style
and scornful of artisan
literati committed
painting
and
naturalistic
strong hues.114
representation,
expertise,
art
into
with
the Mongol
of
back
Chinese
Color
conquest
surged
in 1279. The Yuan regime (1279-1368)
maintained
close ties
China
Ilkhanid dynasty of Persia ( 1258-1353),
and the poly
with the Mongol
chrome traditions of that region of the ecumene beat back Song mono
and even
chrome. Paintings with strong color gained in respectability
the
literati.115
became objects of connoisseurship
Furthermore,
among
111
et des Hu," pp. 961-983;
"Des Chinois
C. A. Peterson,
and Trombert,
in The Cambridge History
in Mid
vol. 3:1,
and Late T'ang,"
of China,
ed. Denis Twitchett
Sui and T'ang China,
University
589-906,
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
and Frederick W Mote,
Press,
Imperial China 900-1800
(Cambridge,
1979) pp. 474-486;
Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1999), pp. 49-71,
193-221.
112
and Hudson,
(London: Thames
Mary Tregear, Song Ceramics
1982); and Mary Ann
in
of Change:
The Creation
of a Song
"The Mechanics
Style,"
Rogers,
Imperial Ceramic
on the Art of Ceramics
inChina,
Univer
ed. George
New Perspectives
(Honolulu:
Kuwayama
"Court
La Vaissi?re
and Province
Press, 1992), pp. 64-79.
sity of Hawai'i
113
"This Culture
See Peter K. Bol,
Intellectual Transitions
of Ours":
China
Press, 1992), pp. 148-175.
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
114
literati in Osvald
See the sentiments
Siren,
expressed
by Song
in T'ang
and Sung
The Chinese
on the
Art of Painting: Texts by the Painter-Critics
(Mine?la,
from theHan
through the Ching Dynasties
112.
N.Y.: Dover,
2005), pp. 38-90,
115
See James Cahill, Hills Beyond A River: Chinese Paintings of the Yuan Dynasty,
127Q
for strong color, see Thomas T
1976). On Mongol
preference
1368 (New York: Weatherhill,
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
413
center of Jingdezhen
in the province
the great porcelain
of Jiangxi,
to mak
in
from
southeastern
turned
white
China,
pottery
producing
wares
in
with
and
vibrant
blue
and
ing
designs
pictorial
calligraphic
white. The shift was inspired by Persian production
of blue-and-white
and necessitated
importing cobalt oxide from Persia as the
The
influ
then, had a significant
conquest,
coloring agent.116
Mongol
ence on Chinese
esteem for color, though calligraphy was not dislodged
from its long supremacy?indeed,
with blue-and-white
cal
porcelain,
an
on
became
both
Chinese
and
ornamental
element
Arabic,
ligraphy,
earthenware
the last time West Asia would have an impact
pottery. It was, however,
on the color experience
of China.
The next
infusion of color would
come from Europe during the early Qing
(1644-1911)
period, when
to the
introduced
enamel pigments
Jesuit artists in Beijing
gleaming
for porcelain,
imperial workshops
glass, and painting.117
West Asia:
The Empire
of Color
that region was the great
Asia,
center of chromophilia
in the
toward color, no equation
of it
with primitive
feminine
illusion. Two
emotion,
vanity, or ornamental
to color. First, the Nile
considerations
this unique devotion
explain
run through environments
and Tigris-Euphrates
Rivers
that would be
From
inWest
the origins of civilization
homeland
and reservoir of color. The
it displayed no antagonism
ecumene,
land without
and
barren, uninhabitable
them, parched
by Atlantic
on higher
Mediterranean
winds
that drop their moisture
elevations.
Without
the Nile River, the sands of the Sahara would roll unimpeded
to the Red Sea; without
the Tigris-Euphrates,
the region of Mesopota
to sustain more than a thin pastoral popu
mia would be too desiccated
like
lation, much
flow, respectively,
figuring as bright
off zones
marking
served as a setting
physical
contrast
the neighboring
Syria desert. The two river systems
from the highlands
of central Africa and Asia Minor,
ribbons in a monotonously
brown landscape,
sharply
of cultivation
and habitation.
No other region that
for the emergence
of civilized life presents such a stark
between
the conditions
such a develop
encouraging
and Exchange
in theMongol
Commodity
Empire: A Cultural History
of Islamic Textiles
Press, 1997), pp. 57-69.
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University
116
Robert Finlay, "The Pilgrim Art: The Culture
inWorld
of Porcelain
Jour
History,"
nal ofWorld History 9, no. 2 (1998):
150-158.
117
Louise Allison
in Joined Colors: Decoration
and Meaning
in Chinese
Cort,
"Color,"
ed. Louise Allison
Cort
and Jan Stuart
D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler
Porcelain,
(Washington,
Smithsonian
"Vitreous Art:
Institution,
Gallery,
1993), pp. 19-31; and Emily Byrne Curtis,
Colour Materials
for Qing Dynasty
Enamels," Arts of Asia 24, no. 6 (1994): 96-100.
Allsen,
414
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
ment
to it. In such circumstances,
and those hostile
vivid colors from
on
in the midst
became exemplary
early
symbols for human existence
of inimical nature.
A second consideration
in ancient West
fostering
chromophilia
is less speculative
Asia
but also arises from the environmental
setting:
the region had relatively easy access to the most prized pigments,
deco
was cultivated
rative paraphernalia,
and high-quality
textiles. Cotton
inWest Asia
times and silk from the sixth century c.e.
from ancient
saffron, indigo, and rubies from India, and camel cara
Ships brought
vans fetched
jade, turquoise, and lapis lazuli from central Asia. Emer
alds came from Egypt, carnelians
and agate from Yemen,
pearls from
the Persian Gulf. The warm waters of the Levant nurtured murex
shell
fish, evergreen oaks of Lebanon hosted kermes insects, Persian soil held
cobalt oxide, and nearby mountains
yielded copper, gold, and silver.
In short, prone to embrace color in the first place, West Asia had
the most effective and treasured coloring agents
less difficulty obtaining
than did any other part of the ecumene. As early as the Pre-Dynastic
described
the bodily
forms of
b.c.e.),
(5000-2920
Egyptians
period
their gods in terms of silver, gold, jasper, and turquoise, and they pro
as an inexpen
duced blue-colored
glass, known as tjehnet (luminous),
sive substitute
for lapis lazuli.118 Ishtar, the Sumerian
goddess of love
associations
and Assyrian
of
had
with
color?she
war,
strong
goddess
wore a jeweled necklace
that symbolized
the rainbow?and
Nebu
chadrezzar II (604-562
b.c.e.) of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire (625-539
called upon her protective
b.c.e.) of Mesopotamia
power when he built
Gate of Ishtar in Babylon,
the turquoise-colored
the grandest ancient
in the art of glazed brickwork.119
achievement
West Asia
launched upon its trajectory of color centuries
Although
before the rise of Islam, the sacred text and traditions of that religion
to even greater heights. The Qur'an
meant
mounted
that chromophilia
a
where
Paradise
the elect lounge amid flower
sensual, earthly
portrays
filled gardens, sport gold bracelets,
and dress in brocade robes ( 18:31 ). It
life with vegetation
and animals
also declares that God sustains mortal
of "diverse hues" (35:27-28,
and
that
"what
He
created
for you
39:21)
118
"Color Terminology
Classification:
Ancient
and Color
John Baines,
Egyptian
and Polychromy,"
American
Color Terminology
87, no. 2 (1985):
284-288;
Anthropologist
in Gifts of theNile: Ancient
and Robert
Steven
and Meanings,"
Bianchi,
Egyptian
"Symbols
Faience
Friedman
and Hudson,
(New York: Thames
(exh. cat.), ed. Florence Dunn
1998),
pp. 22-31.
119
Eastern Mythology
(New York: Peter Bedrick,
John Gray, Near
1985), p. 50; and
Frederick
Analysis,"
ety, 1986),
R. Matson,
from Babylon?Historical
"Glazed Brick
in Technology
and Style, ed. W. D. Kingery
(Columbus:
pp. 133-156.
Setting
American
and Microprobe
Soci
Ceramic
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
415
. ."
in the earth is of multifarious
is described
colours.
(i6:i3).120 God
or
an
as musawwir
term also
the
"fashioner"
Arabic
"maker,"
(59:24),
that the
used for a painter.121 Indeed, the holy book informs believers
sustenance
color
for
the
of
created
and
his
human
pleasure
Almighty
creatures.
as con
the incandescence
of divinity
tradition
envisages
behind seventy thousand veils of light and darkness; yet, as Jalal
a "colour-mixing
al-Din Rumi
declared, God possesses
(1207-1273)
soul."122 The
that "[w]hen the
influential Sufi poet and mystic wrote
reflexion of His beauty shines forth, mountainland
and earth are silk
a Sufi poet and friend
and brocade."123 Farid al-Din 'Attar ( 1142-1220),
Islamic
cealed
in nature in similar terms:
of Rumi, extolled
the substantiation
of God
"You cast the radiance of Your face on the earth and on the earth You
on passages
in the Qur'an,
paint marvelous
pictures."124 Elaborating
as joined in celebrating
Sufi mystics
and poets regarded all Creation
scent
of
the
the
of
flowers,
God,
birds, and the colors of
song
including
sunset.125 Rumi writes that when God appears on the Day of Resurrec
tion even the painted figures decorating
the walls of Persian baths will
fall to their knees
in adoration.126
strictures of Islam, the injunction
against depict
to realistic portrayal of all living
ing God, generally became extended
color more
than ever
beings. This had the effect of making
important
since the vibrant yet suitably abstract motifs of pre-Islamic West Asia
could be assimilated
readily to the paint-wielding
deity of the Qur'an.
in art reinforced an aesthetic
Denial of naturalism
stylization of nature,
The
iconoclastic
color providing variety and appeal to nonfigurative
floral, geomet
and
ric,
calligraphic motifs. To render things realistically was regarded
as usurping God's prerogatives,
but elaborate,
colorful designs signified
with
120
are taken from The Qur'an: A Modern
trans. Majid
The quotations
English Version,
1997).
Fakhry (London: Garnet,
121
Conn.:
Yale Uni
of Islamic Art, rev. ed. (New Haven,
Oleg Grabar, The Formation
versity Press, 1987), p. 81.
122
Poems of Rumi, trans. A. J.Arberry
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Mystical
(Chicago: University
see the com
of Chicago
the Islamic tradition
of light-theology,
Press,
1968), p. 63. On
The Niche
Buchman
mentary
(1058-1111),
by Al-Ghazzali
of Lights, ed. and trans. David
(Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University
Press, 1998).
123
Rumi, Mystical
Poems, p. 39.
124
in Hellmut
Cited
theWorld and God in the Stories
Ritter, The Ocean
of the Soul: Man,
'Attar, trans. John O'Kane
(Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 629.
ofFarid al-Din
125
in Islam," in The Islamic Garden,
Annemarie
Garden
"The Celestial
ed.
Schimmel,
B. MacDougall
and Richard
Elisabeth
D.C.: Dumbarton
Oaks,
Ettinghausen
(Washington,
of color in Persian poetry, see Annemarie
Schimmel,
1976), pp. 11-39. On the significance
A Two-Colored
Brocade: The Imagery
Carolina
Press, 1992), pp. 220-269.
126
Rumi, Mystical
Poems, p. 87.
of Persian
Poetry
(Chapel
Hill:
University
of North
JOURNAL
4i6
an acknowledgment
OF WORLD
of the transcendent
HISTORY,
divinity
DECEMBER
that must
never
2OO7
be
represented.127
In Islamic West Asia, color and variety of design were within
reach
of all social groups, not (as in medieval
trappings of monarchy
Europe)
or facets of heraldic
in diverse hues
patterns
symbolism.128 Geometric
manu
brickwork, mosaics,
appeared on all kinds of surfaces?stucco,
robes, book bindings, mosque
scripts, saddles, swords, banners,
lamps,
in various
and pottery. Arabic
shades was similarly ubiq
calligraphy
as letters were
into geometries
uitous, gliding
intricately
ineluctably
embellished
with colorful plaits, stars, and stylized flowers. Inspired by
Sufi mysticism,
Persian potters and metalworkers
concealed
the fun
a
of
letters of God's name,
amid
lattice
damental
(L-A,
Allah),
lam-alif
rosettes, flower buds, and cursive script.129
Ornament
of squares and lozenges, zigzag bands,
typically consisted
dovetailed
sunburst
circles,
radiating polygons,
hexagons,
overlapping
Per
floral-filled
and
stellar
disks,
grids. Sixteenth-century
quatrefoils,
sian "vase carpets" are characterized
central
medallions
around
by
are spread out mirror
which
axis, sometimes
images on a longitudinal
with as many as six layers of detailed color patterns
upon
superimposed
one another.130 The works purportedly
the horror vacui (or
exemplify
of Islamic art.131 That nega
abhorrence
of empty spaces) characteristic
to
tive characterization,
fails
the Islamic perspec
however,
capture
stem
tive. In fact, the comprehensive
from the
patterns
simultaneously
that manifold
hues and motifs epitomize
the essence
aesthetic principle
is
the divine presence
the
ornamental
course,
signified by all-encompassing
had to be abstract, artificial, and imaginary, for cre
designs necessarily
of
ation or reproduction
of physical
province
reality were the exclusive
of beauty
God,
not
and from
the pious
assumption
adornment.
that
Of
man.132
127
Venture of Islam, 1:368-369,469-472;
and I.R. Al-Faruqi,
See Hodgson,
2:506-514;
"Islam and art," Studia Isl?mica 37 (1973): 81-109.
128
an egalitarian
all aspects of the Islamic community
On
ethos affecting
(umma),
see Hodgson,
Venture of Islam, 2:62-151.
artworks,
including
129
Assadullah
Souren Melikan-Chirvani,
"Iranian Metal-Work
and theWritten Word,"
and Annemarie
and Islamic Cul
103, no. 4 (1976): 286-291;
Schimmel,
Apollo
Calligraphy
ture (New York: New York University
Press, 1984), pp. 9-11,
25, 32-33,
110-114.
130
in The Cambridge History
F. Spuhler,
of Islam, vol. 6, The
"Carpets and Textiles,"
Timurid
and Safavid Periods, ed. Peter Jackson and Laurence
Lockhart
Cam
(Cambridge:
and P. R. J. Ford, The Oriental Carpet: A History
Press, 1986), pp. 712-714;
bridge University
to Traditional Motifs,
and Symbols (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
and Guide
Patterns,
1981),
pp. 118-125.
131
in Islamic Art," Pro
of the Horror Vacui
See Richard
"The Taming
Ettinghausen,
15-28.
Society 123, no. 1 (1979):
Philosophical
ceedings of theAmerican
132
Grabar, Formation
of Islamic Art, p. 192.
Finlay: Weaving
Muslim
the Rainbow
417
artists
lush
Paradise,
consideration
in
decoration
of Paradise, a
In a multitude
since
favored colorful designs taken from vegetation
a
in the Qur'an,
and well-watered,
appears prominently
to
that gave prominence
and floral
gardens, fountains,
Islamic cultures.133 A popular motif was the Tree of Life
since ancient Babylon.
symbol inWest Asian
religions
of colors, the motif appeared on window
grilles, prayer
rugs, palace facades, city gateways, ceremonial
robes, and earthenware
On the tiles of mosques,
threaded
passages from the Qur'an
of the
through stems and branches of the Tree of Life, the integration
maze expressing
texts into the labyrinthine
the notion
that the tran
platters.
are implanted
in God's Creation.134
truths of Scripture
Islamic tile makers
individual
of
pieces as components
produced
a larger configuration,
so they could be joined edge to edge
decorated
as when blue-and-gold
in a notionally
infinite pattern,
tiles adorned
star medallions
in
with eight-pointed
swathed the domes of mosques
seems
in
and
Decorative
Islam
Isfahan,
Baghdad,
Samarqand.135
design
on employment
as if representations
modeled
of textiles,
of motifs,
scendent
elements were a colorful, brocade-like
graphic symbols, and geometric
to be wrapped
adornment
around any object,
large or small, fixed or
mobile.136
Indeed, fabric at times sheathed notable buildings: according
to a twelfth-century
structure in Islam,
observer, the Ka'aba, the holiest
was covered
cannot be
"with Chinese
[silk] cloth, the value of which
and in seventeenth-century
estimated,"
Persia, gold brocade
draped
sacred tombs.137
At the other extreme
from mosque
domes with their colossal,
swirl
manu
in
of
blue
Persian
miniature
and
ing arabesques
gold,
painting
ever created.
the most concentrated
color experience
scripts represents
133
See Jonas Benzion
in Islam (Berke
Lehrman,
Earthly Paradise: Garden and Courtyard
of California
and
Press, 1980); and D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens,
ley: University
Landscape,
in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (University
Vision
Park: Pennsylvania
State University
Press,
2000), pp. 135-222.
134 F.
B. Flood,
"The Tree of Life as a Decorative
in Islamic Window-Fillings:
Device
The Mobility
of aMotif," Oriental Art 37, no. 4 (1991-1992):
and Michael
209-222;
Barry,
in Islamic Architecture:
Design and Color
Eight Centuries
of
Vend?me
116.
Press, 1996), pp. n,
135
on mosques
For vivid illustrations
of tile decoration
and Yves Porter, The Art of the Islamic Tiles (Paris:
Degeorge
136
Lisa Golombek,
"The Draped Universe
of Islam,"
Arts in the Islamic World,
ed. Priscilla P. Soucek
(University
the Tile-Maker's
Art
(New York:
see G?rard
buildings,
Flammarion,
2002).
in Content
and Context
of Visual
Park: Pennsylvania
State Uni
and other
versity Press, 1988), pp. 25-50.
137
comes from S. M. Stern, "Ramisht of Siraf, A Merchant
The description
Millionaire
of the Twelfth
Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Century,"
Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1
10. On Persian
Sir John Chardin s Travels
in Persia (Lon
tombs, see John Chardin,
(1967):
don: Argonaut
Press, 1927), p. xxi.
418
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
to be examined
Made
closely,
they were painted with pigments made
illus
and lapis lazuli. The most frequently
from gold, silver, malachite,
a
of
Book
trated text was the famed Shahnameh
(The
50,000
Kings),
stanza epic poem by Firdausi
(ca. 934-ca.
1026) that recounts adven
tures from the mythic
and historical
past of Persia. The Shahnameh
bursts with color and richness?turquoise-studded
crowns, ornate silk
a
tree
buds
of onyx, agate,
shot
with
silver
with
brocade
gold,
parasols,
miniature
titled Firdausi Proves His Liter
and emerald.138 A manuscript
a
at
Court
the
Sultan
Mahmud
Talents
ary
of
of Ghaza by Mir Musavir,
court
at
Persia
of
Safavid
the
of Shah
'Abbas (r. 1587-1629)
painter
is typical of the genre: even though the work measures
(1501-1722),
stylized figures in luminous cos
only 12 X 7.5 in., it depicts fifty-eight
tumes with
thirty-five
as well as some
patterns
diaper, and herringbone
set
the architectural
color motifs
embellishing
comparable
stippled,
ting.139
ornament
and calligraphic
The ubiquity of all-enveloping
inscrip
tion reflects the Islamic conception
informs
that transcendent
divinity
as an integral part of mor
world. Color was embraced
the mundane
its omnipresent
element.
and indispensable
tal existence,
Just as God
so
too his human creatures
the world a rainbow of shades,
has painted
own creations,
from
their
color
and
embellish
should
appropriately
to humble prayer rugs, for color glorifies the radi
monumental
mosques
ance of God on earth and thereby serves as a token of true faith. "The
a Persian poet declared
in the six
of the Muslims,"
Islamic brightness
H0
the faults of the Franks."
teenth century, "has made manifest
Europe:
From Chromophobia
toChromophilia
sense
a distinctly
In the century before Plato and Aristotle,
European
to
in reaction
of West
the bright hues and opulence
of color emerged
elevation
of contour and line above color
the philosophers'
Asia. While
tradition on essential
forms
reflected the focus of the Greek
speculative
it also stemmed from a deep-seated
rather than accidental
appearances,
events of the early fifth century b.c.e.
response to tumultuous
cultural
138
Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, trans. Dick Davis
(New
Ferdowski,
Abolqasem
in the text.
of many
York: Viking,
2006), pp. 47, 328; the pages cited are representative
139
in Stuart Cary Welch,
is reproduced
The work
(London:
Royal Persian Manuscripts
of Fir
and Hudson,
Thames
Sims, "The Illustrated Manuscripts
1976), p. 35; see Eleanor
22 (1992):
of Timur," Ars Orientalis
dausi's Shahnama Commissioned
by Princes of the House
43-68.
140
Cited
teenth-Century
in David
the Image: The Writing
J. Roxburgh,
Prefacing
Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 187, n. 124.
of Art History
in Six
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
419
intimations
of a European
formed in the
self-consciousness
of the struggle between Greek city-states
and the Achaeminid
into play
b.c.e.), with color values coming
Empire of Persia (559-330
in distinguishing
thereafter
between
the supposed virtues of the West
as opposed
to the perceived
vices of the East. "Babylonian"
became
a Greek
was
for
"multicolored"
West
Asia
far
synonym
(poiklos).m
The
first
crucible
that the latter did not regard powers there as
enough away from China
a threat, hence
it looked favorably upon the commodities
(and colors)
across the Silk Road. The Greek homeland,
that ventured
however,
was a small, politically
divided, and relatively
territory at
impoverished
the edge of a mighty West Asian
empire, and ifGreek city-states were
not to be swallowed up by it (as Miletus
and other Greek cities on the
coast recently had been),
Asia Minor
then they had to fight back.
In his History of the Persian Wars
b.c.e.), Herodotus
(ca.
(480-479
a
recounts
how
small
force held off the
425 b.c.e.)
484-ca.
Spartan
and
army of Xerxes
(r. 485-465
b.c.e.) for several days at Thermopylae
soon after defeated
how Athenians
the Great King at the naval battle
of Salamis. When
the Persians finally were crushed at the land battle
scorn as he
of Plataea, Pausanias,
the leader of Sparta,
laughed with
abandoned
of
accoutrements,
surveyed Xerxes'
including
"furnishings
gold and silver and richly colored curtains" as well as "couches of gold
and silver, so richly covered."142 His derision
echoed
through Greek
literature. Since Persian garments and adornment
stood for the empire s
wealth
and power, Aeschylus
b.c.e.)
stages the d?nouement
(525-456
Persians
the appearance
of Xerxes,
his
(ca. 472 b.c.e.) with
embroidered
the destruction
of his forces,
finery in tatters, lamenting
his "troops of gold" and "lazuli flashing" galleys.143 The play presents a
series of contrasts
that expressed
the emerging cultural
identity of the
Greeks
of Athenians):
(especially
Europe against Asia, Greeks
against
of his
141
see Margaret
On poiklos,
BC: A
C. Miller,
Athens
and Persia in the Fifth Century
Press,
Study in Cultural
Receptivity
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
1997), p. 165. On
see Edith Hall,
of Greek
the emergence
the Barbarian:
(and European)
identity,
Inventing
Greek Self-Definition
(Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1989), pp. 1-13, 56-62. On
through Tragedy
see Walter
and West Asian
similarities
of Greek
culture before the fifth century,
Burkett,
and Persepolis: Eastern Contexts
Babylon, Memphis,
of Greek Culture
(Cambridge, Mass.: Har
vard University
Press, 2004).
142
trans. David Grene
of Chicago
Herodotus,
Press,
History,
(Chicago:
University
see Miller, Athens and
sumptuous
1987), p. 648. On the colorful,
booty taken at the battle,
Persia in the Fifth Century
BC, pp. 29-62.
By the time of Plataea, Xerxes already had returned
to Persia, leaving Mardonius
as commander
and in charge of the imperial gear.
behind
143
in The Complete Greek Tragedies,
"The Persians,"
vol. 1, Aeschylus,
ed.
Aeschylus,
trans. Seth G. Benardete
David Grene
and Richmond
of
Lattimore,
(Chicago: University
Chicago
Press,
1959),
pp. 221,
224,
251-258.
JOURNAL
420
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2OO7
freedom against despotism,
barbarians,
sobriety against extravagance,
valor against effeminacy,
raiment
against Persian
plain Doric
fancy
dress.144 Prejudice
color
all these distinc
against bright
underpinned
them with a certain conceptual
tions, endowing
vibrancy.
as a reac
An
of
in Athens
flourished
ideology
Spartan
simplicity
tion to many decades of threats from Persia after Plataea?as
well as to
of rich West Asian merchandise
consumption
by many wealthy Athe
to
in terms of opposition
nians.145 Greeks culturally defined themselves
to exhibit regard for color and lavish appointments
West Asia, hence
to Plutarch
120
became distinctly
un-Hellenic.
(ca. 46-ca.
According
critics
attacked
Pericles
the
leader
of
Ath
ce.),
(ca. 495-429
b.c.e.),
in the 440s.
the Parthenon
ens, for extravagant
spending on building
A colossal statue of Athena
stood inside the temple, covered with gold
talents (or about
1.25 tons), a sum greater than
weighing
forty-four
the total cost of constructing
the Parthenon.
ridiculed
the
Opponents
as
as
were
and
if
"some
Athens
program
pretentious,
building
vulgar
stones and figures and tem
vain woman,
hung round with precious
rhetoric played a leading role in the animus
ples."146 Anti-feminine
Xerxes
like a hysterical
against color: Aeschylus
depicted
behaving
the construction
upon defeat, while
suppos
project of Pericles
edly testified to his sybaritic character and even suggested he was domi
nated by Aspasia,
his formidable mistress.147
outlook
their conservative
With
and puritanical
streak, Romans
to the Greek
of West Asia with color, opu
equation
readily adapted
Horace
declare
lence, and effeminacy.
(65-8 b.c.e.) has a character
"Persian
that he hates
luxury," for garlands of roses are inferior to "the
In his Natural
the Elder
simple myrtle."148
(77 ce.),
History
Pliny
female
144
in Classical
inWar and
"Asia Unmanned:
Edith Hall,
Athens,"
Images of Victory
ed. John Rich and Graham
(London: Routledge,
Society in the Greek World,
Shipley
1993),
in Aeschylus'
and William
G. Thalmann,
"Xerxes' Rags: Some Problems
Per
pp. 108-133;
101, no. 3 (1980): 260-282.
sians," American
Journal of Philology
145
BC, pp. 164-65,
Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century
179, 189, 255-257.
146
trans. John Dryden
Plutarch's Lives, ed. Arthur Hugh Clough,
Plutarch,
(New York:
1:211. On
see Jeffrey M.
Modern
the costs of the Parthenon
and statue,
Library, 2001),
in theAge of Pericles (Cambridge:
The Acropolis
Hurwit,
Press, 2004),
Cambridge
University
pp. 97, 112.
147
D. Stansbury-O'Donnell,
Mark
the Barbarian
and Barbarizing
the
"Feminizing
in the Stoa Poikile,"
in Periklean Athens
Feminine:
and Persians
and Its
Amazons,
Trojans,
of Texas
(Austin: University
Press, 2005),
pp. 89-102;
Legacy: Problems and Perspectives
and Anton
Rhetoric
and Fifth-Century
"Athens' Pretty Face: Anti-feminine
Con
Powell,
in The Greek World,
ed. Anton
Powell
troversy over the Parthenon,"
(London: Routledge,
i995)> PP? 245-270.
148
David West,
190-191.
ed., Horace
Odes
I: Carpe
Diem
(Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1995),
pp.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
421
condemns
the lust for oriental merchandise
among wealthy
(23-79)
as
such
emerald-encrusted
walls.
Romans,
goblets and embossed-marble
in luxury as decadent,
In fact, he regarded such indulgence
precipitat
that while an austere
ing the decline of Roman
power.149 He declares
palette of white, black, red, and yellow proved sufficient for time-hon
ored Greek
and Roman
"there is no such thing as
artists, nowadays
stream in from India, the
since dazzling pigments
high-class
painting"
15?
of
"blood
He
and
holds up Apelles,
the
costly
dragons
elephants."
to
court
Alexander
the
Great
b.c.e.),
painter
semi-legendary
(336-323
as an ideal since that artist always applied a thin black varnish
to his
works "so that the brilliance
of the colours should not offend the sight
when people looked at them."151
conservatives
For Roman
such as Cato
the Elder (234-149
b.c.e.)
and Cicero
florid
colors
(colores floridi), an emblem
b.c.e.),
(106-43
of West Asian
virtue and classi
despots, were as alien to republican
as
cal simplicity
florid senatorial
oratory.152 Plutarch
depicts Mark
taste in speak
(ca. 83-30
b.c.e.) as besotted
Anthony
by "the Asiatic
.
.
.
was
to
suitable
his ostentatious,
ing, which
temper, full
vaunting
of empty flourishes
efforts for glory."153 True to form,
and unsteady
the flowery orator collapses
into the embrace of Cleopatra
of Egypt (r.
47-30 b.c.e.), a queen of color who first exhibits herself to the Roman
in a barge with gilded stern and billowing
purple sails, stretched out
beneath a canopy of cloth of gold and flanked by "beautiful young boys,
like painted Cupids."154 Lush color and exotic women were the bane
men.
of Western
in the fifth century, Greco
After
the fall of the Roman
Empire
Roman
color conventions
formed the basis for Western
in
aesthetics
the Middle Ages. They proved entirely congruent with the contemptus
mundi of Christianity,
which
color as a deceptive,
disparaged
worldly
gloss masking
spiritual
realities.
Moreover,
extravagant
colors,
like
149
Sorcha Carey,
"The Problem
of Totality: Collecting
Greek Art, Wonders
and Lux
12, no. 1 (2000):
ury in Pliny the Elder's Natural History,"
Journal of theHistory of Collections
color was inex
1-13. On the European
sumptuous
history of luxuria, a notion with which
see Christopher
and Historical
J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual
tricably associated,
Press, 1994).
Investigation
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
150
trans. H. Rackman
Mass.: Harvard University
Pliny, Natural History,
(Cambridge,
In this citation,
Press, 1938), 33:7, 35:261,
35:299.
Pliny's draconum
("dragons") has been
substituted
for Rackman's
"snakes."
151
35:333.
Pliny, Natural History,
152
inGreek Painting
See Vincent
(New York: W W. Norton,
J. Bruno, Form and Color
1977)? PP- 70-72.
153
Plutarch's
Plutarch,
154
Ibid., 2:496.
Lives,
2:482.
JOURNAL
422
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
with pagan practices,
and it was a clich? of
flowers, were associated
clerical homilies
that the Almighty's
decision not to create multihued
that he frowned on brightly
colored clothing.155 Using
sheep proved
same
a Parliament
in 1621 supported
member
the
of
colored
silks by arguing
sumptuary
against
wearing
legislation
that "God did not attire our first parents with excrement
of worms."156
a
on
Northern
had
outlook
color since
Europe
particularly
jaundiced
it was distant from the vivid dyes and polychrome
fabrics of the eastern
Mediterranean.
Black was the natural pigmentation
of northern
sheep
the
line of argument,
in the early Middle Ages,
and they did not start turning white
(with
until
the
thirteenth
century. The most common
improved breeding)
color in Anglo-Saxon
battle
and Grendel
poetry was black?Beowulf
a
were
blackberries
the
grim landscape?and
ingre
through
principal
as a kind of
in early Germanic
dient
dyes.157 Black cloth functioned
colored textiles of the south, and by the
protest against the expensive
fifteenth
black
velvet had become
the fabric of choice
century,
early
at the influential court of Philip the Good
the duke of
(r. 1419-1467),
Roman
of
the
Charles
V
who
(r. 1519-1558),
Empire
Burgundy.
Holy
inherited Burgundy,
took the fashion to his Spanish kingdom,
where
cos
it the virtual national
his son Philip II (r. 1556-1598)
later made
tume of the nobility.158
From the tenth to the sixteenth
bias against
century, the European
color slowly eroded, partly as a consequence
of the growth of commerce,
northern
trade in woolens
and consequent
need
including
expanding
an aesthetics
In addition,
from Pseudo
for diverse pigments.
derived
a fifth-century
the Areopagite,
that vis
mystic, maintained
Dionysius
a
is
immaterial
manifestation
of
God
and
that
ible,
bright color
light
can motivate
to contemplate
viewers
In
realities.
all likeli
spiritual
accounts
the
influence
of
for
the
vivid
colors
hood,
Pseudo-Dionysius
Lindisfarne
that appear in the Northumbrian
(ca. 700-725)
Gospels
and the Irish Book of Kells (ca. 800), which display a wide palette and
stylized
geometric
design
evocative
of the eastern Mediterranean.159
155
Press, 1993),
University
Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers
(Cambridge: Cambridge
and Divine,
pp. 11, 63, 68.
pp. 73-74; and Pleij, Cofors Demonic
156
in Linda Levy Peck, Consuming
in Seventeenth
Cited
Splendor: Society and Culture
Press, 2005), p. 10.
University
Century England
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
157
F. Barley, "Old English
and Penguins,"
"Peacocks
and Nigel
Schneider,
pp. 423-424;
Do Matters
Colour Classification:
Where
Stand?" Anglo-Saxon
15-29.
England 3 (1974):
158
in Black, pp.
"Peacocks
and Penguins,"
pp. 414, 422; and Harvey, Men
Schneider,
52-56,
159
80.
72-77,
See Michelle
(Toronto:
The Book
University
ofKells:
P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels:
Society, Spirituality and the Scribe
of Toronto
280-281,
Press, 2003), pp. 275-276,
284; and Carol Farr,
Its Function and Audience
and Toronto:
The British Library and
(London
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
423
result of Pseudo-Dionysian
clearest and most
light
spectacular
is
of
cathedrals. Abbot Suger ( 1122
medieval
the
stained
glass
theology
near Paris, extensively
1151), head of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis
used blue-and-gold
stained glass to evoke the "True Light" (vera lux) of
the divine presence.160 In tones redolent of Firdausi, Suger exulted that
were luminously
in Saint-Denis
covered
"with
the tombs of holy men
refined gold and a profusion of hyacinths,
emeralds and other precious
for the denunciation
of
stones."161 Yet this was a minority
perspective,
remained
char
color by Bernard of Clairvaux
(Suger's contemporary)
The
acteristic
views.
influence was most
the sixteenth
century, Mediterranean
reassessment
in
of
the
color, with Venice
important
lengthy European
as
for
and
hues.162
West Asian
the major conduit
serving
Byzantine
the
Great
influenced by the Huns, Constantine
(r. 312-337),
Perhaps
the late
his
who made Constantinople
imperial capitol,
equipped
Roman
army with bright tunics and trousers, and the emperors Justin
ofWestern
Until
ian (r. 527-565)
favored multihued
Persian
and Heraclius
(r. 610-641)
to Constantinople.163
fabrics, even bringing West Asian weavers
Byz
antium won renown for its rich brocades
and polychrome
silks, while
on Byzantine
Venice
exports to Italy by the
gained a virtual monopoly
it the most
Italian city
fourteenth
century, helping make
important
state trading in the eastern Mediterranean.
Venetian
"beyond the
galleys carried lapis lazuli (or ultramarine,
one of the Asian
commodities
that made
sea") from Constantinople,
in Europe. It imported Persian
Venice
the center for processed pigments
cobalt
oxide
for the manufacture
of glass, and recycled
colored
broken
of eastern Mediterranean
and Irish
of Toronto
Press, 1997), p. 15. On similarities
see Terry Allen,
the Beveled
of an Early
"The Arabesque,
Style, and the Mirage
design,
in Late Antiquity,
in Tradition and Innovation
ed. F. M. Clover
and R. S. Hum
Islamic Art,"
ofWisconsin
Press, 1989), pp. 209-244.
(Madison: University
phreys
160
in
A. Zinn Jr., "Suger, Theology,
and the Pseudo-Dionysian
Grover
Tradition,"
of
Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis,
ed. Paula Lieber Gerson
Museum
(New York: Metropolitan
University
and Pastoureau,
Blue, pp. 44-46.
1986), pp. 33-40;
161
Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church
and Its
Abbot
of St.-Denis
Suger of Saint-Denis,
Art Treasures,
ed. and trans. Erwin Panofsky
(Princeton,
Press,
N.J.: Princeton
University
1946), p. 107.
162
To a lesser extent,
color also came to Europe by way of imports of Mongol
brocade
on the Silk Road;
see Linda Komaroff,
"The Transmission
and Dissemination
of a New
in The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture
inWestern Asia
Visual Language,"
and Stefano Carboni
Museum
(New York: Metropolitan
(exh. cat.), ed. Linda Komaroff
see Cathleen
S. Hoeniger,
of Art,
For a case study of such influence,
2002), pp. 169-195.
Art,
for Representing
of Gold and Silver: Simone Martini's
Luxury Textiles,"
Techniques
International Center of Medieval Art 30, no. 2 (1991):
154-162.
163
to Abstraction
Practice and Meaning
John Gage, Color and Culture:
from Antiquity
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1993), pp. 62-63.
"Cloth
Gesta:
424
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
it brought
in new enameling
vessels;
and
earthenware
from Syria
colored
brightly
techniques
its patterned
modeled
fabrics on silks
and Islamic Spain.164 Venice
Damascene
from West Asia and sold multicolored
carpets throughout
out millefiori
Venetian
turned
(thousand-flower)
glassmakers
Europe.
veined hardstones
of
vessels, wares that replicated
by the technique
cross
in
sections
of
colored
rods
tinted
Influenced
glass.
melting
glass
glass
from Lebanon
for its own
from Egypt
in Cairo
and Damascus,
Venetian
decorated
patricians
in polychrome,
colorful
windows
with
mosaics,
including
of
red-and-white
and
tinted bottle-glass,
stone,
pieces
lozenge patterns
of precious colored marble. The fa?ade of Ca' d'Oro (begun 1421) was
of the Persian
and gold leaf, a replication
decorated with ultramarine
blue
of
and
gold.165
palette
in
into contact
and southern Europe came increasingly
Northern
was
maritime
when
traffic
the later Middle
Ages,
especially
regular
seas in the four
between
the Mediterranean
and northern
established
by buildings
their palaces
its textiles,
teenth century. Venice
delivered
glass, and West Asian
to
In
and France.
merchandise
the Netherlands,
England,
by galleys
of Italian craftsmen?potters,
addition,
increasing numbers
glassmak
in Ant
and dyers?sought
ers, weavers, mirror makers,
employment
innovation
cities.166 Yet the greatest color
werp and other northern
in the north.
In the early fifteenth
century, artists in the
originated
started using oil paints in place of watercolors
Netherlands
applied to
in egg tempera. With
wet plaster (fresco) or pigment mixed
every par
in oil (such as poppy or linseed) and thus
enfolded
ticle of pigment
refracting
of masters
Weyden
expanded
In the hands
light, colors gleamed with jewel-like brightness.
and Rogier van der
such as Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390-1441)
was stunning.
It vastly
the new technique
(ca. 1400-1464),
for
for employing
saturated colors and
render
possibilities
164
"Imitations
David Whitehouse,
"Peacocks
and Penguins,"
pp. 427-428;
Schneider,
in Glass of the Sultans (exh. cat.), ed. Stefano Carboni
and David White
of Islamic Glass,"
and H. Blake, "The
Conn.:
house
Yale University
Press, 2001), pp. 297-301;
(New Haven,
en M?diteran?e
'Bacini' of North
occidentale: Xe-XVe
si?cle
Italy," in La c?ramique m?di?vale
de la recherche
national
(Paris: Centre
1980), pp. 93-1 n.
scientifique,
165
to Piazza:
Rosamond
E. Mack,
Islamic Trade and Italian Art,
Bazaar
1300-1600
of California
Press, 2002),
44> 97-99?
25> J0^1?
pp. 20, 22-23,
(Berkeley: University
on Venetian Architec
Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World
Deborah
Howard,
Conn.:
Yale University
and Paul
ture, 1100-1500
Press, 2000), pp. 146-153;
(New Haven,
Conn.:
Hills, Venetian Colour: Marble, Mosaic,
1250-1550
(New Haven,
Painting and Glass,
Yale University
Press, 1999), pp. 64, 69, n 7-118,
174.
166
Interna
of the Mediterranean
Trade Hegemony:
Richard T Rapp,
"The Unmaking
and the Commercial
tional Trade Rivalry
Revolution,"
35, no.
Journal of Economic History
3 (i975)-
499-525
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
425
and flesh. By the mid fifteenth
ing the texture of fabric, glass, metal,
some
artists
had
Italian
century,
adopted oils as the preferred medium
toned down their colors, softening
often
for easel painting,
though they
the
and
of
edges
light and shadow.167
play
emphasizing
was
in Venice,
oil
embraced
where
painting
fervently
Naturally,
from
Oizo
the technique
the
became
syn
tempera
1480s.
supplanted
with quick-drying
onymous with colore. Working
egg tempera or fresco
was notoriously
difficult,
requiring
rapid strokes and smooth brush
the way to a spontaneous,
work. Oils, however,
dynamic
style,
opened
in the works of Titian
best illustrated
and Tintoretto
(ca. 1487-1576)
The two Venetians
influenced
the Spanish
(1518-1594).168
powerfully
painter Diego Velazquez
in Las Meninas
(1656),
ten
who famously portrayed himself
(1599-1660),
a manifesto
a palette of
of modern
art, holding
colors.169
the middle
of the seventeenth
the European
age of
century,
a
new
had
warfare
and
cultural
climate
had
ended,
religious
emerged.
crucis ten years after Velazquez
Newton
carried out his experimentum
scientist derived color from sun
finished painting Las Meninas.
The
not
color
had
been
after
itself
liberated from religious and
light
long
manner
a
technical
freed
of
constraints,
(in
speaking) from the stained
By
to the
of monasteries
and illuminated manuscripts
glass of cathedrals
artist s palette,
New
craftsman's workshop,
and scientific
laboratory.
ton's prismatic
took place around the same time that the
experiments
Royal Society heard papers on the chemistry of dyeing and that profes
to painters.170
sional "colormen" emerged,
suppliers of pigment
was
more
Another
than the
however,
significant
development,
to the eastern
secularization
of color. For centuries,
the links of Venice
meant
Mediterranean
that it transmitted West Asian
color values to
Europe,
but by the
time of Velazquez
and Newton,
Atlantic
nations
167
to Florence:
From Flanders
Paula Nuttall,
The
Impact of Netherlandish
Painting,
Conn.:
Yale University
(New Haven,
Press, 2004),
1400-1500
pp. 34-36,
176-177,
185;
B. Hall, Color and Meaning:
in Renaissance
Marcia
Practice and Theory
Painting
(Cambridge:
and Janis Bell, "Color and Chiaroscuro,"
Press,
Cambridge
1992), pp. 47-91;
University
in Raphael's
'School of Athens,'
ed. Marcia
Hall
Press,
University
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
1997), pp. 85-113.
168
Arthur
Steinberg,
"Blurred Boundaries,
and Sensuous
Flesh:
Nature,
Opulent
in Venetian
inTitian 500, ed. Joseph
Changing
Painting,
Technological
Styles
1480-1520,"
Manca
D.C.: National
of Art,
(Washington,
Gallery
1993), pp. 199-220.
169
Brown
and Carmen
The Technique
Garrido,
(New
Jonathan
Velazquez:
of Genius
Conn.:
Yale University
the modernity
o? Las Meni
Haven,
Press, 1998), pp. 181-194. On
Sciences
nas, see Michel
Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology
(New
of the Human
York: Random
House,
1970), pp. 3-16.
170
See Finlay, Color, p. 16; and Schneider,
"Peacocks
and Penguins,"
p. 435.
JOURNAL
426
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
to everywhere
else. As a consequence,
connected
the West
the world's
maritime
colors came to Europe,
when
the
of
trade
pace
especially
1600.
after
picked up
came from the New World:
Pigments
purple dye from a Mexican
shellfish and red dye from brazilwood
(from the Arabic
brazier, "fiery
name. The Caribbean
its
the
Brazil
that
offered
red"),
gives
commodity
an ideal climate for growing
indigo, hence Europe no longer depended
on meager
from
Persia
and India. Seeing
their livelihood
supplies
to indigo as
woad
manufacturers
referred
European
being destroyed,
.m The greatest treasure, however, was
the "devil's color" (Teufelsfarbe)
cochineal
(from Latin coccinus, "scarlet"). A brilliant red dye, it derives
on a Mexican
cac
from tiny insects that are parasitical
prickly-pear
tus. It took 17,000 dried insects to yield a single ounce of pigment,
as Mexican
it almost as valuable
than 175,000
silver; more
making
(from trillions of insect bodies) went off to Seville
pounds of cochineal
a notoriously
Even
dour and puritanical
every year.
Newton,
character,
resi
became
enraptured
by the novel colorant: he turned his London
and
dence into a study in scarlet, with curtains, cushions, bed hangings,
shade.172
furniture in that flamboyant
upholstered
some
Color also arrived in Europe on East Asian
porcelain. While
was
of it
colored Imari pottery and delicately
Japanese, both brilliantly
most was Chinese
blue and white. As a Portuguese
tinted Kakiemon,
in 1563, chinaware
is "so fine and transparent
cardinal declared
that
are
the whites
outshine
and the pieces which
crystal and alabaster,
a
in
the eyes, seeming
of ala
blue dumbfound
combination
decorated
and sapphires."173 Between
merchants
1500 and 1800, Western
a new color expe
pieces, giving Europeans
imported some 300 million
In turn, European man
rience along with their high-quality
tableware.
in
France, and Great Britain,
Holland,
ufacturers,
Germany,
especially
also was
the East Asian
Porcelain
pottery by the millions.174
replicated
to replicate the colors of the natural world. The S?vres man
employed
baster
ufactory
of France
specialized
in the production
of porcelain
flowers,
171
in Black, p. 56; Finlay, Coior, pp. 319-320,
Blue,
329; and Pastoureau,
Harvey, Men
p. 130.
172
A Perfect Red, pp. 34-37,
Greenfield,
85, 89, 116, 153.
173
in Maria Antonia
Pinto de Matos,
"The Portuguese
Cited
Trade," Oriental Art 45,
no. 1 (1999): 27.
174H.'P.
at Delft,
trans. Katherine Watson
Faience Production
(New
Fourest, Delftware:
im sogenannten
'Kakiemonstil'
York: Rizzoli,
Shono,
1980); Masako
Japanisches Aritaporzellan
trans. Richard
als Vorbild f?r die Meissener
Rasch
and Rainer R?ckert
Porzellanmanufaktur,
(Munich:
Universe
Marketing
Editions
Schneider
French Faience
GmbH,
(New York:
1973); Jeanne Giacomotti,
Its Makers,
Books,
1745-?5:
Design,
1963); and Hilary Young, English Porcelain,
and Consumption
and Albert
(London: Victoria
Publications,
1999).
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
427
the mistress
of Louis XV
de Pompadour
(1721-1764),
once
a
with
of
the
hundreds
of
(r. 1715-1774),
king
display
surprised
brilliant porcelain
and
all
roses,
violets,
blossoms,
including
jonquils,
to seem real.175
suitably perfumed
silks and Indian cottons
reached a much wider circle of
Chinese
consumers
Francesco
than did porcelain.
Carletti
(ca. 1573-1636),
a Florentine
merchant
who visited Macao,
noted
that the Chinese
and Madame
silk "in all the colors that can be imagined,
light as well as
produced
one
associ
of
Newton's
dark."176 In 1644, John Evelyn
(1620-1706),
some Chinese merchandise
ates in the Royal Society, examined
in Lon
cloth of gold "with such
don, including garments made of embroidered
we
as
in Europe
&
for
vividnesse
colours
have
nothing
splendor
lively
Samuel
close
friend, out
Pepys (1633-1703),
Evelyn's
approaches."177
in a "new coloured-silk
suit and coat, trimmed with gold
fitted himself
and gold broad lace round my hands, very rich and fine."178
up with fashion, Pepys records in his diary that
Always
keeping
"after many tryalls bought my wife a Chinke
[chintz]; that is, a paynted
is very pretty."179 In
Indian Callico
for to line her new Study, which
the 1630s, the English East India Company
Indian
150,000
imported
piece goods; fifty years later, it shipped almost three million
annually.
As one observer noted,
of the
by "the Gaiety
people were attracted
on
Colours"
the muslins,
calicoes, and chintz (from Hindi chint, "many
so much more
the Indian cottons were
colorful
colored").180 Since
buttons
and convenient
than woolen
had water-resistant
fabrics,
popu
they proved exceedingly
from use of mordants
stemming
and resist-dyeing,
whereas European
tinted textiles faded easily when
in the early eighteenth
washed.181 A Londoner
remarked
century that
lar. They
colors,
175
De Bellaigue,
Svend Eriksen
and Geoffrey
S?vres porcelain: Vincennes
and S?vres,
trans. R. J. Charleston
(London: Faber and Faber, 1987), p. 88; and Geoffrey
1740-1800,
Wills,
Flowers," Apollo 88, no. 9 (1968):
198-203.
"European Porcelain
176
trans. Herbert Weinstock
Francesco
Carletti,
(New
M}> Voyage around theWorld,
York: Pantheon
Books,
1964), p. 148.
177
ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford: Clarendon
Press,
John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn,
1955)? 3:373-374
178
Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William
Matthews
of California
Press, 1970-1983),
6:125.
(Berkeley: University
179
Ibid., 4:299.
180
in Rosemary
in Encounters:
"Asia in Europe: Textiles
for the West,"
Cited
Crill,
The Meeting
(exh. cat), ed. Anna
1500-1800
of Asia and Europe,
Jackson and Amin
Jaffer
(London: V&A
Publications,
2004), p. 270.
181
see Beverly Lemire, Fashion's Favorite: The Cot
On the popularity
of Indian cottons,
ton Trade and the Consumer
in Britain,
1660-1800
(Oxford: Oxford University
see Brenda M.
Indian methods
of staining
silk and cotton,
12-42. On
Manchester
Press, 2005), pp. 57-60.
Empire (Manchester:
University
pp.
Press,
King,
1991),
Silk and
JOURNAL
428
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
was
to the meanest
the greatest gallants
cook maids,
nothing
so
as
to
fit
adorn
their
Persons
fabrick
from
On
the
India!"182
thought
in Eng
the eve of the French Revolution,
colorful cottons, now woven
land as well as India, were the leading textile for almost all social ranks
in England
and France, with clothing,
drapery, and curtains decorated
with two-tone
checks, variegated
stripes, and floral patterns.183 For the
commoners
access to diverse,
extensive
first time, European
enjoyed
"from
bright colors.
on both cottons
Vibrant
floral motifs
and por
appeared frequently
celains. The same designs also surfaced on imported Chinese
wallpaper
Persian and Indian carpets, Bengal
and paintings,
silks, and Kashmiri
of flowers in assorted media
shawls.184 Even more
important, depictions
ones
were accompanied
a culture of flowers
in
the ground. While
by real
in
bloomed
China,
India, and West Asia, medieval
Europe
perennially
cen
to flower gardens.185 From the sixteenth
attention
paid negligible
as Asian
and bulbs
that changed dramatically
tury, however,
cuttings
came to Europe. The painter
to a
wrote
(i 568-1625)
Jan Breughel
a
on
in which
client that he was working
"there will be more
painting
size of which
the great part are rare
than a hundred flowers in natural
and carna
and choice. The ordinary flowers are lilies, roses, violets
tions; the others are unusual and have never been seen in this coun
186
flowers
included
the camellia,
Novel
peony, chrysanthemum,
try."
jasmine, iris, heliotrope,
cyclamen,
jonquil, crocus, narcissus,
begonia,
and tulip.187 Louis XIV
(r. 1643-1715)
hyacinth,
magnolia,
marigold,
182
in Goody, Culture
and the rise of a consumer
Cited
of Flowers, p. 210. On cottons
East India Companies
"The English
and Dutch
and the Birth
society, see Bruce P. Lenman,
in the Augustan
of Consumption
World,"
Eighteenth Century Life 14 (1990): 49-50.
183
Birth of Inti
See Roche, Culture
pp. 127, 138; and Pardailh?-Galabrun,
of Clothing,
macy, p. 172.
184
and the East India Calico
the Exotic: Floral Culture
"Domesticating
Beverly Lemire,
c. 1600-1800,"
Trade with England,
Textile 1, no. 1 (2003): 64-85; Gill Saunders, Wallpaper
in Interior Decoration
Publications,
2002), pp. 63-67; Chen Ying, "Botanical
(London: V&A
in Souvenir from Canton: Chinese Export Paintings from
for the Western
Illustrations
Market,"
the Victoria and Albert Museum
Classics,
(exh. cat.) (Shanghai:
2003), pp. 64-69;
Shanghai
in Netherlandish
Onno
and Their Datings
1540-1700
Ydema, Carpets
Paintings,
(Zutphen:
Flowers Underfoot:
Indian Carpets
Press, 1991), p. 7; David Walker,
of theMughal
Walburg
Museum
of Art,
Era (exh. cat.)
Maskiell,
(New York: Metropolitan
1997); and Michelle
Kashmir:
Shawls
and Empires,
Journal ofWorld History
13, no. 1
1500-2000,"
"Consuming
(2002): 35-43
185
Goody, Culture of Flowers, pp. 73-100.
186
in Peter Coats,
Flowers inHistory
Cited
(New York: Viking,
1970), p. 23.
187
see Anna
On
the most
fabulous flower of the seventeenth
Pavord, The
century,
see
1999), pp. 129-161. On other flowers of the same period,
Tulip (New York: Bloomsbury,
Coats,
Flowers
inHistory.
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
429
of flowers at Versailles,
spent a fortune planting millions
encircling
that somber palace with a riot of color.188 Given
the Sun King's influ
ence on aristocratic
in Europe as
style, this made flowers as fashionable
blue-and-white
colored
and Persian
silks, painted
calicoes,
porcelain,
on
and elsewhere,
flowers passed
their hues from
carpets. At Versailles
one medium
to another: from pottery, chintz, and wallpaper
to tapestry,
and still-life paintings.189
upholstery,
Asian
With
imports and Newton's
experimentum crucis, color became
a subject of enormous
interest in
and scientific
aesthetic,
commercial,
on
French royal tapestries
eighteenth-century
Europe. The colors used
increased from eighty around 1680 to almost 600 a century later.190 The
search for new techniques
for creating pigments
accelerated
during the
same time, with
textile and pottery manufacturers
taking the lead,
in order to compete with Asian
The enterprise
commodities.
mainly
of modern
chemical
gave crucial
science,
impetus to the emergence
with the first artificial color (Prussian blue) created
in Berlin around
in
1706 and the first aniline dye (mauve or "Tyrian purple") discovered
in 1856. In the twelfth century, Europe had only a handful of
England
natural dyestuffs, but by the end of the nineteenth
century, it had some
and thousands more were in the offing. The
2,000 synthetic pigments,
in 1766, the first tin tubes for oil
first watercolor
paint boxes appeared
paints in 1841.191 Palettes and tubes in hand, the Impressionists moved
outside to paint nature's colors in the sunlight.
in the new global ecumene heralded
the rise of the West
the
at
It
of
the
rainbow
home.
also
the
foreshadowed
triumph
globalization
of color values that would take place in the late nineteenth
and twen
asWestern
tieth centuries
and
industrial
technology
products had an
on
cultures
impact
everywhere.
Thus
188
Elizabeth Hyde, Cultivated
Power: Flowers, Culture,
and Politics in the Reign of Louis
of Pennsylvania
Press, 2005), pp. 145-159.
University
(Philadelphia:
189
von Meyenburg,
ItWith
See Bettina
Flowers': The Flower as an Artistic
"'Saying
Motif
in Flowers
from the Late Middle
into Art: Floral Motifs
until the Baroque,"
in
Ages
European Painting and Decorative Arts, ed. Vibeke Woldbye
(Hague: SDU Publishers,
1991),
PP- 37-56.
190
Birth of Intimacy, p. 171.
Pardailh?'Galabrun,
191
S. Travis, The Rainbow Makers:
The Origins of the Synthetic Dye Industry in
Anthony
XIV
Western
Pa.: Lehigh University
and A. Clow
Press, 1993), pp. 35-44;
(Bethlehem,
"The Chemical
with
the Industrial Revolution,"
in
Industry: Interactions
A History
c. 1750 to c. 1850, ed. Charles
vol. 4, The Industrial Revolution,
of Technology,
A. R. Hall, and Trevor
I.Williams
(Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1958),
Singer, E. J. Holmyard,
the first aniline
On
How One
pp. 248-249.
(or coal-tar)
dye, see Simon Garfield, Mauve:
Man
that Changed
theWorld
Invented a Color
(New York: W W Norton,
2001). On paint
boxes and tubes, see Finlay, Color, p. 19.
and N.
Europe
L. Clow,
430
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
2OO7
Conclusion
if there could be such a thing as a "natural
wondered
Wittgenstein
of
colour."192
evolution
and human history
history
Bringing
together
in
the
fact works against
suggests that it is possible,
though
approach
inas
the philosopher's
focus on the logical structure of color concepts
it is placed
in the
much as there is nothing
"logical" about color when
context
of both color vision and color values. While
the same colors
eyes, and people
appear to everyone's
everywhere
pick out the same
as
assortment
of
ideas
about
them do not
small
colors
primary,
fairly
from pure, unmediated
but instead are filtered
visual experience
cultural
standards
and
that
preconceptions
through
change over time.
was
a
his own era. He
of
enterprise
clearly
Wittgenstein's
product
considered
color from the perspective
of a twentieth-century
observer,
one who naturally
surrounded
found himself
(as he remarked)
by a
host of hues.193 Yet color assumed a truly central place in the everyday
life of the West
and massive
prismatic
experiment
only after Newton's
exotic
of
vivid
The
scientific
exile
of
color from
commodities.
imports
derive
in the West
the triumph of chromophilia
reality along with
of color to the level of serious speculation
for the
raised the question
in which Wittgenstein
first time. In other words, the context
pondered
was quite different from that experienced
the logic of color perceptions
throughout most of human history.
The human
for perceiving
colors has always exceeded
potential
some
environment.
the
the range generally presented
natural
After
by
existence
millennia
of
how
of
and
several
200,000
civilization,
years
ever, Homo
sapiens now live in a world that is entirely commensurate
human
of their color vision. The historical
the acuity and discrimination
of
the
rainbow?the
of color in culture?finally
weaving
expression
of
the
matches
the evolutionary
rainbow, the variety of hues
weaving
era. Thanks
the Cretaceous
after
that our primate ancestors
acquired
we inhabit a world so saturated with color?
to science and technology,
with
glowing nylons, glossy plas
including neon lighting, flashy advertising,
color cinema,
color photography,
tics, acrylic paints, color magazines,
of its
and color computer
screens?that
color television,
recognition
historical
requires a leap of imagination.
uniqueness
of common
color in the dull catalogue
Enrolling
to the earth,
drained it of emotional
force. Tethered
192
Wittgenstein,
193
Ibid., p. 25e.
Remarks
on Colour,
p. 34e.
things inexorably
the rainbow finally
Finlay: Weaving
the Rainbow
431
color coding, a fixture of all soci
becomes
Conceptual
commonplace.
eties since the origins of civilization,
is now obsolete, while the struggle
is exhausted.
The modest
and chromophobia
between
chromophilia
amount of social color coding that survives ismandated
by professional
necessities
conventions
rather than by sumptuary
and institutional
mores?fireman
and community
red, police blue, hospital
legislation
olive
drab, corporate gray, convict orange, the hardhat's
white, military
saturated hues a routine experience,
just a handful
yellow helmet. With
of occasions
stand out for their color, mainly parades, athletic contests,
and
and annual festivities
such as Mardi Gras, Halloween,
Christmas,
the only colors that still carry a powerful
the Fourth of July. Perhaps
emotional
charge for many people are those in a certain configuration
on flags, though that is true primarily
in nations whose origins stretch
cen
to
the invention
of the color-coded
back
symbol in the eighteenth
the United
States, and France.194
tury, most notably Great Britain,
Yet with all the differences
and traditional worlds
between modern
in regard to color, there remains a fundamental
similarity, one that
as
nature
arises from the very
of the phenomenon:
always, it transcends
Like Goethe,
still find it hard to accept
that
understanding.
people
an
array of colors, every one of
transparent
light somehow
produces
in
is darker than light itself. Newton
which
told the Royal Society
represents "the oddest if not the
1672 that this apparent contradiction
most
in the
which
hath hitherto
been made
considerable
detection
to color
of Nature."195 The Newtonian
paradox contributes
an elusive and problematic
theme. Most people also under
resist the notion
of color, a cardinal
that their perception
standably
dimension
of reality, is founded on visual illusion and radical subjectiv
of color is so
ity. Such considerations
help explain why the experience
a framework of rational analysis. As Wittgen
difficult to place within
stein reluctantly
"We stand there like the ox in front of the
conceded,
operations
remaining
newly-painted
194
stall door."
See Sasha R. Weitman,
"National
Semi?tica 8, no.
Overview,"
Flags: A Sociological
and Carolyn Marvin
and David W
4 (1973): 328-367;
Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and theNation:
Totem Rituals and theAmerican
Press, 1999).
Flag (Cambridge:
University
Cambridge
195
in Christianson,
In the Presence of the Creator,
Cited
p. 102.