Colors and Ideas
- Thread starter constant escape
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constant escape
winter withered, warm
Precisely. Its the substratum/bedrock that I'm looking for, and perhaps a deeper understanding of colors could lead there.
I mean, there has to be an objective basis for it, even if ideology is essentially emergent - it has to emerge from somewhere.
I mean, there has to be an objective basis for it, even if ideology is essentially emergent - it has to emerge from somewhere.
constant escape
winter withered, warm
Your point about the color wheel as a human typology is a direction I'd be inclined to move in.
But no, I haven't heard of the Rose of Temperaments. The above mention of it tripped me up.
But no, I haven't heard of the Rose of Temperaments. The above mention of it tripped me up.
luka
Well-known member
Nov 5, 2018
travel with your eye from left to right through a colour scale
http://gaska.mainelycommerce.com/-color-scale/
register what happens in each discrete territory, how those zone affect you, how there is a physical response, as sensation, how there is an emotional response, how there is an intellectual response-
blue means a variety of things, associations, webs of metaphor, sea, sky, calm, pure, cold
this is how art operates. again, it's very simple. everybody knows how to do it already.
travel with your eye from left to right through a colour scale
http://gaska.mainelycommerce.com/-color-scale/
register what happens in each discrete territory, how those zone affect you, how there is a physical response, as sensation, how there is an emotional response, how there is an intellectual response-
blue means a variety of things, associations, webs of metaphor, sea, sky, calm, pure, cold
this is how art operates. again, it's very simple. everybody knows how to do it already.
luka
Well-known member
How to sound like a nonce in art galleries
I’ve somehow convinced a yat to go out with me. She’s an arty fatty type and I (stupidly) suggested art galleries. She loves the saatchi in London so obviously we’re heading there. Problem is I know fuck all about art galleries!! I’m really trying to get a grasp of the kind of stuff I would...
www.dissensus.com
shiels
_
It makes sense to me that before we had language and culture, the meaning of colour was more ‘fixed’ than it is now, because we didn’t have the means to use it creatively and were restricted by the materials in our immediate environment. But even then the same red on an apple meant ripe, and on a spider’s back meant poison...
If you wanted to start mapping some of this out, you might have to go back pre language. How we perceive the spectrum probably does have a traceable evolutionary coding, where The eye and visual system has evolved to perceive frequencies in a way that correlates colour with other senses and states to help us detect or avoid threat and opportunity
But the difference is now very very very arbitrary across culture, time, individuals and also existing alongside a massively complex range of aesthetic factors that make the meaning of colour too fluid. So yes you can map the influence of colour onto ideology: red in buddhist tibet, nazi germany, uk election 2020. But that doesn't tell you anything inherent about the colour red. It would be like trying to explain the meaning of the sound of the letter ‘f’ through physics. So like the letters of the alphabet, colours are useful for communication because they don’t have (too much) inherent meaning. They only acquire it through context, in combination with other aesthetic factors and senses
If you wanted to start mapping some of this out, you might have to go back pre language. How we perceive the spectrum probably does have a traceable evolutionary coding, where The eye and visual system has evolved to perceive frequencies in a way that correlates colour with other senses and states to help us detect or avoid threat and opportunity
But the difference is now very very very arbitrary across culture, time, individuals and also existing alongside a massively complex range of aesthetic factors that make the meaning of colour too fluid. So yes you can map the influence of colour onto ideology: red in buddhist tibet, nazi germany, uk election 2020. But that doesn't tell you anything inherent about the colour red. It would be like trying to explain the meaning of the sound of the letter ‘f’ through physics. So like the letters of the alphabet, colours are useful for communication because they don’t have (too much) inherent meaning. They only acquire it through context, in combination with other aesthetic factors and senses
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
i remember having posted this before but it is relevant to the topic and quite wonderful:
Homer used two adjectives to describe aspects of the colour blue: kuaneos, to denote a dark shade of blue merging into black; and glaukos, to describe a sort of ‘blue-grey’, notably used in Athena’s epithet glaukopis, her ‘grey-gleaming eyes’. He describes the sky as big, starry, or of iron or bronze (because of its solid fixity). The tints of a rough sea range from ‘whitish’ (polios) and ‘blue-grey’ (glaukos) to deep blue and almost black (kuaneos, melas). The sea in its calm expanse is said to be ‘pansy-like’ (ioeides), ‘wine-like’ (oinops), or purple (porphureos). But whether sea or sky, it is never just ‘blue’. In fact, within the entirety of Ancient Greek literature you cannot find a single pure blue sea or sky. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-sea-was-never-blue
Homer used two adjectives to describe aspects of the colour blue: kuaneos, to denote a dark shade of blue merging into black; and glaukos, to describe a sort of ‘blue-grey’, notably used in Athena’s epithet glaukopis, her ‘grey-gleaming eyes’. He describes the sky as big, starry, or of iron or bronze (because of its solid fixity). The tints of a rough sea range from ‘whitish’ (polios) and ‘blue-grey’ (glaukos) to deep blue and almost black (kuaneos, melas). The sea in its calm expanse is said to be ‘pansy-like’ (ioeides), ‘wine-like’ (oinops), or purple (porphureos). But whether sea or sky, it is never just ‘blue’. In fact, within the entirety of Ancient Greek literature you cannot find a single pure blue sea or sky. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-sea-was-never-blue
luka
Well-known member
As shields says there's been a huge amount of accretions layered over some universal associations. Every culture has day and night and sun and moon and dawn and sunset and sky and rock and water and plants. Every culture has blood and bone and shit and piss. Not every culture has sea. Not every culture has wheat or oxen.
luka
Well-known member
Take those startling, blinding whites of Greek houses to England and they become tea-stained and dingy. Yellowed lace and linen.
sufi
lala
The universe spammed me with this over the weekend: https://www.academia.edu/440506/The_Seven_Seals_of_Revelation_and_the_Seven_Classical_Planets
Table 1. The Color Mentioned by John in Connection with Each Seal Rev Seal Text (King James version)6:2 1stAnd I saw, and behold a white horse [...] and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. 6:4 2ndAnd there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. 6:5 3rdAnd I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. 6:8 4thAnd I looked, and behold a pale horse:a and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. 6:9,11 5thI saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held [...] And white robes were given unto every one of them. 6:12 6thAnd, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. 8:2-3 7thAnd I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. a For the fourth horse (Greek chloros, literally “greenish”) most translations (including the King James version) give “pale,” New American Standard reads “ashen.”
Conclusion he few previous schemes that relate the seven seals of Revelation to the planets have been convoluted or incomplete. This article draws attention to a straightforward color-based correspondence between the seven seals and the celestial bodies of the planetary week, a correlation which hitherto seems to have gone unremarked. A planetary connection is hardly surprising within a vi-sion sequence largely situated in the sky, but there are also other precedents for such a re-lationship. The vision-journeys of early me-dieval Jewish mysticism, which are rooted in the same tradition as Revelation, required specific seals for safe passage through seven heavenly palaces. These have been linked to the “seven seals” important to mid-medieval Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic magic, which have direct correlations with the seven classi-cal planets and the cognate days of the week. The seven seals of Revelation appear to reflect similar planetary associations indirectly by way of color. The seals’ color sequence evokes a sense of alchemical purification, while their planetary associations encourage extrapolation to other esoteric systems. The correspondences add to the already rich symbolism of Revelation, and show that it is still possible to discover new and compelling associations for details of the Apocalypse. 1
Table 1. The Color Mentioned by John in Connection with Each Seal Rev Seal Text (King James version)6:2 1stAnd I saw, and behold a white horse [...] and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. 6:4 2ndAnd there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. 6:5 3rdAnd I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. 6:8 4thAnd I looked, and behold a pale horse:a and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. 6:9,11 5thI saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held [...] And white robes were given unto every one of them. 6:12 6thAnd, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. 8:2-3 7thAnd I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. a For the fourth horse (Greek chloros, literally “greenish”) most translations (including the King James version) give “pale,” New American Standard reads “ashen.”
Conclusion he few previous schemes that relate the seven seals of Revelation to the planets have been convoluted or incomplete. This article draws attention to a straightforward color-based correspondence between the seven seals and the celestial bodies of the planetary week, a correlation which hitherto seems to have gone unremarked. A planetary connection is hardly surprising within a vi-sion sequence largely situated in the sky, but there are also other precedents for such a re-lationship. The vision-journeys of early me-dieval Jewish mysticism, which are rooted in the same tradition as Revelation, required specific seals for safe passage through seven heavenly palaces. These have been linked to the “seven seals” important to mid-medieval Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic magic, which have direct correlations with the seven classi-cal planets and the cognate days of the week. The seven seals of Revelation appear to reflect similar planetary associations indirectly by way of color. The seals’ color sequence evokes a sense of alchemical purification, while their planetary associations encourage extrapolation to other esoteric systems. The correspondences add to the already rich symbolism of Revelation, and show that it is still possible to discover new and compelling associations for details of the Apocalypse. 1
constant escape
winter withered, warm
This + luka's point about accretion.
I wonder what the emergence of vision was like.
Even before any semiotics can be established, being able to see hue/shade also lets the subject-processor distinguish shapes - where one thing ends and another begins. I believe there is much research on how the visual neurons (the ones correlated to retinal input?) are wried to detect lines, thus enabling the visual tracing/delineation of discrete objects.
Once we are able to distinguish one thing from another, an ability seemingly enabled by (first?) the capability to sense the visible spectrum and (second?) the capability to distinguish lines, then we are able to start ascribing significance to them, even if this significance is pre-linguistic.
It would be interesting to see how much significance had accrued in the human mind by the time logos first emerged (logos taken here in an empirical way (?), as an expression of understanding, in the interest of communication - although I suspect one can take issue with that).
Perhaps there was already a bedrock of base significance (perhaps ascribed to color) by the time language and logos came around, thus any semiotic system would hit the ground running.
Granted this is all still highly speculative, it seems like the "accretion" of meanings over time is attributable to the kind of combinational tactics that shiels describes.
We can identify things, and represent things with glyphs. Perhaps we can then identify aspects of things and categories of things, all the while remaining concrete. This seems to be accelerative in terms of complexity, language being born in "one fell swoop". Perhaps color is close to the bedrock of semiotic systems.
constant escape
winter withered, warm
This made me think of how our point of vision is determined by the aim of the head (primarily) and the aim of the eye (secondarily), and how the former "contains" the latter. Not sure how well I can word this, but I see a similarity in that it involves a primary, general aim ("blue") and then a secondary, specific aim within that ("blue-grey").
Instead of having our eyes locked straight ahead and needing to constantly move our head to adjust our aim, we have this second degree of variation that is constrained by the first. Sort of like how the secondary descriptor determines the placement within the area determined by the primary descriptor.
constant escape
winter withered, warm
I haven't read any of the Bible yet, but this is promising. Also does bleed into esoterica quite rapidly, it seems.
luka
Well-known member
| A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels, I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins: A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies Which buzz around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents, Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley; I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips In anger or in the raptures of penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas, The peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows Which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads; O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds, Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels: O the Omega, the violet ray of Her Eyes! |
- As translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)
constant escape
winter withered, warm
That's interesting, I hadn't considered how colors could be correlated to letters, or numbers. Like what you and shiels said about letters being combinatorial, their significance largely, if not entirely, dependent on context.
When we are considering the likes of Rimbaud, are you inclined to unequivocally place their word above the word of others? I mean objectively? In certain ways, I'd say I'm inclined to.
Which may sound obvious - but I mean capital "O" Objective. I do try to preserve the ability to revere science, and to make judgements in ligt of it, but I also try not to let such roots take too deep a hold.
When we are considering the likes of Rimbaud, are you inclined to unequivocally place their word above the word of others? I mean objectively? In certain ways, I'd say I'm inclined to.
Which may sound obvious - but I mean capital "O" Objective. I do try to preserve the ability to revere science, and to make judgements in ligt of it, but I also try not to let such roots take too deep a hold.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Good idea for a thread. Not read the second page thoroughly, but to go back to the original post:
"What difference is there, across cultures, in the significance of colors?" - massive differences, and, correspondingly:
"Is there something universal in how hues are registered and assigned significance?" - I'd guess not much.
Some obvious examples: I think white is associated with death in some cultures, in comparison to purity or innocence in Western culture. Red stands for danger in the West but good luck in the Far East. That sort of thing.
The stuff that yyaldrin touched on about the absence of a word meaning 'blue' in Homer is fascinating. There's even a hypothesis that humans 'evolved' the ability to actually see the colour blue fairly recently, and that it might have spread culturally. It's sometimes said that some languages don't have separate words for green and blue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language
There are some shades of colour that are easy for a Westerner to distinguish, while other shades are easy to distinguish for people from very different cultures (e.g. hunter-gatherer peoples, I think) but which look, to you and me, like exactly the same shade. I've done an online test along these lines and it was pretty striking, actually. There's also some evidence that women have better shade discrimination than men do.
"What difference is there, across cultures, in the significance of colors?" - massive differences, and, correspondingly:
"Is there something universal in how hues are registered and assigned significance?" - I'd guess not much.
Some obvious examples: I think white is associated with death in some cultures, in comparison to purity or innocence in Western culture. Red stands for danger in the West but good luck in the Far East. That sort of thing.
The stuff that yyaldrin touched on about the absence of a word meaning 'blue' in Homer is fascinating. There's even a hypothesis that humans 'evolved' the ability to actually see the colour blue fairly recently, and that it might have spread culturally. It's sometimes said that some languages don't have separate words for green and blue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language
There are some shades of colour that are easy for a Westerner to distinguish, while other shades are easy to distinguish for people from very different cultures (e.g. hunter-gatherer peoples, I think) but which look, to you and me, like exactly the same shade. I've done an online test along these lines and it was pretty striking, actually. There's also some evidence that women have better shade discrimination than men do.