The Secret Lives of Color
Page 23
8. Watts, Dictionary of Plant Lore, p. 335.
9. Prance and Nesbitt (eds.), Cultural History of Plants, p. 308.
10. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, pp. 80, 82.
11. Finlay, Brilliant History of Color in Art, p. 110.
12. Quoted in Harley, Artists’ Pigments, p. 96.
13. Bureau of Indian Standards, “Flag Code of India.” Available at: www.mahapolice.gov.in/mahapolice/jsp/temp/html/flag_code_of_india.pdf (accessed Nov. 28, 2015).
Amber
1. J. Blumberg, “A Brief History of the Amber Room,” Smithsonian.com (July 31, 2007). Available at: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-amber-room-160940121/ (accessed Nov. 17, 2015).
2. Ibid.
3. M. R. Collings, Gemlore: An Introduction to Precious and Semi-Precious Stones, 2nd edition (Rockville, MD: Borgo Press, 2009), p. 19.
4. M. Gannon, “100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found in Amber,” in LiveScience (Oct. 8, 2012). Available at: www.livescience.com/23796-spider-attack-found-in-amber.html (accessed Nov. 21, 2015); C. Q. Choi, “230-Million-Year-Old Mite Found in Amber,” LiveScience (Aug. 27, 2012). Available at: www.livescience.com/22725-ancient-mite-trapped-amber.html (accessed Nov. 21, 2015).
5. T. Follett, “Amber in Goldworking,” in Archaeology, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1985), p. 64.
6. G. V. Stanivukovic (ed.), Ovid and the Renaissance Body (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p. 87.
Ginger
1. Colliss Harvey, Red, pp. 1–2, 15.
2. Quoted in Norris, Tudor Costume and Fashion, p. 162.
3. C. Zimmer, “Bones Give Peek into the Lives of Neanderthals,” in New York Times (Dec. 20, 2010). Available at: www.nytimes.com /2010 /12/21/science/21neanderthal.html.
4. Ibid.
Minium
1. T. F. Mathews and A. Taylor, The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor: The Life of Christ Illuminated (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2001), pp. 13–14.
2. Ibid., p. 19. We know at least three artists helped complete the work, because each had a preferred method of painting the faces. One began with primrose yellow before adding details with tiny strokes of green and white. Another favored a base of dull olive, over which he added white and pale pink; a third began with a green ground, and used brown, white, and red to add in the features.
3. D. V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting. Reprinted from the first edition (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), p. 102.
4. M. Clarke, “Anglo Saxon Manuscript Pigments,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2004), p. 239.
5. Quoted in F. Delamare and B. Guineau, Color: Making and Using Dyes and Pigments (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), p. 140.
6. Thompson, Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, p. 101.
7. C. Warren, Brush with Death, p. 20; Schafer, “The Early History of Lead Pigments and Cosmetics in China,” in T’oung Pao, Vol. 44, No. 4 (1956), p. 426.
8. Field, Chromatography, p. 95.
Nude
1. H. Alexander, “Michelle Obama: The ‘Nude’ Debate,” in the Telegraph (May 19, 2010).
2. D. Stewart, “Why a ‘Nude’ Dress Should Really be ‘Champagne’ or ‘Peach,’” in Jezebel (May 17, 2010).
3. Eiseman and Cutler, Pantone on Fashion, p. 20.
4. See: http://humanae.tumblr.com/.
5. Crayola, incidentally, was impressively ahead of its time on this issue: their “flesh” crayon was renamed “peach” in 1962, the same year President Kennedy sent troops to protect James Meredith, the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi.
Pink
1. “Finery for Infants,” in New York Times (July 23, 1893).
2. Quoted in J. Maglaty, “When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?,” Smithsonian.com (Apr. 7, 2011). Available at: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/ (accessed Oct. 28, 2015).
3. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 157.
4. In the 1957 film Funny Face, a character based on Vreeland performs a five-minute song-and-dance routine called “Think Pink!” Vreeland, after watching a screening, is said to have turned to a junior colleague and muttered: “Never to be discussed.”
5. M. Ryzik, “The Guerrilla Girls, After 3 Decades, Still Rattling Art World Cages,” in New York Times (Aug. 5, 2015).
6. Quoted in “The Pink Tax,” in New York Times (Nov. 14, 2014).
Baker-Miller pink
1. A. G. Schauss, “Tranquilizing Effect of Color Reduces Aggressive Behavior and Potential Violence,” in Orthomolecular Psychiatry, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1979), p. 218.
2. J. E. Gilliam and D. Unruh, “The Effects of Baker-Miller Pink on Biological, Physical and Cognitive Behavior,” in Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1988), p. 202.
3. Schauss, “Tranquilizing Effect of Color,” p.219.
4. Quoted in Ibid., brackets his.
5. A. L. Alter, Drunk Tank Pink, and other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We hink, Feel and Behave (London: Oneworld, 2013), p. 3.
6. See, for example, Gilliam and Unruh, “Effects of Baker-Miller Pink”; for further examples see T. Cassidy, Environmental Psychology: Behavior and Experience in Context (Hove: Routledge Psychology Press, 1997), p. 84.
7. Cassidy, Environmental Psychology, p. 84.
Mountbatten pink
1. Lord Zuckerman, “Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 25 June 1900–27 August 1979,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 27 (Nov. 1981), p. 358.
2. A. Raven, “The Development of Naval Camouflage 1914–1945,” Part III. Available at: www.shipcamouflage.com/3_2.htm (accessed Oct. 26, 2015).
Puce
1. H. Jackson, “Color Determination in the Fashion Trades,” in Journal of the Royal Society of the Arts, Vol. 78, No. 4034 (Mar. 1930), p. 501.
2. C. Weber, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (New York: Picador, 2006), p. 117.
3. Domestic Anecdotes of a French Nation, 1800, quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 169.
4. Quoted in Weber, Queen of Fashion, p. 117.
5. Quoted in Earl of Bessborough (ed.), Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London: John Murray, 1955), p. 27.
6. Weber, Queen of Fashion, p. 256.
Fuchsia
1. Others include: amaranth; mauve; magnolia; cornflower; goldenrod; heliotrope; lavender; and violet, to name a few. In most languages with the exception of English the word for pink is derived from that for the rose.
2. I. Paterson, A Dictionary of Color: A Lexicon of the Language of Color (London: Thorogood, 2004), p. 170.
3. G. Niles, “Origin of Plant Names,” in The Plant World, Vol. 5, No. 8 (Aug. 1902), p. 143.
4. Quoted in M. Allaby, Plants: Food Medicine and Green Earth (New York: Facts on File, 2010), p. 39.
5. Ibid., pp. 38–41.
Shocking pink
1. M. Soames (ed.), Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 276.
2. M. Owens, “Jewelry That Gleams with Wicked Memories,” in New York Times (Apr. 13, 1997).
3. Eiseman and Cutler, Pantone on Fashion, p. 31.
4. E. Schiaparelli, Shocking Life (London: V&A Museum, 2007), p. 114.
5. Two years later the Tête de Bélier was stolen from Fellowes’s home near Paris as part of a haul worth £36,000. It has not been seen since.
6. S. Menkes, “Celebrating Elsa Schiaparelli,” in New York Times (Nov. 18, 2013). Although it is with this pink that Schiaparelli was most associated, her collections were awash with many colors. After “Shocking,” each of her perfumes was twinned with its own signature shade: “Zut” with green, “Sleeping” with
blue, and “Le Roy Soleil” with gold.
7. Eiseman and Cutler, Pantone on Fashion, p. 31.
Fluorescent pink
1. H. Greenbaum and D. Rubinstein, “The Hand-Held Highlighter,” in New York Times Magazine (Jan. 20, 2012).
2. Schwan Stabilo press release, 2015; Greenbaum and Rubinstein, “Hand-Held Highlighter.”
Amaranth
1. V. S. Vernon Jones (trans.), Aesop’s Fables (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2009), p. 188.
2. G. Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2013), p. 408.
3. J. E. Brody, “Ancient, Forgotten Plant Now ‘Grain of the Future,’” in New York Times (Oct. 16, 1984).
4. Brachfeld and Choate, Eat Your Food,! p. 199.
5. Brody, “Ancient, Forgotten Plant Now ‘Grain of the Future.’”
6. Ibid.
7. Kiple and Ornelas (eds.), Cambridge World History of Food, p. 75.
8. Quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 7.
Red
1. N. Guéguen and C. Jacob, “Clothing Color and Tipping: Gentlemen Patrons Give More Tips to Waitresses with Red Clothes,” in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, quoted by Sage Publications/Science Daily. Available at: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120802111454.htm (accessed Sept. 20, 2015).
2. A. J. Elliot and M. A. Maier, “Color and Psychological Functioning,” in Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 136, No. 1 (2007), pp. 251–2.
3. R. Hill, “Red Advantage in Sport.” Available at: https://community.dur.ac.uk/r.a.hill/red_advantage.htm (accessed Sept. 20, 2015).
4. Ibid.
5. M. Pastoureau, Blue: The History of a Color, trans. M. I. Cruse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 15.
6. E. Phipps, “Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color,” in Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Winter 2010), p. 5.
7. M. Dusenbury, “Introduction,” in Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, pp. 12–13.
8. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 22.
9. Ibid., pp. 14, 23–4.
10. Pastoureau, Blue, p. 94.
11. P. Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), p. 198.
Scarlet
1. Cloth dyed with kermes was often said to be dyed “scarlet in grain”; this is where we get the word “ingrain,” which means to firmly fix or establish.
2. A. B. Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage and the Quest for the Color of Desire (London: Black Swan, 2006), p. 42.
3. Gage, Color and Meaning, p. 111.
4. Greenfield, Perfect Red, p. 108.
5. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 26.
6. G. Summer and R. D’Amato, Arms and Armor of the Imperial Roman Soldier (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2009), p. 218.
7. Greenfield, Perfect Red, p. 183.
8. Ibid., p. 181.
9. E. Bemiss, Dyers Companion, p 186.
10. Field, Chromatography, p. 89.
11. Quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 191.
Cochineal
1. Finlay, Color, p. 153.
2. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 10.
3. R. L. Lee, “Cochineal Production and Trade in New Spain to 1600,” in The Americas, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Apr. 1948), p. 451.
4. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 12.
5. Quoted ibid., pp. 24–6.
6. Ibid., p. 27.
7. Finlay, Color, p. 169.
8. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” pp. 27–40.
9. Ibid., p. 37.
10. Finlay, Color, pp. 165–76.
Vermilion
1. Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 87; R. J. Gettens et al., “Vermilion and Cinnabar,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 17, No. 2 (May 1972), pp. 45–7.
2. Thompson, Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, p. 106. Conversion rates for Roman currency are notoriously difficult; estimates for comparable rates for 1 sesterce range from $0.50 to $50. Working with a relatively conservative conversion rate of $10 for each sesterce, a pound of cinnabar in Pliny’s time cost $70.
3. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 86.
4. Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 77.
5. Thompson, Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, p. 106.
6. Ibid., pp. 60–1, 108.
7. Gettens et al., “Vermilion and Cinnabar,” p. 49.
8. Thompson, Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, p. 30.
9. One holdout was Renoir, who was famously conservative when it came to his materials. Sometime around 1904 Matisse began trying to persuade him to swap vermilion for cadmium red, but Renoir refused to try even the free sample Matisse gave him.
10. Quoted in Ball, Bright Earth, p. 23.
Rosso corsa
1. Quoted in L. Barzini, Pekin to Paris: An Account of Prince Borghese’s Journey Across Two Continents in a Motor-Car, trans. L. P. de Castelvecchio (London: E. Grant Richards, 1907), p. 11.
2. Ibid., p. 26.
3. Ibid., p. 40.
4. Ibid., pp. 58, 396, 569.
5. Borghese’s car is still on display in the Museo dell’Auto in Turin. However, those expecting to see a dashing red machine will be disappointed: the car is now a dull gray color because it was accidentally dropped into a Genoese dock after being displayed at an American motor show. To prevent its rusting it was quickly repainted; the only paint they could find were some tins of battleship gray.
Hematite
1. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 5.
2. E. Photos-Jones et al., “Kean Miltos: The Well-Known Iron Oxides of Antiquity,” in Annual of the British School of Athens, Vol. 92 (1997), p. 360.
3. E. E. Wreschner, “Red Ocher and Human Evolution: A Case for Discussion,” in Current Anthropology, Vol. 21, No. 5 (Oct. 1980), p. 631.
4. Ibid.
5. Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” p. 5; G. Lai, “Colors and Color Symbolism in Early Chinese Ritual Art,” in Dusenbury (ed.), Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, p. 27.
6. Dusenbury, “Introduction,” in Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, p. 12.
7. Photos-Jones et al., “Kean Miltos,” p. 359.
Madder
1. W. H. Perkin, “The History of Alizarin and Allied Coloring Matters, and Their Production from Coal Tar, from a Lecture Delivered May 8th,” in Journal for the Society for Arts, Vol. 27, No. 1384 (May 1879), p. 573.
2. G. C. H. Derksen and T. A. Van Beek, “Rubia Tinctorum L.,” in Studies in Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 26 (2002), p. 632.
3. J. Wouters et al., “The Identification of Haematite as a Red Colorant on an Egyptian Textile from the Second Millennium B.C.,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 35, No. 2 (May 1990), p. 89.
4. Delamare and Guineau, Color, pp. 24, 44.
5. Field, Chromatography, pp. 97–8.
6. Finlay, Color, p. 207.
7. Perkin, “History of Alizarin and Allied Coloring Matters,” p. 573.
8. Finlay, Color, pp. 208–9.
Dragon’s blood
1. Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 155; W.Winstanley, The Flying Serpent, or: Strange News out of Essex (London, 1669). Available at: www.henham.org/FlyingSerpent (accessed 19 Sept. 2015).
2. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 76.
3. Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, pp. 142, 161.
4. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 77.
5. Field, Chromatography, p. 97.
Purple
1. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 223.
2. Gage, Color and Culture, pp. 16, 25.
3. Quoted in Gage, Color and Culture, p. 25.
4. Quoted in Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 224.
5. J. M. Stanlaw, “Japanese Color Terms,
from 400 CE to the Present,” in R. E. MacLaury, G. Parameis and D. Dedrick (eds.), Anthropology of Color (New York: John Benjamins, 2007), p. 311.
6. Finlay, Color, p. 422.
7. S. Garfield, Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World (London: Faber & Faber, 2000), p. 52.
Tyrian purple
1. Finlay, Color, p. 402.
2. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 225.
3. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 223.
4. Gage, Color and Culture, p. 16.
5. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 255.
6. Finlay, Color, p. 403.
7. Gage, Color and Culture, p. 25.
8. Ibid.
9. Finlay, Color, p. 404.
10. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 226.
Archil
1. E. Bolton, Lichens for Vegetable Dyeing (McMinnville, OR: Robin & Russ, 1991), p. 12.
2. Ibid., p. 9; J. Pereina, The Elements of Materia, Medica and Therapeutics, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA: Blanchard & Lea, 1854), p. 74.
3. Pereina, Elements of Materia, Medica and Therapeutics, p. 72.
4. J. Edmonds, Medieval Textile Dyeing (Lulu.com, 2012), p. 39.
5. Ibid.
6. And, sometimes, from less far-flung ones: in 1758 production began on an archil-type dye made from a slightly different lichen that had been discovered in Scotland by Dr. Cuthbert Gordon. He called it “cudbear,” a corruption of his first name.
7. Quoted in Edmonds, Medieval Textile Dyeing, pp. 40–1.
8. Bolton, Lichens for Vegetable Dyeing, p. 28.
Magenta
1. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 241.
2. Garfield, Mauve, pp. 79, 81.
3. Ibid., p. 78.
Mauve
1. Garfield, Mauve, pp. 30–1.
2. Ibid., p. 32.
3. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 238.
4. Finlay, Color, p. 391.
5. Garfield, Mauve, p. 58.
6. Quoted ibid., p. 61.
7. Ball, Bright Earth, pp. 240–1.
Heliotrope
1. N. Groom, The Perfume Handbook (Edmunds: Springer-Science, 1992), p. 103.
2. C. Willet-Cunnington, English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (London: Dover, 1937), p. 314.