Rosso

Symbolism of the color red in antiquity

Jan Van Eyck: Il Matrimonio Arnolfini, 1434

Red is supposedly the first color percieved by Man. 
Brain-injured persons suffering from temporary color-blindness start to perceive red first,  before they are able to discern any other colors. 
Neolithic hunter peoples considered red to be the most important color endowed with life-giving powers and thus placed red ochre into graves of their deceased. This explains funds of skeletons embedded in up to 10 kg of red powdered ochre. Neolithic cave painters ascribed magic powers to the color red. The word "magic" ("Zauber" in German) translates to "taufr" in Old Norse and is related to the Anglo-Saxon "teafor" meaning "red ochre". It can be stipulated that they painted animals in red ochre or iron oxide to conjure their fertility.
Protective powers of the color red against evil influence were common belief. Objects, animals and trees were covered in red paint, warriors painted their axes and spear-catapults red to endow the weapons with magic powers. Some of the Australian aborigines abide by this custom up to the present times. Neolithic hunters and germanic warriors used to paint their weapons and even themselves in blood of slain animals. Roman gladiators drank blood of their dying adversaries to take over their strength. In other cultures, the newly born were bathed in blood of particularly strong and good looking animals.Red painted amulettes or red gems, such as ruby or garnet, were used as charms against the "evil eye". Wearing a red ruby was supposed to bring about invincibility. Red bed-clothes were customary in Germany up to the Middle Ages as protection against the "red illnesses", such as fever, rashes or even miscarriages (famous example is the painting Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck, dated 1434).

Phoenix unifies the destructive symbol of fire associated with war and hate with its rebirth and its life-giving powers. Phoenix surrenders to fire and steps out of it cleansed and endowed with a new life.

Red garlands and red scarfs were part of wedding customs in many cultures. Red wedding gown was en vogue in Nurnberg of the 18th century, but this tradition goes back to roman times: Roman brides were wrapped in a fiery red veil, the flammeum, which should warrant love and fertility. Greek, Albanian and Armenian brides wear red veils even today. Chinese brides are wearing red wedding gowns and are carried to the ceremony in a red litter. The bride walks on a red carpet and is greeted by the groom who lifts her red veil. Neighbours bring red eggs to the couple after a child is born.
Red rose is the symbol of love and fidelity. According to the Greek legend red roses arised from blood of Adonis who was killed by a wild boar on a hunt. In Greek mythology red rose was a symbol for the cycle of growth and decay, but also for love and affinity. Red rose is dedicated to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and daughter of Zeus and also to Roman goddess Venus. In Christianity the red rose is associated with the Cross and the bloodshed.

There are also negative connotations of this color. Israelites in biblical times painted their doorframes in red blood to scare demons. Red in ancient Egypt was the color of the desert and of the destructive god Seth who inpersonated the Evil. "Making red" was synonymous with killing someone, evil doings were refered to as "red affairs". Salvation from Evil is the subject of an ancient Egyptian charm: "Oh, Isis, deliver me from the hands of all bad, evil, red things!" Writers of Egyptian papyri used a special red ink for nasty words.
Good and bad qualities are combined in Phoenix, the firebird. In Egypt, China and Central America it was associated with cleansing and revival. In China its name was the "Vermilion Bird" or the Substance of Fire" and promised luck and longevity.       

IColori, Visti dagli Antichi Greci

Ancient Greek Color Vision
Submitted by Ananda Triulzi on Mon, 11/27/2006 - 11:18am Biology 103 

As seen through the eyes of the Ancient Greeks, color perception is a very different thing than our own color perception. Why is this, what is it about our eyes and brains that causes this difference of visual perception from person to person and culture to culture?


In his writings Homer surprises us by his use of color. His color descriptive palate was limited to metallic colors, black, white, yellowish green and purplish red, and those colors he often used oddly, leaving us with some questions as to his actual ability to see colors properly (1). He calls the sky "bronze" and the sea and sheep as the color of wine, he applies the adjective chloros (meaning green with our understanding) to honey, and a nightingale (2). Chloros is not the only color that Homer uses in this unusual way. He also uses kyanos oddly, "Hector was dragged, his kyanos hair was falling about him" (3). Here it would seem, to our understanding, that Hector's hair was blue as we associate the term kyanos with the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, in our thinking kyanos means cyan (4). But we cannot assume that Hector's hair was blue, rather, in light of the way that Homer consistently uses color adjectives, we must think about his meaning, did he indeed see honey as green, did he not see the ocean as blue, how does his perception of color reflect on himself, his people, and his world.


Homer's odd color description usage was a cultural phenomenon and not simply color blindness on his part, Pindar describes the dew as chloros, in Euripides chloros describes blood and tears (5). Empedocles, one of the earliest Ancient Greek color theorists, described color as falling into four areas, light or white, black or dark, red and yellow; Xenophanes described the rainbow as having three bands of color: purple, green/yellow, and red (6). These colors are fairly consistent with the four colors used by Homer in his color description, this leads us to the conclusion that all Ancient Greeks saw color only in the premise of Empedocles' colors, in some way they lacked the ability to perceive the whole color spectrum.


This correlation between Homer and other Ancient Greeks on the subject of color vision suggests some questions about Ancient Greek color vision leading to ideas inquiring into the ability of the Ancient Greek eye to perceive color at all. It is possible, in light of evolutionary theory, that the retina of the Ancient Greek was not evolved to the point of full color perception. Different mammals have varying degrees of color vision and eyes are especially prone to mutation. But besides this evolutionary question there is the question of consciousness, the question of the brain and language in relation to color perception. This color vision particularity could have been caused by a lack of visual consciousness that would lead to the creation of new words that were needed to explain a visual phenomenon. This inability to perceive something because of linguistic restriction is called linguistic relativity (7). Because the Ancient Greeks were not really conscious of seeing, and did not have the words to describe what they unconsciously saw, they simply did not see the full spectrum of color, they were limited by linguistic relativity.


The color spectrum aside, it remains to explain the loose and unconventional application of Homer and other's limited color descriptions, for an answer we look to the work of Eleanor Irwin. In her work, Irwin suggests that besides perceiving less chromatic distinction, the Ancient Greeks perceived less division between color, texture, and shadow, chroma may have been difficult for them to isolate (8). For the Ancient Greeks, the term chloros has been suggested to mean moistness, fluidity, freshness and living (9). It also seems likely that Ancient Greek perception of color was influenced by the qualities that they associated with colors, for instance the different temperaments being associated with colors probably affected the way they applied color descriptions to things. They didn't simply see color as a surface, they saw it as a spirited thing and the word to describe it was often fittingly applied as an adjective meaning something related to the color itself but different from the simplicity of a refined color.


Vision is as much a process of the brain as it is a process of the eye and the outside world. Experiments have been executed in which those blind from birth are proven unable to conventionally see when cataracts are removed from their eyes; it is now known that this is because the brain synapses dealing with sight begin to die at a very early age if they go unused (10). If those who are blind from birth with to see at the event of the technical recovery of their sight, they must first learn to see. The brain effects vision as strongly as the eye does. In Ancient Greece vision is shown, to be a very subjective practice and a different process from our own visual process. The importance of vision and color held a different place in the mind of the Ancient Greek, but this is the truth of vision everywhere. Sight is a gift to us, and it is a gift that we choose to use, it is a sense whose effect on us is in part created by ourselves individually. Whether we use it one way or another is simply a cultural or biological difference, and in studying the sight of others we can grow infinitely in our appreciation of our own vision and the strength of our minds over our biological and physiological processes.


1) Rebecca Bird, Language and Perception of Color among the Ancient Greekshttp://www.cooper.edu/classes/art/ht...g/Rebecca.html 1999
2) Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light: the entwined history of light and mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) p. 14, 15
3) Homer, The Illiad, Quoted in Zajonc p. 15
4) Zajonc p. 14
5) Zajoncp. 15
6) Bird
7) Fountain, Proof Positive That People See Colors With the Tongue, Quoted in: Bird
8) Bird
9) Bird
10) Zajonc p. 3, 4, 5, 6

COME T'INVENTO UNA FAVOLA

Caro Pasuco, 

amico mio: t'invito a Paulilatino, per venire a scoprire 

come s'inventa una favola

scritta a più mani da eruditi nel corso di trecento anni

ATOBIOS DE PAULE 2012 

Rassegna di eventi culturali 

Comune di Paulilatino             Guilcier Real Paulilatino

Sabato 22 Dicembre 2012 ore 17,30 – Locali ex ISOLA

Storia, paleoclimatologia, geologia  e spostamento di popoli nel mediterraneo   sul finire   del II millennio a. C.

Presentazione del libro

L’IRA DEGLI DEI

e  I “POPOLI DEL MARE”

Coordinamento: Associazione Guilcier Real

Presentazione: L’autore Maurizio Feo

Sarà presente il direttore scientifico della C.S.C.M. Editrice, Giacobbe Manca.

Introduce l’evento l’assessore alla cultura, intervento  finale del sindaco

“…non soltanto archeologia e storia, ma anche altro: per esempio, le maggiori novità al riguardo ci sono giunte negli ultimi anni da due discipline – geologia e paleoclimatologia – che ci hanno permesso di modificare di molto le nostre posizioni stantie sull’argomento…”

“….Sono stati rappresentati in modo scorretto per circa trecento anni: predoni organizzati in un’alleanza internazionale; marinai guerrieri inarrestabili che – inventando una guerra lampo impossibile per i mezzi logistici di allora, avrebbero distrutto città, regni ed imperi di quasi tutto il mondo conosciuto e creato una crisi economica di tale portata da determinare il passaggio dall’uso del bronzo a quello del ferro. Inverosimile. Il fatto più incredibile è che i cosiddetti Popoli del Mare – dopo avere conquistato facilmente paesi ricchi e produttivi – subito li abbandonavano inspiegabilmente, per fuggire a bordo delle proprie navi verso paesi inventati sulla base di “assonanze……..” 

Ti prometto che ci saranno 

parole, colori e suoni,

le parole saranno mie, 

i colori saranno quelli - inventati - dei copricapi  dei popoli del mare, 

i suoni saranno quelli delle divertenti e non scientifiche assonanze che sarebbero dovute servire per identificarli.

quindi non tradirò certamente la filosofia fondante di questo WeBlog.

TI ASPETTO.