by Krista West
What makes these rich and beautiful colors an essential subject for the student of liturgical garments and textiles? The answer is to be found in an examination of how color has been perceived throughout history and how such perceptions were radically altered following scientific developments of the modern age. Remarkably, the ancient world’s perception of color—an approach to color that spans over 3000 years—is still maintained within the traditions of color usage in the Orthodox Christian Church. Yet the modern understanding of color, based upon scientific discoveries of the last 300 years, is structured in a fundamentally different way. An awareness of these distinct ways of perceiving and utilizing color is not only crucial to a correct understanding of color usage within the Church, but is also vital to the ability of the Church to retain her historic color traditions in the face of countervailing cultural trends.
Color Perception: Modern vs. Ancient
Orthodox Christian services are a blaze of color: the holy table may be vested in a deep burgundy that gleams with metallic thread embroidery while the deacons and priests wear brocades ranging from golds to reds, blues, greens, blue-purples, and even black. The altar servers may be wearing yet other fabrics that might be gold, red, white or blue. To the unaccustomed eye it all looks rather disorganized, even startling, as if there were a merry dance going on in which no one is quite sure of the steps. But the choreography of this dance was determined thousands of years ago by how the ancient world approached color, a system of classification that is radically different from how we perceive color in the twenty-first century. To better understand the ancient method of delineating color it is helpful to first examine the modern method, a system so familiar to us we usually simply take it for granted.
In the modern world we are trained to define colors according to the divisions of the rainbow spectrum first delineated by Isaac Newton in AD 1672 as a part of his scientific inquiry into light wavelengths. As young children we are taught to organize colors according to Newton’s rainbow of seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—and by adulthood we are completely entrenched in this system of classifying colors, using it to describe everything from the paint we use to decorate our houses to the clothes we wear, even the cars we drive. A brief glance through a clothing catalog introduces a fanciful smorgasbord of color names: eggplant, plum, celery, celadon, peach, ruby, coral, chartreuse, cayenne, ivy, olive. Even as we read these color names, however, in our mind’s eye we are assigning them their correct position in the “ROY G. BIV” spectrum we learned in childhood. Those of us with more advanced color knowledge might even be aware of the relationships between so-called primary, secondary, and tertiary colors and why blue looks good with orange and what makes the red and green typically associated with Christmas decorations so pleasing, but this is as far as our inquiry usually takes us—never questioning the basic underpinnings of the Newtonian classification.
The delineation of the color spectrum envisioned by the ancient world was fundamentally different. Moreover, the use of color was no incidental matter to the ancients, because the sense of sight was considered the preeminent of the five senses. St John of Damascus tells us, “the first sense is sight and the organs of sight are the nerves of the brain and the eyes. Now sight is primarily the perception of color. . . .”3 How the ancient world approached the classification of color was based upon various principles, some related to the natural world (some cultures assigned elemental properties to each color: white was “sky,” red was “blood,” etc.) while others had to do with certain philosophies of aesthetics (in which only four colors were allowed in exist in “good” art—though this was most likely a type of intellectual high ground, as over twenty-five distinct pigments have been discovered in the ruins of Pompeii). But regardless of its theoretical foundation, the historic spectrum began with white on one side and ended with black on the other. In this arrangement yellows came just after white, reds and greens were in the middle (in fact, due to this proximity, the terms for “red” and “green” were often used interchangeably in medieval texts) and blue was closest to black. Some scholars have even argued that the brilliance of a color, rather than its hue, was a more significant consideration and that the ancient spectrum was actually one of bright progressing to dark.4 As Gervase Mathew observes, “It can clearly be only an assumption that the Byzantine saw exactly as we see. It is possible that their color sense . . . was more vivid and perhaps more subtle than our own.”5
Not only what the Byzantine saw, but what any pre-modern man saw: the bright-to-dark spectrum existed long before the Byzantine Empire, beginning sometime in the pre-Christian era, continuing through ancient Greece and Rome to the Late Antique and Middle Ages, and even persisting after the Fall of Constantinople into the Renaissance. As Philip Ball explains, “The reliance of medieval scholars on classical Greek texts ensured that this color scale was perpetuated for centuries after the temples of Athens stood in ruins. In the tenth century AD the monk Heraclius still classified all colors as black, white, and ‘intermediate.’”6> A conservative estimate puts the length of such perception at 3000 years—a very long time indeed.
When contrasted with the modern “ROY G. BIV” rainbow spectrum, the ancient spectrum is seen to be a broader and more flexible method for classifying color. There is room in it for all sorts of colors appearing in nature: the brown of rich soil, the silver of salmon skin, the gold of summer wheat, the brilliant, almost iridescent black of a crow’s feather with its undertones of blue. Because the bright-to-dark spectrum was concerned with two qualities of color—hue and brilliance—it could form a kind of x-y coordinate plane with hue (bright-to-dark) on one axis and brilliance (brilliant-to-matte) on the other, which resulted in a fuller and more complex expression of the human experience of color. The modern Newtonian spectrum is arguably more limited—where does brown fit?—and more regimented in its description of color because it is concerned with the scientific classification of color, not the natural expression of color. Its primary concern is not what the human mind experiences when it encounters color, but rather the ability of color to become a symbol for scientific and intellectual ideals. As Philip Ball points out, “Newton saw fit to identify an arbitrary seven subdivisions of the prismatic spectrum purely to establish consonance with ideas about musical harmony. . . . And so the Newtonian rainbow acquired its indigo and violet where I defy anyone to see other than a blue deepening to purple.”7 Forcing color into such rigid, scientific classifications is bound to leave significant gaps.
Remarkably, the ancient approach to color is still alive and well within the Orthodox Christian Church. The liturgical rubrics governing the colors of vestments used at certain seasons and services even use the ancient terminology of “bright” and “dark.” Instead of the Newtonian cubbyholes of red, purple, blue and the like, there are only two distinct categories given for the use of color within the Orthodox Christian Church; for example, rubrics for the Feast of the Transfiguration would specify bright vestments whereas those for Great and Holy Friday would specify dark vestments.
To the modern mind’s eye, dulled by the rigidly categorized Newtonian rainbow, these bright-to-dark rubrics can seem too simplistic and confusing: Where does red fit? Is green considered bright? Is gold mixed with burgundy bright or dark? But with the ancient bright-to-dark categories, it can be seen that the bright and dark rubrics, rather than limiting the colors that can be used, are actually encompassing the entire natural canon of color; instead of two small camps of color we have the two bookends of a wide spectrum. In lieu of a constricted, dualistic approach to color in which some days utilize only white and other days only purple (an occasional misinterpretation of the bright and dark rubrics), we find rather a joyous fullness of color, a complete embrace of every color from bright to dark.
It is exactly this bright-to-dark usage that gives Orthodox Christian services their brilliance and aesthetically pleasing sensibility and allows for the ample use of multiple colo
rs within a single service, not to mention the entire liturgical year. There is a vibrant and multi-faceted character to the use of color within the Church that is the chromatic expression of the concept of aesthetic “layering” that was discussed in Chapter One. Bright is a very wide category that can include the following: pure white; white with gold accents; gold with white accents; gold on gold; white with gold and red accents; gold with red accents; ivory with gold and burgundy embroidery; ivory with blue, green, and gold embroidery; white with gold and silver embroidery; multi-colored brocades with gold, silver, blue, green, coral, gold, and burgundy; white with silver accents; ivory or white with gold, green, and burgundy embroidery; blue with silver; blue with gold; white with blue; green with silver or gold; and white with green. At the other end of the ancient spectrum, the dark category is equally broad: deep red with gold accents; burgundy with gold accents; black with gold and red accents; black with burgundy accents; black embroidered with silver; black embroidered with gold; purple with gold accents; purple with black accents; pure black; burgundy; purple; deep red; red with gold embroidery; burgundy with gold embroidery; burgundy with gold and silver embroidery.
How the use of this ancient color spectrum plays out in actual liturgical services is quite fascinating and, at its heart, not only distinctly beautiful but also supremely practical. A newly ordained clergyman need only own two vestment sets—bright and dark—and he uses these alternately throughout the year according to the basic rubrics. As time goes on, a kindly parishioner may gift him a set of multi-colored brocade vestments, which he will use for Pascha and possibly the Feast of the Nativity, because they are his finest set, his most brilliant set, even though they contain green, silver, red, gold and blue.8 As he adds to his collection of vestments over the years, he will follow some of the regional color traditions that have become part of the color usage of the Church over time, such as wearing blue for feasts of the Mother of God or green for Pentecost. When he visits a neighboring parish to concelebrate on their feast day he may wear his multi-colored brocade set while the proistamenos of the church wears gold with red and another visiting presbyter wears an ivory set of vestments embroidered with gold crosses and multi-colored grapevines.
In traditional Orthodox Christian practice, quality and brilliance are considered equally important to color, indeed more important. Wearing an old, dingy set of white vestments for Great and Holy Pascha simply to fulfill the arbitrary category of “white” is completely foreign to the traditional sensibility of the Church. If a clergyman’s finest set of vestments are gold with blue, then he would wear these for major feast days because they are not only bright, but also brilliant. In the color usage of Orthodox Christian liturgical vesture, the ancient concepts of brilliance and brightness remain far more significant than a modern affinity for a specific color hue.
Leukos: White or Brilliant?
The most common word used for a light, bright hue in historic Greek texts is “leukos” (λευκóς, pronounced lef-KOS). When used in liturgical texts this word is typically rendered in English as “white” which is why Orthodox rubrics in English sometimes specify “white” where our preceding investigation might lead us to expect “bright.” While the generally accepted definition of this word is the color perceived in the modern world as white, a glance at its entry in Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon proves suggestive of far greater complexity, especially when viewed in light of how color was perceived in the ancient world: “λευκός . . . light, bright, brilliant, of sun light . . . of metallic surfaces . . . of water, generally bright, limpid . . . of the skin, white, fair. . . .”9
“Leukos” is used in all sorts of physical descriptions: “fair-cheeked,” “white-armed,” “bare-footed,” “white-winged” (as of a ship), “white-ankled,” “white-gleaming,” “white-browed,” “white rock,” “white horses,” and “white-robed.” While some of these images are truly the color that the modern world perceives as white—white robes, white rocks, or white horses, for instance—others are not at all the color we associate with “white;” fair cheeks, arms, and bare feet are certainly not white but composed of various warm-toned skin pigments, and the natural color of the canvas of white-winged ships is a warm, almost wheat-like color. But, what all of these various things do have in common is brilliance—they are all bright. Even in our modern English usage, although we commonly refer to Caucasian skin as “white,” we do not truly perceive it as such but rather would go on to describe its color more precisely or poetically as “flesh-toned,” “roses and cream” or “fair-faced” in an effort to encompass its complexity.
The study of historic color perception is relatively new, so it is understandable that English translations of ancient Greek texts would use the familiar term “white” to render “leukos” instead of the word “brilliant,” though the latter is arguably better aligned with ancient color perception. In addition, translating “leukos” as “white” seems far more comfortable to the modern mind given our contemporary conception of color identification as a linear expression with specific hues in regimented positions. We want translations to be as accurate as possible and assigning to ancient color terms what appears to be their modern-language equivalent is altogether understandable, though probably misleading. While further scholarly development is needed in this fascinating field it is important in the meantime to exercise caution in applying modern, scientific color categories to our interpretation of historic texts.
When St Symeon, the fifteenth-century Archbishop of Thessaloniki, asserts that, “The vestments are white [leukos] because of the purity and illumination of Grace. . . .” or that the priest, “is vested ‘in the role of the angel’ in white [leukos] epitrachelion and phelonion like the angel who also was dressed in ‘a flashing white [leukos] garment’” (Mt 28.3, Mk 16.5),10 we can understand this “white” in the fuller context of “brilliant” and, in so doing, see a stronger link to the color usage traditions of the Orthodox Christian Church. Such traditional usage is grounded, as we have observed, in the bright-to-dark spectrum of the ancient world, a spectrum which almost certainly would have determined the way that St Symeon himself perceived and interpreted color. It is fairly safe to assume that it would not have occurred to any writer in the fifteenth century to attempt to scientifically identify a color by a highly specific color name or shade designation, given the inherent flexibility of the ancient color scale that still held sway at that time.
Once “leukos” is understood to have a fuller definition than simply the modern color “white,” many texts gain a fuller, richer meaning. In the Gospel of John (Jn 4.35) when Christ exhorts his disciples that the fields are “white [leukos] unto harvest,” we envisage a brilliant, bright wheat field that is not the color white, but rather a living, radiant, glowing gold. When St Mark describes the transfiguration in which Christ’s “clothes became shining, exceedingly white [leukos], like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them [make them brilliant]” (Mk 9.3), we envisage not merely a snow-colored robe, but rather a brilliant garment radiating light as snow reflects the blinding brilliance of the sun at noonday.
Evidence of the continuing influence of ancient color perception may be sought not only in texts but also in traditional Orthodox Christian iconography as it reflects an aesthetic tradition founded and formed within the ancient approach to color. In the earliest extant icon of the Transfiguration (which adorns the apse of the katholikon of St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai) Christ is robed not in pure white (as He is portrayed in many modern icons of the same event) but rather in an exquisite robe of bluish-white trimmed with gold that is certainly not white according to modern color classification, but is most emphatically brilliant. In Rublev’s famous Icon of the Trinity, the garment of the angel who appears to represent the Lord (i.e., the one towards whom the other two angelic figures incline their heads) is made up of a variety of colors, blended together in a golden hue with various streaks of color shining through. It is often r
emarked to be an indescribable color and those who have seen the original do not easily forget its unique and arresting quality. Likewise it is interesting to note that halos in icons are gold, not white. The reason for this color convention becomes clear when we recall that the halo in an icon is not intended to depict a flat disc behind the head of a saint, but rather to portray the orb of uncreated light that emanates from the saint’s visage. The golden halo is not meant to depict a two-dimensional crown, but rather a three-dimensional, spiritual reality.11 When it is portrayed in Orthodox Christian iconography, this halo is not white, but a brilliant, gleaming gold that may also be classified as “leukos.”
Some of the earliest vestments are thought to have been gold due to the mention of a golden vestment given by the Emperor Constantine to Makarios, Bishop of Jerusalem, in the fourth century.12 It is highly probable that early vestments, especially those that were gifted by the imperial court or high-ranking nobility, were usually golden in hue as there were not only silks available at this time that were richly colored and woven with gold threads, but also textiles embellished with gold embroidery. Moreover, the Byzantines simply delighted in the brilliance of gold. As Gervase Mathew relates:
The characteristic Byzantine conception of the relation between color and light, and the Byzantine delight in the color of gold, are already explicit in the first Ennead. ‘All the loveliness of color and the light of the sun.’ ‘And how comes gold to be a beautiful thing? And lightning by night and stars, which are these so fair?’ ‘The beauty of color is also the outcome of unification; it derives from shape, from the conquest of darkness inherent in matter by the pouring in of light, the unembodied.’13
