Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  Before we go on to examine the philological question, we shall find it convenient to trace the æsthetic purposes to which colour has been applied; and we shall then be in a position to judge why and how far the vocabulary of the early Akhaians and Hebrews was deficient in terms expressive of distinctive hues.

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE ÆSTHETIC VALUE OF COLOUR.

  We have seen already that pleasure results from the unimpeded activity of a fully-nurtured structure, in immediate connection with a sentient centre, when not excessive in amount, nor surpassing the limits of easy repair. Æsthetic pleasure results from such activity when directed upon objects remote from actual life-preserving function.

  Accordingly, the æsthetic pleasure of colour is the pleasure felt in its immediate apprehension by the mind, apart from any idea of advantage to be gained, as, for instance, from the acquisition of food. Even the lower animals show some signs of a love of colour for its own sake, as in the oft-quoted cases of the bower-birds and many monkeys. More often, however, their appreciation of colour is bound up with the essential acts of feeding and reproduction, exhibiting itself only in its secondary effects by the genesis of flowers, fruits, and bright-hued mates. But in man the æsthetic pleasure in colour becomes strongly marked, being found amongst the very lowest savages, and entering into every department of industry amongst the civilised races. From the red ochre and brilliant feathers of the naked Andamanese, up to the paintings and decorations of European palaces, we can trace its gradual development from stage to stage, becoming more and more divorced from life-serving function with every onward step, until at last the æsthetic sentiment claims to rank with the moral feelings among the most disinterested elements of our nature.

  The simplest æsthetic feelings precede the more complex, and the vivider precede the fainter. Hence progress in æsthetics consists largely in the constantly increasing appreciation of more and more delicate forms of pleasure, coupled with the constantly increasing sensitiveness to more and more delicate shades of discord or unpleasantness. The earliest æsthetic objects to obtain notice will be those which most strongly excite the whole nervous organisation; the more delicate and special stimulants will not be prized until a later stage of evolution. Thus children and savages are pleased with the mere coarse excitement of a drum or a tom-tom: only after careful training can they rise to comprehend the more dainty distinctions of melody and harmony. The overpowering perfumes of musk and ambergris are appreciated long before the delicate sweetness of the violet and the primrose. And in like manner, the powerful stimulation of brilliancy is sooner understood than the milder stimulation of the analytic colours.

  Bright light affects all the nervous elements of the eye at once; the various colours only affect one set of elements at a time. Whatever view we may adopt with regard to the mechanism of colour-perception, whether that of Young and Helmholtz, or those of their late critics, it is at least certain that the direct total beam rouses a greater sum of sensation in the optic nerve and its connected centres than is aroused by any one of the separate components, say for example the green or the blue rays. Hence we find that brilliancy seems to be more prized by savages, and perhaps by the lower animals, than pure colour. A few examples will serve to show the truth of this generalisation.

  Amongst animals, passing over the doubtful cases of the glow-worm, the fire-flies, and the phosphorescent species generally, we have in the attraction of most flying insects towards the flame a distinct proof of the effects produced by brilliancy. So, too, we know that many of the higher animals seem instinctive drawn by the glow of fire; and though they will not approach it too closely, they show decided signs of interest in its bright glare. This same feeling reappears in the savage love for torch-light dances, for bonfires, and for like rude pyrotechnic displays; while it reaches its culminating point in fire-works, in illuminations, in Guy Fawkes celebrations, and in similar civilised exhibitions of coarse visual stimulation. In every case we feel at once that the æsthetic pleasure involved belongs to the very lowest stratum of its class, the stratum which we Europeans share in the greatest degree with the savage members of our race. Children and uncultured adults delight in the rude shocks of a fire-work exhibition, but sensitive eyes and minds shrink from the excessive demand, upon optic nerve and brain.

  Reflected glitter or lustre ranks next in æsthetic order among the visual stimulants. It still exercises the whole sentient organ, but not with such violence as the preceding class. Amongst animals, the taste for glitter is shown by the attraction of fish towards a spoon or other bright substance, by the magpie love for secreting diamonds and jewellery generally, and by the common practice of drawing down larks to the reflected light of a mirror. The objects collected by the bower-birds are often lustrous, such as shells and smooth pebbles. The more beautiful animals also show a great tendency towards iridescence or metallic tints, which, though they contain a large element of pure colours, include likewise a great deal of mere direct reflexion. Cases in point are found among beetles, butterflies, humming-birds, sun-birds, and lizards. Glossiness frequently occurs, apparently as a sexual device, in the fur of mammals. Amongst mankind, the love for glittering ornaments certainly appears to be very deep-seated, and perhaps preceded that for colour as an æsthetic adjunct. At any rate, teeth, shells (especially cowries, which are naturally polished by the overlapping of the animals’ bodies), bones, flints, metals, and like lustrous materials, form very common adornments of savage or prehistoric races. And with ourselves, the love for gilding, for excessive polish, for shiny and glaring materials, is a well-known symptom of bad taste — that is to say, it is recognised as belonging to the common and universal coarse class of pleasures, not to the more delicate kind which offers greater attractions to the æsthetically refined.

  A few more examples of the taste for lustre may here be fittingly introduced, as leading up to the more restricted æsthetic pleasure of colour. Shells and bones form the chief natural decorations of savages, especially when polished by use. Fossils of shiny texture, drilled to serve as beads, occur in palæolithic deposits. Mother-of-pearl and real pearls are always prized for personal adornment. Among stones, carnelian, jade, jet, and crystals are in high request. Long before the historic period, a regular trade brought amber from the Baltic, or lapis lazuli from Persia, to Mycenæ and Troy. Professor Rollestone informs me that stone implements are found in Western Europe of a material which could not be obtained nearer than the mountains of Central Asia. Similarly, the common hatchets of the West Indies were imported from the mainland, the bright green stone of which they are made not being found anywhere in the Archipelago. Our own modern taste for rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and topazes is directly derived from the usage of savages. Ivory, tortoise-shell, Job’s-tears, gru-gru nuts, and other organic products capable of receiving a high polish, have always been greatly prized by unsophisticated aborigines. Marble, alabaster, satin-stone, and granite deserve mention in the same connection. Cocoa-nut cups, clubs, war-canoes, skulls for drinking goblets, and like artistic utensils, invariably receive a glossy surface. Glass and the art of glazing pottery yield proofs of the same universal taste. Lastly, the inventions of lacquer, varnish, boot-blacking, and other artificial means for imparting lustre to naturally dull surfaces, derive their origin from a similar source.

  But among all the lustrous objects which attract the nascent æsthetic faculty of primitive man, none are more important in their final effects than metals. Leaving out of consideration as too remote from our present subject the numberless uses of copper, bronze, tin, iron, and steel, it will be enough if we glance briefly at the employment of silver and gold. These had at first no other recommendation than their immediate beauty, and they were collected for the manufacture of goblets, masks, torques, beads, earrings, and articles of personal adornment. But in the course of time they became utilised as a medium of exchange, owing both to the general request in which they were held, and to the ease with which they could be divided
and reunited. Hence at the present day mankind still carries on its commerce by bartering goods against the very self-same bits of shiny white or yellow metal which once hung round the naked necks of African, American, and prehistoric chieftains.

  Passing on from the general stimulation of the total light-beam, direct or reflected, to the partial stimulation of its various components — the analytic colours — we have next to inquire, Has any one colour a decided æsthetic superiority over any other? The answer must distinctly be, Yes. The red and orange end of the spectrum is decidedly the most pleasurable: while the central colours, green and blue, are decidedly the least so.

  Many separate reasons conduce to this effect. In the first place, we have already seen that greens and blues are by far the commonest colours in nature, being those of the whole grass-clad fields, forest stretches, and wide ocean below, and also of the great open sky overhead. On the other hand, red and orange are by far the most unusual hues, being, practically speaking, unknown in the ordinary inorganic environment, and only found in a few minor parts of animal or vegetal organisms. Hence the structures in our eyes which are percipient of red, are far less frequently exercised than those which are percipient of green and blue. So it will follow that they are generally in that highly unstable and fully-nurtured state in which they are capable of pleasurable stimulation. The structures for the perception of green and blue, on the contrary, being habitually stimulated to the proper extent, do not yield any specially agreeable feelings under ordinary circumstances.

  Again, the luminous intensity of red, orange, and yellow is considerably greater than that of green, blue, and violet. Hence their stimulating powers may be plausibly considered as greater than those of the less luminous colours. I am glad to be able to state that I owe this suggestion to Dr. Magnus and Mr. Gladstone. It is, doubtless, to their higher luminous qualities that the red and orange rays owe that pungency and strength which is one of their distinguishing characteristics. They may be considered to approach nearest in this respect to the brilliancy of direct total light.

  But above either of these causes we may place, I think, the hereditary tendency of the human eye, derived from our early frugivorous ancestors. Red, orange, and yellow are the common hues by which fruits may be distinguished from the surrounding masses of green foliage. Accordingly, the eyes of frugivorous animals must be continually on the alert for such colours; and the organs for their perception, besides being immediately strengthened, must also gain numerous connections with other nervous centres, which will permit the escape of comparatively voluminous emotional waves. I do not mean that these colours will come to be intellectually associated with the pursuit of food, for although such is doubtless the case, that fact would not in itself suffice to account for the pleasure aroused; but I mean that the increased calibre of the nervous organs thus exercised, and the number of additional channels thus provided for the overflowing nervous energy, would conspire to produce a direct and immediate sensuous pleasure. This pleasure would result from the mere act of perceiving red, not from the mediate recognition of red as a symbol of food.

  From the combination of these three causes, it happens that the sensation of red or orange is the most agreeable of all the pure colour-perceptions. And as the earliest and least æsthetically developed races pay attention only to the strongest stimulants, leaving out of consideration the more delicate, we may say roughly that amongst all savage tribes red is par excellence, and above all others the decorative colour. Dr. Magnus has noted this fact, and uses it as an argument in favour of his theory that red formed the first part of the visible spectrum to be separately cognised by the human eye. Mr. Gladstone speaks of “the prominence which that colour acquired both in the initial stages of the painter’s art, and in the costumes of high personages. It had, as it were, got a start, and had the first possession of the ground, which, in costume particularly, it has retained. But,” continues the author, and here I am pleased that I can thoroughly agree with him, “we must remember that, in public exhibition and ceremonial, it is, from its luminous character, highly satisfactory to the eye.” Of course, we must further remember that red forms the favourite colour, not only of primitive man and of modern savages, but also of the young and the coarse-natured among our European nations. The Central African is bribed with yards of red calico; the West Indian negress adorns herself in a red turban; the baby in its cradle jumps at a bunch of red rags; the London servant-maid trims her cap with scarlet ribbons, and admires the soldier’s coat as the most beautiful of human costumes.

  But there exists yet another and more mechanical reason why red came early into favour for decorative purposes. Of all primitive pigments, by far the commonest and easiest to obtain are ochreous earths. Blue dye can only be extracted in an early culture from certain vegetal substances, which require comparatively advanced skill for their production; while greens are chiefly obtained from minerals of rare occurrence. But red earths may be found almost everywhere, and the method of their application is as simple as the ruddling of sheep. Hence we find traces of the use of ochre where scarcely any other pigments are known. Lumps of red clay lie beside the prehistoric dead in their rude barrows; and red stains for the body compose the chief decoration of modern savages. Almost everywhere that we find mention of red pigment amongst uncivilised races, inquiry shows that ochre is the material from which it is obtained. Thus the New Zealanders paint their skins red — with ochre; the Bushmen in like manner redden their bodies — with ochre; the people of the Congo do the same — with ochre. Of the Australians, the Tasmanians, the Fuegians, the Tannese, the Andaman Islanders, I see it similarly mentioned that they employ ochre for their personal decoration. So, too, in higher arts, the red and yellow of the Trojan and Mycenæan pottery are clay colours. The Egyptian red, as we have already seen, was “an earthy bole,” and the yellow “an iron ochre.” Even among ourselves ruddle still performs many useful functions, and ranks as the simplest and easiest means of making distinguishing marks on animals, sacks, and other rural objects.

  Occasionally the origin of the red pigment is slightly different. The Samoans, I learn from Mr. Whitmee, use a volcanic earth for this purpose; the Assyrian red, according to Sir A. Layard, was a sub-oxide of copper; and Mr. E. S. Morse records the discovery, in prehistoric shell-heaps at Omori in Japan, of pottery coloured crimson with cinnabar. But whatever the material employed, we always see that the red end of the spectrum possessed and still possesses peculiar attractions for undeveloped æsthetic tastes.

  Besides the employment of red for æsthetic purposes in the shape of pigment, we may also note its use in other shapes. For example, there is the case of the red pebbles and the pretty polished bola mentioned above. The Mexicans used orange feathers for many decorative appliances; and the well-known cloaks of the Hawaiian kings were composed of the beautiful plumage of Melithreptes pacifica (note the name — as might be expected, a honey-feeder). The crimson hibiscus is a favourite flower amongst the West Indian negroes, whose huts may generally be descried at some distance by means of its massive blossoms. And I find the same brilliant flower twice mentioned by Lord George Campbell as a decoration of the person, once in the case of a girl at Kandavu, Fiji, and again in the wigs of the savage Papuans at Humboldt Bay.

  Next to red (with which must be included orange and yellow) in the order of æsthetic appreciation comes blue. This colour is comparatively common in nature, being the hue of the clear sky (in a few rare conditions only, for the sky of cloudy countries is whity-grey, and that of the tropics an indefinite haze), as well as of the enclosed sea in bays. Moreover, it is wanting in luminous intensity, and is therefore very far from being a pungent colour. However, in the third factor of æsthetic effectiveness, the hereditary tendency of humanity, blue is doubtless comparatively strong; for a large number of fruits have a more or less bluish or purplish tinge. Accordingly, it ranks second in development amongst the favourite colours of mankind. Wherever only two hues are employed in decoration, thos
e hues are generally red and blue. Indeed, if we use at random two words as summing up the totality of our colour-tastes, those two words will be red and blue. Yellow is æsthetically a mere species of red, while green has very little pleasurable effect, except to highly-cultivated eyes.

  Accordingly, wherever a blue pigment exists in an accessible form, the use of blue is common. We have seen already that blue enamel, blue glass beads, and blue lapis lazuli occur in prehistoric remains; but the want of a proper dye seems generally to have prevented its popular use. Thus, while the Egyptians and Assyrians employed it abundantly, no trace of it occurs upon the Trojan or Mycenæan pottery. But the ancient Welsh stained their bodies with woad, and all the Polynesian races tattoo themselves in blue lines. Many of the lowest Indian hill tribes — Kukis, Nágás, Todas, and Santáls — use indigo for dyeing cloth. The same dye is also widely employed throughout Central Africa. The bluish purple Bougainvillea almost vies with the crimson hibiscus in the favour of savages; and Bonwick mentions by name white, red, and blue species of flowers used by the Tasmanians in personal decoration.

  Green appears to me the least effective æsthetically of all colours: I mean, of course, to the ordinary mass of mankind, for it must be remembered that the cultivated taste generally gives a verdict exactly opposed to that of the multitude. It is the commonest of all colours in the natural environment of man; it has but little luminous intensity; and it is not connected hereditarily with any special function. Accordingly, I find it seldom mentioned among the decorative colours employed by savage tribes, and even then it is usually introduced as a contrast to red. While the Santáls wear strips of red, blue, and yellow cloth; while the Nágás dress in white cotton with red and blue fringes; I do not meet with any mention of green dyes among the Indian hill tribes. And this is very natural if we recollect that, amid their green leafy surroundings, it would yield very little contrast and possess very little decorative value. However, as we mount in the scale, we find that the women of New Guinea dye their petticoats red and green, with intermediate strips of yellow; while the Ashantis employ all four decorative colours, red, blue, yellow, and green. Of course, with the Mexicans, Peruvians, Egyptians, and Assyrians, all these colours were in common use, and green was raised to a place of equal importance with red and blue.