waving a red flag
“The discussion of color has always brought some considerable risk, a fact that inspired a predecessor to say that waving a red flag before a bull will rouse him to anger, but any mention of color at all will send the philosopher into a rage.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated from the German by Douglas Miller, 1988.
a flower redder than any other
“It is said that on summer evenings certain flowers appear to sparkle, phosphoresce, or radiate a momentary light. Some observers describe these occurences in more exact detail.
I had often sought to experience this for myself, even contriving several experimens in an attempt to produce it.
On the evening of June 19, 1799, I was strolling through the garden with a friend just as twilight was passing into cloudless night. We distinctly saw something flamelike appear close to some oriental poppies, a flower redder than any other. We stood in front of the plants and observed them closely but were unable to see anything more; at last we succeeded in repeating the effect at will by walking to and fro while looking at them sideways. It became evident that this was a phenomenon of physiological color and that the apparent flashing was really the afterimage of the flower in the required blue-green color.
Looking directly at a flower will not cause this phenomenon, although it will apear when the gaze wanders. Viewed obliquely, however, the flower produces a momentary double image in which the afterimage is seen just next to and touching the actual form.
In the dim light of dusk the eye is completely rested and receptive, while the color of the poppy is strong enough to maintain its full effect in the twilight of midsummer. Thus it can call forth a complementary image.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated from the German by Douglas Miller, 1988.
the younger researcher
“Once, toward evening, I found myself in a smithy just as the glowing metal was laid on the anvil. After gazing intently at this activity for a time, I turned and happened to look into the open doorway of a coal bin. At that moment an enormous purple form floated before my eyes; when I glanced over at a light-colored wooden wall the phoenomenon appeared half in green, half in purple depending one whether the background was light or dark. At the time I made no note of how this phenomenon faded.
The phenomena associated with the fading of an extremely bright bounded form also occur when the entire retina has been blinded by light. The purple color seen by those who have been blinded by snow belongs in this category, as does the uncommonly beautiful green color seen in dark objects after we gaze at a sheet of white paper lying in the sun. A more exact investigation of these phenomena will await the younger researcher whose eyes can still bear some hard use for the sake of science.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated from the German by Douglas Miller, 1988.
“When you are in a room it should be even more empty.”
“The German designer Dieter Rams used the metaphor of a good English butler: products should provide quiet, efficient service and otherwise fade unobtrusively into the background. (A former butler from Buckingham Palace advising the actor Anthony Hopkins on his role in the film Remains of the Day commented: ‘When you are in a room it should be even more empty.’) Rams’s designs for Braun over a forty-year period through to the mid-1990s used simple, geometric forms and basic non-colours, predominantly white, with black and grey used for details, and primary colours applied only for small and highly specific purposes, such as on/off switches. The consistent aesthtic cumulatively established by Braun was one of the most formative influences on houseware design in the late twentieth century and established instant recognition for the company that many have sought to copy but few have equalled.”
—John Heskett, from Toothpicks & Logos: Design in Everyday Life., 2002.
he beholds the light
“Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy.”
—Wordsworth. This opens Conrad Richter’s The Light in the Forest, 1953. Ironically, this is the only quote I culled from the book.
an unnatural glitter
“Gobseck, impassive as ever, had taken up his magnifying glass, and was quietly scrutinizing the jewels. If I were to live for a hundred years, I should never forget the sight of his face at that moment. There was a flush in his pale cheeks; his eyes seemed to have caught the sparkle of the stones, for there was an unnatural glitter in them. He rose and went to the light, holding the diamonds close to his toothless mouth, as if he meant to devour them; mumbling vague words over them, holding up bracelets, sprays, necklaces, and tiaras one after another, to judge of their water, whiteness, and cutting; taking them out of the jewel-case and putting them in again, letting the play of the light bring out all their fires. He was more like a child than an old man; or, rather, childhood and dotage seemed to meet in him.”
—Honor’ de Balzac (1799–1850), from Gobseck, 1830.
GOLD
“‘If you had lived as long as I have, you would know that there is but one concrete reality invariable enough to be worth caring about and that is—GOLD. . . . When all sensations are exhausted, all that survives is Vanity—Vanity is the abiding substance of us, the I in us. Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods. Our dreams need time and physical means and painstaking thought before they can be realized. Well, gold contains all things in embryo; gold realizes all things for us.’”
—Honor’ de Balzac (1799–1850), spoken by Gobseck in Gobseck, 1830.
yellow as a lemon
“‘Be quick and come, M. Derville,’ said he, ‘the governor is just going to hand in his checks; he has grown as yellow as a lemon; he is fidgeting to speak with you; death has fair hold of him; the rattle is working in his throat.’”
—Honor’ de Balzac (1799—1850), from the short story Gobseck, 1830.
dark side of the flower
“In the garden grows a flower
Bending low to the earth,
Its face in the dust.
I can see
The dark side of the flower.
Painted face.
Can you see the dark side of the flower? . . .
Many colors are your petals,
Signifying, what?
Perhaps you see their meaning
Through a chemical prism.
The dew on your petals called love
No longer seems to sparkle in the sun.
The dew seems to cling
Only to your leaves,
And ooze,
Not flowing to moisten
The life of your blossom,
But closing off its breath.”
—Pastor John Rydgren and Peter Tork, “Dark Side of the Flower”, from the very odd, not to say bizarre, late sixties double LP “Silhouette Segments.” Originally released on the Weird-Oh label, catalog number Weird-Oh 002.
love bombing
“Alison Peters, a former member of Children of God, recalled [the Moonie practice of] love bombing in shopping malls. She’d look for people who seemed, as she put it, ‘sheepy, people who looked lost and vulnerable.’. . . While she was talking to them, she would stare fixedly into their eyes, the classic technique of hard sell. As she described it, ‘It was the whole thing of exuding confidence, of maintaining direct communication so forceful that you’re always in complete control. In the pamphlet, they described it in biblical terms: you were supposed to ‘Let the Holy Spirit work through you.’ The eye-to-eye contact was called ‘letting the Light of Jesus come through your eyes into the other person’s eyes.’’”
—Willa Appel, from Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise, 1983.