The most pleasant hues
“To use color effectively, we need to know its emotional effects, and these are readily summarized. Color is characterized by hue, brightness, and saturation. Hue is related to wavelength and hence determines whether colors are perceived as red, blue, green, and so on. Brightness refers to the intensity of light that is reflected; saturation refers to the concentration or vividness of the hue. The brighter or more saturated the color, the more pleasant it is. The most pleasant hues are blue, green, purple, red, and yellow, in that order. In terms of arousal, less bright and more saturated colors are more arousing. The most arousing hue is red, followed by orange, yellow, violet, blue, and green, with green being the least arousing. Thus, if we wanted to maximize arousal in a given room, we would probably use flocked, velvety, or otherwise textured deep red wallpaper, carpets, and curtains. [We] . . . would emphasize the more arousing hues and the more saturated colors. It is probably no accident that extremes of such a decorative scheme often prevailed in the better nineteenth-century brothels.”
—Albert Mehrabian, from Public Places and Private Spaces: The Psychology of Work, Play, and Living Environments, 1976.
the vivacious college student
“Let’s take a look at clothing in terms of its ability to produce feelings of arousal, pleasure, and dominance. Clothing that is colorful, bright, and somewhat different from the usual styles is more loaded (complex and novel) and hence more arousing. Clothing that employs complex color patterns which are perceived as garish or clashing will produce feelings of arousal and displeasure. . . .
People who stick to the same basic and somewhat drab styles, or even wear the same clothes day after day, are not loaded social stimuli. Compare the conservative matron who relies primarily on the same design, colors, and textures in her suits and shoes for months on end with the vivacious college student who changes her clothing in between morning and afternoon classes, and again in the evening before a dinner date. . . .
Uniformity in the clothing styles of military, social, political, or ideological groups not only helps to readily identify a stranger’s attitudes, primary preoccupations, or way of life, but also tells us something about his emotional preferences. Both the hippie and the beatnik movements rejected accepted social values. However, ideologically, the beatnik movement drew inspiration from philosophies which emphasized despair as the primary emotional reaction to existential dilemmas. The “heavy” beats often chose dark, severe, somber, and more tailored styles. Hippy garb, with its carefree, light, bright, flowery, and complex look, was consistent with its ideology, which emphasized pleasure, doing your own thing (variety), and a “flower-child” brightness and openness.”
—Albert Mehrabian, from Public Places and Private Spaces: The Psychology of Work, Play, and Living Environments, 1976.
Mona Lisa
“Leonardo [Da Vinci] undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished. . . . In this head, whoever wished to see how closely art could imitate nature, was able to comprehend it with ease; for in it were counterfeited all the minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted, seeing that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are always seen in life, and around them were all those rosy and pearly tints, as well as the lashes, which cannot be represented without the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows, through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh, here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the skin, could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appearing to be alive. The mouth, whith its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. . . . He made use also of this device: Mona Lisa being very beautiful, he always emplyed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing, and jesters, who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give the portraits that they paint. And in this work of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive. . . .”
—Giorgio Vasari, from The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1550 C.E.
green cushions and beautiful carpets
“They [the righteous] shall repose on couches, the linings thereof shall be of thick silk interwoven with gold: and the fruit of the two gardens shall be near at hand to gather. . . .
Therein shall be damsels, refraining their eyes from beholding any besides their spouses: whom no man or Jinni shall have touched before them, . . .
Having complexions like rubies and pearls. . . .
And besides these there shall be two other gardens. . . .
Of a dark green color. . . .
In each of them shall be two fountains pouring forth plenty of water. . . .
In each of them shall be fruits, and palm trees, and pomegranates. . . .
Therein shall be agreeable and beauteous damsels. . . .
Having fine black eyes; and kept in pavilions from public view. . . .
Whom no man shall have touched before their destined spouses, nor any Jinni. . . .
Therein shall they delight themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful carpets.”
—from The Koran, 7th century C.E. This is Paradise!
a silver toothpick
“We were revelling in these delicacies when, behold! Trimalchio himself was borne into the hall with musical honours, reposing upon tiny cushions! The spectacle drew a laugh from the surprised guests. His close-cropped head stuck out from a cloak of bright scarlet; his neck was well wrapped up, and he had donned a linen cloth with a broad stripe and tassels dangling right and left. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a heavy gilt ring, but on the last joint of the next finger he had futhermore a smaller ring, which appeared to me to be of solid gold but as a matter of fact was picked out with brilliants made of steel. Also, to show that these did not exhaust his jewel-case, he had his right arm bare, encircled with an armlet of gold and an ivory circlet clasped by a gleaming metal plate. . . .
Then having made full use of a silver toothpick, he addressed the assembly.”
—Petronius from The Satyricon, 1st century C.E.
among the lights of heaven
“Like to the star which in the autumn time
Rises and glows among the lights of heaven
With eminent lustre at the dead of night—
Orion’s Hound they call it—bright indeed,
And yet of baleful omen, for it brings
Distressing heat to miserable men.
So shone the brass upon the warrior’s breast
As on he flew.”
—Homer from The Illiad, 9th to 8th Century BC.
the star-sprayed milk-white sea
“Sweeter than the bite of sour apples to a child,
The green water seeped through my wooden hull,
Rinsed me of blue wine stains and vomit,
Broke apart grappling iron and rudder.
And then I bathed myself in the poetry
Of the star-sprayed milk-white sea,
Devouring the azure greens; where, pale
And ravished, a pensive drowned one sometimes floats; . . .”
—Arthur Rimbaud from The Drunken Boat.
New York as a spectacle
“Charles Baudelaire was a true Parisian, a poet of the city, a confimed city-dweller. . . . The New York skyline, with the tremendous Empire State building, with the sequined Chrysler tower silver in the sunlight, with the lights suddenly blazing like yellow sapphires in a million windows, above the outrageous, whirling, dining and conniving town—New York as a spectacle would have delighted him.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay from her introduction to a translation of Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil), October 19, 1935.
Aurora
“Aurora now in a thin dress of green and rose,
With chattering teeth advanced. Old sombre Paris rose,
Picked up its tools, and, over the deserted Seine,
Yawning, rubbing its eyes, slouched forth to work again.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), from Dawn, translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1936.
a mystic crown
“‘I know that space and time, beyond the temporal grave,
Weave me a mystic crown, free from all earthly flaw.
Not emeralds, not all the pearls of the deep sea,
All the rare metals, every lost and buried gem
Antique Palmyra hides, could ever seem to me
So beautiful as that clear glittering diadem.
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Of Light, of Light alone, it will be fashioned, Light
Drawn from the holy fount, rays primitive and pure,
Whereof the eyes of mortal men, so starry bright,
Are but the mirrors, mirrors cloudy and obscure.’”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), from Benediction, translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1936.