a charm, a glory, a paradise!
“All that visible objects have of magnificence and brilliance can be turned to the profit of the new clavessin. It is susceptible to all manner of embellishments. Gold and azure, metals and enamels, crystals, pearls, diamonds, embroideries, satins, velvets, etc., will not be only ornaments, but will form the body itself of the machine and be as its proper substance. For example, one can form the colors themselves with precious stones or counterfeits of the same color, the reds with garnets and rubies and carbuncles, the greens with emeralds, etc., and what brilliance and splendor a spectacle would possess where one could see appear from all parts and shine like stars, sometimes jacinths, and rubies, and sapphires—all these accompanied with the light of torches in an apartment all hung with mirrors. It would be an infinitely brilliant spectacle as an immobile decoration where everything would be in harmony, but what would it be like if movement and a regular, measured, harmonic, and quick movement animated all, giving it a sort of life? It would be a charm, a glory, a paradise!
One could perform a play, in which entered human figures, angelic figures, animals, reptiles, etc., or, again, one could demonstrate all the sequence of the elements of Euclid; one can give a play of flowers with variegated flowers, rose for the color of the roses, violet for the violet, etc., so arranged that each touch of the hand would represent a flower-bed and the sequence a mobile diversity of animated flower-beds. All that one can paint one can put into a moving picture, and vice versa, at the will of a clever player of the clavessin. I said that one could make as many color instruments as sound instruments, and one can make them according to a million tastes more different than those of ordinary music. Let all Paris have color clavessins up to 800,000!”
—Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757), describing his Clavessin Oculaire, the earliest known color-organ, in either La Musique en Couleurs, 1720, or L’Optique des Couleurs, 1740. As quoted by Tom Douglas Jones in The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
I have no pet color
“I have no pet color. The whole spectrum is my favorite. No special color has an especial meaning. Green is generally considered a restful color, but green has a thousand qualities. It may be stirring rather than restful. Blues may mean one thing when applied to a square and another thing when applied to a circle. The key of C major has no special meaning but can be made to mean anything that one wishes to make it mean.”
—Thomas Wilfred (1889–1968), inventor of the Clavilux color organ, as quoted by Tom Douglas Jones in The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
Lumia, the art of light and color
“Lumia, the art of light and color, had a sudden resurgence, expansion, and “explosion” during the nineteen sixties, and for two significant reasons. First came the revolt of youth, a sharp break and a full swing away from the amenities and mores of the past. . . . The sophisticated night club, patronized by well-dressed adults, gave way to the discoth’que, the electric circus, frequented by youngsters in dungarees and with bare feet. Rock and roll music, amplified to a cacophonous din, demanded all that the senses could bear—which meant vivid color, flashing light, dizzying motion, stroboscopic vibration. . . .
Second came the widespread use of hallucinogenic drugs, LSD, mescaline, peyote, the taking of which produced an immediate and startling expansion of the sense of color. Any number of attempts have been made to describe, in words, this heightened and sensuous response to color. Such effort is futile. As Heinrich Kl’ver wrote in his Mescal and Mechanisms of Hallucinations, ‘It is impossible to find words to describe mescal colors.’”
—Tom Douglas Jones, from The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
Arthur Bliss
“Without the actual use of color or light, the English composer Arthur Bliss wrote ‘A Colour Symphony’ having four movements. Here Bliss sought to convey the musical and emotional impression of four colors.
‘I. Purple: The Colour of Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty and Death.
II. Red: The Colour of Rubies, Wine, Revelry, Furnaces, Courage and Magic.
III. Blue: The Colour of Sapphires, Deep Water, Skies, Loyalty, and Melancholy.
IV. Green: The Colour of Emeralds, Hope, Youth, Joy, Spring and Victory.’
The symphony was written in 1922, first presented in Gloucester Cathedral, and revised by the composer in 1932.”
—Tom Douglas Jones, from The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
“I want it all azure”
“Among musicians, Liszt is credited with a number of pet phrases: ‘More pink here, if you please.’ ‘That is too black.’ ‘I want it all azure.’ Beethoven is said to have called B minor the black key. Schubert likened E minor ‘unto a maiden robed in white with a rose-red bow on her breast.’. . . ‘Debussy wrote: ‘I realize that music is very delicate, and it takes, therefore, the soul at its softest fluttering to catch these violet rays of emotion.’”
—Tom Douglas Jones, from The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
a psycho-physiological creative process
“The beauty of the visual world around us exists only in ourselves! Translation of the given visual information, at a distance, as nerve impulses, into a richness of color and form, is a psycho-physiological creative process.”
—Franz Gerritsen, from his Theory and Practice of Color: A Color Theory Based on Laws of Perception, 1974, translation by Ruth de Vriendt.
the sight organ as we know it
“Very primitive forms of life have been able to orient themselves to sunlight, through the development of light sensitive spots on their skin-surface, such as the light sensitive cells of worms. The sea star also has light sensitive spots on the ends of its star arms. Molluscs and ringworms have a more protected beaker-eye, whereby the light sensitive cells lie in an indentation in the skin. Inkfish even have two convex beaker eyes which are filled with sea-water. The beaker opening can be made larger or smaller through a circular muscle. Other kinds of eyes in primitive life forms are sealed over with mucus.
Higher life forms have transparent tissue over the opening, which is somewhat convex in order to collect the light waves on the back of the indentation (the retina); this is what is found in more highly developed sorts of inkfish and snails. The embyological development of vertebrate animals shows that the eye is formed by a bulge, the inside of a part of the central nervous system, pushed out, instead of the surface indentation pushed in of more primitive life forms. The sight organ has evolved, via primitive life forms, through the qualities of sunlight into the sight organ as we know it. Therefore, when we want to judge a color, we use light which has the qualities of sunlight, as we experience it after it passes through the atmosphere.”
—Franz Gerritsen, from his Theory and Practice of Color: A Color Theory Based on Laws of Perception, 1974, translation by Ruth de Vriendt.
line spectra
“A line spectrum has emission only in certain, sometimes very narrow, wavelength areas, in contrast to a continuous spectrum. Sodium and mercury vapor gas discharge lamps, among others, have this kind of line spectrum. . . .
Neon tubes, as used for illuminated advertising and traffic lights, also have line spectra.
Neon gas is used for red light, and mercury gas for blue light, within transparent glass tubes. Subtractive mixing occurs in the colored transparent tubes, part of the spectrum of the light source is absorbed by the colored glass. Yellow glass absorbs so much of the “blue” mercury lines that mostly “green” can pass through and become visible. “Neon” light adverstising (the name “neon” is used for neon and for mercury tubes) was shown at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1937, when for the first time fluorescent powders were coated on the insides of the tubes. A large assortment of colors was produced by making use of different fluorescent powders. This invention was the start of the development which led to our fluorescent tubes, for lighting purposes.”
—Franz Gerritsen, from his Theory and Practice of Color: A Color Theory Based on Laws of Perception, 1974, translation by Ruth de Vriendt.
the world of color
“We can only conquer the world of color if we are actively and intensively occupied with color. A more accurate insight can give us some support, but can do no more than show us the way.”
—Franz Gerritsen, from Theory and Practice of Color: A Color Theory Based on Laws of Perception, 1974, translation by Ruth de Vriendt.
“I offer protection to your furniture”
“Built in Chicago in 1923, the Reebie storage and removals firm not only reveals the impact that the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb had on architecture and decorative arts in the United States, but it also introduces the subject of the use of hieroglyphs within Egyptomania. Contructed by Charles S. Kinglsey, it was decorated by Fritz Albert with a vast display of polychrome terracottas. Decorative motifs included several full-length statues of Ramesses II, representations of the goddess Hathor, winged beetles and hieroglyphic friezes. The colours—pink, coral, fawn, indigo and light green—and golden disks with blue wings and green snakes, appear to shine as brightly today as when they were first created. . . . Hieroglyphs overtly proclaim the function of the building: ‘I offer protection to your furniture.’”
—Clifford Price and Jean-Marcel Humbert, from their Introduction: An Architecture Between Dream and Meaning, from Imhotep Today: Egyptianizing Architecture, edited by Jean-Marcel Humbert and Clifford Price, 2003.