“black letter”
“With regard to the Gothic minuscule character, the even perpendicularity of the broad, straight strokes gives at a glance the character distinguished as “black letter,” because it is relatively much heavier than the Roman minuscule. You have only to compare the two to see that the “black letter” is blacker.
The Germans marked this form of lettering for their own, and persevered in its use long after the rest of the world, in pursuance of the fashion of classicism prevailing in the 16th century, had abandoned it for the Roman style of lettering.
The mediaeval German version of black letter was stronger than that of other countries, the French more fanciful, the Italian more refined, more perfect, but perhaps never so Gothic.
The old “black letter” varied . . . much in character. The rounder form is freer, easier to write, more cursive. The more regular and straight-backed letter went rather out of fashion for a while; but it was revived by the printers, who saw in it what they could best imitate.”
—Lewis F. Day, from Alphabets Old & New, 1910. Ditto Lynne!
big fat red and yellow leaves
“Most of you, used to big fat red and yellow leaves and brisk winds smelling of apples, wouldn’t recognize it. But here in the deep deep South in the dreamy mud of the riverbend at New Orleans, we do know it. It’s only a change in the light, a knifeblade-thin change from bright white to reddish.”
—Andrei Codrescu, the essay “Hint of Fall,” from New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City, 2006.
the green-gray back of a large alligator
“There is a drainage ditch behind the inexpensive student housing in back of LSU. It’s filled with beer cans. I was watching it in the midmorning heat the way a visitor to a museum watches a big trash sculpture, when the whole mess moved and the green-gray back of a large alligator slowly slid into view. Slowly, it then slid back out if it. Later I was told that the students know him well. They threaten to throw themselves to him if they don’t make their exams.”
—Andrei Codrescu, “Alligators,” from New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City, 2006.
King Death
“King Death was a rare old fellow!
He sate where no sun could shine;
And he lifted his hand so yellow,
And poured out his coal-black wine
Hurrah! for the coal-black wine!”
—Thomas Morton, from The School of Reform; or, How to Rule a Husband, A Comedy in Five Acts, 1805. As quoted in Artist of Wonderland: the Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel by Frank Morris, 2005.
their pleasantest arrangement
“Colors may mutually relate like musical concords for their pleasantest arrangement.”
—Aristotle, from De Coloribus, as quoted by Tom Douglas Jones in The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
Tone-color
“Musicians have appropriated the word color principally to describe the sensuous charm of their art. Hue is used to denote the shifts in effect that followed varous changes in timbre. Tone-color is a synonym for timbre. In truth, this quality in music (timbre), aside from what are called intensity and pitch, is easily associated with hue. For color has timbre, fullness, delicacy, volume, softness.”
—Adrian Bernard Klein, from Colour-Music, The Art of Light, 1930, as quoted by Tom Douglas Jones in The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
a color-art
“The only possible rival to sound as a vehicle of pure emotion is color. . . . Here I will express my conviction that a color-art exactly analogous to the sound-art of music is possible and is amongst the arts which have to be traversed in the future, as sculpture, architecture, paintings, and music have been in the past.”
—H.R. Haweis, in 1875, as quoted by Tom Douglas Jones in The Art of Light and Color, 1972.
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.