liquid amber
In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Lao Tzu, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.
—Kakuzo Okakura, from The Book of Tea, 1964.
our mind is the canvas
Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.
—Kakuzo Okakura, from The Book of Tea, 1964.
sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
—Robert Browning, from The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
a ribbon of moonlight
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
—Alfred Noyes, from The Highwayman.
northern lights
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
—Robert W. Service, from The Cremation of Sam McGee.
quantum electrodynamics
Where does this leave us What is light We can describe very precisely what it does:
1. It has wave-like properties that give very exact answers according to the classical theory of interference.
2. It has particle-like properties that give very exact answers in collision processes between photons and particles.
3. It travels through a vacuum at the constant speed of light.
4. It has the same constant speed in a vacuum no matter how we look at it, be it in a laboratory frame of reference or from a space ship moving close to the speed of light.
5. The particles of light have no mass. . . .
To describe these properties quantitatively we need the theories of relativity and quantum electrodynamics, we need the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. These are combined in a quite superb theory known as quantum electrodynamics, which can describe very beautifully all of these properties and is the most precise theory that has been tested in the whole of physics.
—Malcolm Longair in Light and Colour, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
lemon yellow, pale blue and pearl grey
Do you know a painter called Van der Meer . . . the palette of this curious painter consists of blue, lemon yellow, pearl grey, black and white. In his very few paintings there is in fact the whole richness of a complete palette; but the combination of lemon yellow, pale blue and pearl grey is as characteristic to him as the black, white, grey and pink are to Velazquez.
—Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Bernard, quoted by Bridget Riley in Colour for the Painter, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
Prussian Blue
In terms of painting materials, the modern era began in 1704, with the invention of Prussian Blue. . . .
The precise dating of pigment inventions gives us a formidable weapon in the matter of determining authenticity. A number of apparently old paintings have been betrayed by the presence of Prussian Blue.
—David Bomford, from The History of Colour in Art, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
violettomania
Coloured shadows in Impressionist paintings generally contained blue/violet tones as the complementary to yellow sunlight. Much fun was had at their expense, and the derisive term violettomania was coined to describe their collective sickness.
—David Bomford, from The History of Colour in Art, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
the metallic sheen of a mallard ducks blue speculum
In Nature, colour may be a source of great beauty to the beholder, but to a plant or an animal it is most often a means of survival. . . . Natural colour arises from a diversity of mechanisms, often associated with distinct functions. Dyes and stains are used by many creatures, frequently for camouflage. Structural colourtypified by the metallic sheen of a Mallard ducks blue speculumis generally used for the intense colours that announce the presence of an individual, as for example in a mating display. Colour can also be used for warning, as in the poisonous fire-bellied toad, or even for mimicry. Less commonly, animals can dispense with colour altogether and become transparent, or, as in the squid, they can actively control skin colour for the purpose of camouflage, or for attraction and mating.
—Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, from the introduction to Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.