Symbolism Of Colour.

at all settled with us . They use that epithet of fire , of swans , of snow , so that nicei and purpurei may not differ so much as they seem . " " Gemma purpureis cum juga demet cquis . " Ovid , Fast . ii . 72 . And " Carmina sanguineic dedueuiit cornua lunic . " Ibidii 21

. . . " lit revocent niveos solis euutis equos . " So in Virgil ( Georg . iii ., 82 , S 3 ) it is difficult to assign a satisfactory tint to this passage , giving the quality of horses from their colours : — " Honesti Spadices glaucique : color deterriinus albis

Et gilvo . " Glaucus seems generally only to mean shining , ancl may have been , in a very remote sense , akin to the German term Gliick ( luck ) . Gilvus is a honey colour , answering to the modern yellow , German yelb or gelb , ancl the same well knoivn metathesis of

/ ' and b would give the best significance for flctvus in the German blctu , our blue ; nor should I object to a derivation of eer-uleus from the German gar , car , leur , and helle , bright : gar presenting , in that language , anything special or jmrticularly perfect . That Spence was in part of this opinion , may be deduced from his note on " cceruleus fibris " ( Mi \ . vii . 64 ) , and " crinem cceruleuin , " ( Ovid ) ; and Yirgil : — " Eum tenuis glauco velabat amictu Carbosus . " —JEn . viii . 21 .

when he says"I imagine cceruleus signifies a darkish or sea green colour here , though it may in general signify any colour that the sea is of , and that varies according to the objects that reflect light upon it . Near the shore it is always tinged with the predominant colour of the shore , and is generally more or less green ; far out at sea it is of whatever colour the clouds happen to be ofso that

, cceruleus is a very vague and indeterminate expression . "The meaning of the word glaucus is almost as uncertain . One of the best vocabularies we have for the Latin tongue ( Ainsworth ) , says it signifies grey blue , sky coloured , azure sea green , or a bright fiery red . "

But it may have only applied to a brilliancy in all the particular instances which seems proved by Lervin ' s explanation of the word in the passage above from the Georgics , by its resembling cats' eyes— -felineis oculis . Not only is this uncertainty of colour inherent in themselves , that is subjectively , but even the eye objectively ( as

in the other senses ) is unable to satisfy itself that the impressions on it from the same objects are the same as those made upon any other individual , but as the relative change remains permanent ancl consistent throughout , the difficulty , though incapable of proof as of alteration , certainly adds to the general uncertainty of jiolychromy ,

With regard , however , to its symbolism , we can hardly suppose that iu the clear atmosphere and pure air of Greece and Ital y , where nature ' s nicest and most delicate tints had fullest play , ancl where every hue of field or forest , the gaudy colouring of the feathered tribe , were so precisely noticed , and where the play of the shot colours of the dol phin , the

tunny , and other denizens of their clear waters gave the splendour ancl variety of a kaleidoscope to each bay and inlet of their shores—we can hardly suppose , I say , that here the beauty of variety in colour should have passed unheeded , or its symbolism not have arisen . Englishmen , as we have already pointed out , have at the

present day peculiar opportunities , and almost a mission , to jud ge ancl determine on the symbolism of colour ancl on the appositencss of polychromy in the examples offered in the new glass palace at Sydenham . We have there what are declared to be correct , though reduced copies , of Assyrian , E gyptian

GrecianRomanBritishGothicSpanishMahom-, , , , , , medan , Renaissance , and Italian colouring clown to our own time , iu the production of the industrial courts and the limning of the palace itself . It is to be lamented that we have them not placed in a chronological series ;

so that a visitor or student might commence with the earliest link , ancl so pass on from the old Palace of Minus , in the order we have indicated , to the more extended field of Egyptian gaiety ancl to a more pronounced ancl extended chromic field . The Grecian use of polychromy may be said to be successfully asserted as material aid to the chisel in the tints which Mr . Owen Jones has so harmoniously bestowed

on the frieze of the Parthenon , and which he may possibly carry out on the chefs cl ' ceitvres of Phidias , Minerva ' s glorious tympanum . At Rome , in the arabesques of the baths of Titus , we find every variety of tint employed with such freedom and richness of invention that Raf ' aelle did not disdain to become

their copyist in the loggias of the Vatican ; ancl how much Gothic architecture is improved ancl harmonized by the introduction of the strongest tints , the mediaeval courts of England , Germany , ancl France bear ample testimony , and in the number of the colours and their brilliancy how much the round and pointed arch and their corresponding styles are heightened and sublimed by the use of pigments . It was not without ample consideration and experience that our forefathers encrusted the walls of their cathedrals ancl

parish churches with the storied history of the Saviour ancl tlie ^ Saints in richest hue , the backgrounds inlaid or diapered with ' vivid mosaics or overlaid with resplendent gold ; and thus the . temples showed by their solemn pomp advantageously as the abode and dwelling place of the Most Highest , and placed in an obvious light the distinction between a common house ancl the habitation of- the Lord .

The legendary lore on the walls around ,., their moral precepts though " Spell'd by th' unlettered Muse , The place of fame and eulogy supply , And many a holy text around she strews , Teaching the rural moralist to die . " This usefulthis testhetical practice was buried in the age of

, whitewash ancl uniformity , and all in religion was thereby rendered gloomy , meaningless , and dull . The idea , however , of the beautiful and significant in colour could not be banished from the minds of the people or the designs of the artist , ancl polychromy , ejected from our churches , took refuge in the palaces . The Renaissance Court has its

finest examples of colour from the halls of princes , from the ducal edifices , or the vestibules ofthenobili . The cinque cento period , when art hacl lost tho solemnity and aive of the cloister , necessarily wandered into the grotesque and gay ; it degenerated successively in England into the Elizabethan and the austere Puritanical .

A certain internal relation , however , of the several periods wo have traced is still observable , ancl a certain preponderance of fotur qolours . —red , blue , yellow , ancl black—with an occasional variation of green ( as we shall show subsequently , from our own popular mythology ) , pervades all . In tho earliest Assyrian wc have the first rudiments of

polychromy ancl the infancy of art , in which the rude pigments employed were such as the surrounding soils afforded—ochres ancl earths , deep red , brown , and yellow , with intense blue blacks ; and the contrasts are also sombre ancl in keeping with the majestic grandeur of their architecture—dull red on buff , or blue on red ancl red ou blue alternately . These eolours ancl their contrasts are so suitable to the stiffness of

the sculpture that they seem but the completion of form ; brig hter tints or more delicate oppositions would bo totally out of place . The Egyptians , to whom a knowledge of the metallic oxides seems to have been familiar , add more enlivening tints to the ochres of the Assyrians , though still the

influence of the austere Nubian and their oivn sunburnt tint controlled their introduction and use . The same agreement , however , of form and colour is here whicli we have found in the courts of Nineveh—the opacity of tint there is quite in keeping with their formal treatment of form ; whilst iu