LONDON SMOKE, BABY PINK

Blue, red, white, green, yellow, black…

And then?

How many colors?

Don’t ask the rainbow: it’s a magician.

It shows us only that which we want to see.

Children, who search for the treasure at the feet of its rays, know well: the colors disappear as soon as you try to catch them, they’re just an illusion.

Actually, a color is and ensemble of symbols and conventions.

Behind the six primary colors are the complimentary ones, half tones (pink, brown, violet, orange and the strange gray) and an infinite procession of shades which never stops inventing.

The lesson we can pull from here is entertaining: a color only exists because we look at it.

Basically, it’s a pure invention of mankind.

Meditate, people.

FROM MOURNING TO ELEGANCE

 “Nero, non è nero…nero!” (Black, he’s not black…black!)

And all the worse for the song.

Certainly, it’s about a color to be taken with the masses, like coal, but not as uniform and desperate – not so black – as one tends to believe.

The proof: if it still follows caskets and lurks among the last sacristies, it even dresses people in fashion.

Today, elegance is black.

But there’s more: with white, its comrade, black has given place to a different imagery, a representation of the world promoted by photography and movies, at times more truthful than that described by colors.

The black and white universe, believed as having been relegated is still here, deeply anchored to our dreams and perhaps our way of thinking.  

Throughout the 1500s the extreme religious strictness imposed by the Protestant Reformation and then the Counter Reformation brought about a backlash resulting in more austere forms and the triumph of black, and in Catholic areas the imitation of models imposed by the Spanish court.

At the same time, however, the opening of trade with the Far East promoted the extensive spread of new raw materials such as indigo, which in a few dacades replaced woad, and cochineal, inported from America.

FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRANCE OF ROI SOLEIL

The Renaissance witnessed the height, but also the beginning of the decline of the textile industry on the peninsula.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Italian style, with its classicism, fullness and harmonious colors, spread throughout Europe.

This style required increasingly monumental lines, and increasingly valuable fabrics such as velvet in its various forms.

At the same time, however, between the 15th and 16th centuries the technique of color printing was refned.

An illustration of the procedure was found in Cennino Cennini’s Treatise on painting (1437): pressure was exerted on the reverse side of the material to outline the borders in black, blue or red , while the design of the central background was done with a paintbrush.

Printing, considered a less valuable procedure than cloth woven on a loom, was mainly done in central Europe, and was initially used mostly to imitate and compete with the most expensive Italian imported fabrics.

After the year 1000, one of the most powerful engines of the economic boom lead by Italian city-states was textile manufacturing.

Weavers and dyers joined into influential corporations, and each city featured its own production specialties: Florence, Bologna and Milan in wool; Naples  in hemp and linen; Venice,  Florence and Genoa in silk.

Venice in particular, which came to be known as the “magical birthplace of color” with its strong ties to the Orient, specialized in the production of ” panno d’oro” (golden cloth) from the Byzantine era and “Venetian scarlet“, exported all over Europe.

Nothing is farther from the truth about the image of the Middle Ages, so widespread in common knowledge, as the uncontested “dark” kingdom.

Actually the symbolism and mysticism of light as divine manifestation, typical of medieval culture, were translated into an explosion of color.

The reflection of cathedrals’ stained glass windows reverberated in fashion, in the vivacious juxtaposition of gaudy colors seen in paintings and miniatures.

Never before had color become a code as it did in heraldic society and court culture, whereby each color had its own fundamental meaning.

While the Orient pursued a path of opulence and refinement, it wasn’t as if the West had simply lost itself in decadence.

On the contrary, even the barbarian civilizations, with their initially rough and multi-colored clothing, introduced new contributions destined to remain sculpted in European culture.

The new customs featured the use of abstract and geometric shapes, not unlike those used by the Celts and still seen today in plaid fabrics.

A new philosophy of color also evolved: blue and green (the latter obtained from the fusion of reseda and woad) first appeared on a larger scale.

Blue in particular, disregarded by the Romans, became the new emblem of the aristocracy and royalty in the court of Charles the Great, and is still synonymous with elegance and authority.

ALL THE COLOURS OF INFAMY

I don’t like him much!

In the small world of colours, yellow is the outsider, stateless, the one which others mistrust and who is devoted to infamy.

Yellow like fading photographs, like dying leaves, like betraying men…

Judas’ robe was yellow.

In olden times, forger’s homes were daubed with the colour yellow.

The star which marked the Jews and destined them to deportation was yellow…

There’s no doubt about it: yellow does not have either a good reputation or a good story.

But for what reason?

Let’s finally uncover the mysteries of the colour yellow.

NEVER PUTS ALL HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE

How boring!

Nowadays it’s all about green: green belts, green gasoline, green trains, green Parties… Even trash bins are painted with this colour which should evoke nature and cleanliness.

That’s enough!

The symbol is too good to be true, and thus we’re better off being wary, because contrary to appearances, green is not an honest colour.

He’s a fox who, since time immemorial, has never put all his cards on the table; a scoundrel responsible for many tricks, a hypocrite who loves muddy waters; a dangerous colour whose true nature is instability!

And this, after all, pretty much sums up these restless times.