The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
In order more correctly to understand the theory and practice of dyeing, it is essential that the pupil should become acquainted with the nature of the substances upon which and with which he must necessarily operate. We shall not enter into the theories of light and of colours, as propounded by Sir Isaac Newton, as well as many illustrious chemists, who have already done so much for the art of dyeing, but shall simply refer to such writers as Ure, Bancroft, Berthollet, Brande, &c. from whom may be learnt what is of most importance to be known concerning this curious subject.
We may just add, however, in regard to light, that Sir Isaac Newton proved it consists of rays differing from each other in their relative refrangibilities. By causing light to pass through a hole in a window-shutter into a darkened room, and receiving that light on a glass prism, the rays, in passing through the prism, not only became refracted, that is, thrown out, of the rectilinear direction, but also separated into seven distinct colours, namely, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The red being the least refracted and violet the most. If these prismatic, or primary colours, as they are usually called, be divided into 360 equal parts, the red rays will occupy 45 of these parts, the orange 27, the yellow 48, the green 60, the blue 60, the indigo 40, and the violet 80, and, what is very remarkable, these colours, when mixed in the proportions here set down, produce white. This may be readily proved by mixing seven powders of the colours and quantity mentioned, or by painting a wheel with the same proportions of the different colours and making it revolve rapidly. But it should be noted, that, in either case, the white will not be so pure and delicate, as that produced by the mixture of the rays of light. Upon these phenomena is founded the Newtonian theory of colours. Thus green bodies reflect the green rays and absorb the others. All the rays are reflected by white bodies, and absorbed by those which are black.
It is, notwithstanding, highly necessary that the learner should know that portion of modern chemistry which will lead him to the best secrets of his art, and hence assure him of that which was only before conjecture. And it cannot be sufficiently impressed upon him, that if our theory be not true, we work from wrong data; we may, it is true, approach the truth; be right in some things and wrong in others, and our uncertainty and mistakes will be accordingly; yet the most complete dyer must be he, who with extensive practice combines a knowledge of the true principles of his art, to which modern chemistry is, doubtless, the key.
It is scarcely necessary to insist further on the importance of a knowledge of the constituent parts of vegetable and animal bodies, as well as those inorganic substances with which chemistry has so largely to deal; but it will be seen, in the course of our subsequent observations, what difficulty there is in dyeing cotton of a red colour, similar to that produced by cochineal on wool; how, in dyeing cotton yarn an Adrianople red, the intestinal liquor of the sheep, and the dung and the blood of the same animal are used, and have been found so important by the dyers of Asia; hence the colour is called the Adrianople or Turkey red.
It is found by experience, and particularly in hot climates, that substances containing ammonia (volatile alkali) quite developed, have the property of raising and rendering more intense the red colours. It has been found, too, that the bones of animals retain the colour of madder very strongly, when they have been given that colouring material; and the vivacity of the colour has been attributed in such cases, it is presumed with truth, to the ammonia which the bones contain.
There are, therefore, in regard to vegetables in particular, some things, the nature and properties of which it is absolutely necessary that the dyer should understand: for want of a knowledge of one of them, it is a fact that losses are very often sustained to a serious amount. It may seem surprising, but the author has not seen in any writer on dyeing or chemistry, a proper method of working the pastil or woad vat; nor how to renew and work it down, again and again, with an assurance that it will be neither decomposed nor spoiled; and which, for want of a proper knowledge, it has often been. We shall therefore endeavour to give some directions by which those fatal and expensive disasters may be avoided.
Although, at first sight, it seems easy to distinguish the three kingdoms of nature from each other, yet there is such an imperceptible transition from one to the other, that it will be difficult to give such a definition as shall embrace all the individuals of each, and, at the same time, exclude those of the other kingdoms. On examination, indeed, we do find that there is in fact no natural distinction of this kind; and that there is scarcely a function common to vegetables and minerals which some of the animal tribe do not enjoy, and vice versa. Yet it must, however, be noted, that most animals have the power of voluntary loco-motion, and are thus rendered peculiarly different from all other bodies which we find upon or in the earth.
The substances constituting vegetable differ from those constituting mineral bodies, in their being of a more complex kind; and though vegetables are extremely susceptible of decomposition in various ways, not one can be, by any art, synthetically produced. Yet, although what are called by chemists the proximate constituents of vegetables are numerous, such are water, starch, sugar, gum, gluten, wax, oil, camphor, resins, colouring matter, extractive matter, several acids, &c. &c. all of which are capable of being decomposed, the ultimate constituents of vegetables are very few; the chief are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; some afford nitrogen; in some are traces of sulphur, potassa, lime, soda, magnesia, silica, &c.; in nearly all vegetables are traces of iron; in many manganese.
As the proximate principles of vegetables are chiefly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, it will be useful to inquire how vegetables obtain these materials. Water, which is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, is a ready source whence both its constituents may be obtained; and it is concluded that it is decomposed in the glands of vegetables, assisted by solar light, and becomes fixed in them in the state of oil, extract, mucilage, &c. The greatest part, however, of vegetables consists of carbon, or, to make ourselves more intelligible, pure charcoal; the carbon, notwithstanding its solidity in the shape of charcoal, most readily combines with oxygen, and hence it forms, as carbonic acid, a small portion of atmospheric air, from which source the carbon of plants is in part at least derived. Another source from which plants derive their carbon is the earth, and decaying vegetable matters; the dung of animals supplies also some of the constituents of vegetables. Indeed, in the application of dung and other matters, so as to promote the healthy and vigorous growth of vegetables, does the science of agriculture chiefly consist. It appears, however, that nourishment is received principally, if not entirely, by plants in a liquid or gaseous form. It should be noticed too, that few, if any, healthy vegetables will grow any where except in light, a powerful stimulant at all times, not only to plants but to animals; such are its effects, that many dyes in cloth are materially altered, nay, sometimes destroyed by it.
Animal substances thus diflfer from vegetables: they afford a considerable quantity of ammonia, (which is, it is now known, a compound body consisting of hydrogen and nitrogen), and very fetid products, either by the action of fire, or by the putrid fermentation. They also putrify more readily and speedily than vegetables, and give out a very disagreeable smell. They also contain a con- siderable quantity of nitrogen, the presence of which constitutes the most striking peculiarity of animal compared with vegetable bodies; but as some vegetables contain nitrogen, so there are certain animal principles into the composition of which nitrogen does not enter. The chief ultimate principles then of animal matter are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; but phosphorus and sulphur are also often contained in it. Lime also exists in animal bones and shells in considerable quantity, usually, however, in combination with the phosphoric and the carbonic acid. The chief proximate principles of animal matter are blood, albumen, gelatine, colouring matter, milk, bile, lymph, urine, skin, muscle, horn, hair, fat, cerebral substance, shell, and bone, &c.
The differences between vegetable and animal bodies appear to depend upon animal matter containing nitrogen in much greater abundance than it is found in vegetables; and hence the decomposition of animal matter by destructive distillation is characterized by the presence of ammonia, which is formed by the union of the hydrogen with the nitrogen; and it is sometimes so abundantly generated as to be the leading product: thus when horns, hoofs, or bones are distilled by themselves, a quantity of solid carbonate of ammonia and of the same substance combined with a foetid oil, and dissolved in water, are obtained. Hence the preparations called salt and spirit of hartshorn and animal oil.
The principal animal fluids are blood, milk, and bile. The blood, soon after it is taken from the living animal, separates into two parts, one called the crassamentum, which is red, and the other serum, which is a fluid, and of a pale straw-colour; the crassamentum is a more firm and consistent mass than the serum, by which it is usually, when cool, surrounded. Milk consists of serum or whey, butter, which while floating on the milk is called cream, and curd or cheese, which has the leading properties of coagulated albumen. The bile, as has been before stated, is a saponaceous fluid consisting chiefly of albumen, soda, a bitter resin, water, and some other saline matter. Fat, in the dead animal, is merely animal oil in a concrete or hardened state.
The principal animal solids besides bone, are albumen, gelatine, andjibrin. These substances, in certain states of concretion and combination, form all the solids of animals, and are separable from each other by easy analysis.
By whatever means we deprive animal substances of their nitrogen, we reduce them to a state similar to that of vegetables. The muscular fibre, or flesh as it is usually called, when excluded from the air, but particularly if in contact with water, parts with its nitrogen, and is converted into a substance resembling spermaceti, which in its analysis agrees with vegetable expressed oil.
When vegetables and animals are deprived of life, their various parts, and especially their fluids, sooner or later, spontaneously assume processes which terminate in their total decomposition. The earlier stages which lead to their decomposition are iexvaeA fermentation. Of this there are three kinds; the first, or vinous fermentation, takes place in vegetable juices which contain a considerable quantity of sugar, such are the juices of the grape forming wine, of the apple forming cyder, &c. In this fermentation a considerable quantity of carbonic acid gas is disengaged; this gas is very destructive to animal life, no one can live for a minute in it. If, after the vinous fermentation is completed, the liquor be exposed for some time to atmospheric air, another fermentation takes place, oxygen is absorbed, and the liquor becomes vinegar, hence called the acetous fermentation. The putrid fermentation generally takes place in animal bodies very soon after death, so that neither of the other processes, certainly not the vinous, the acetous rarely, becomes a condition of animal matter.
The chief product of the vinous fermentation is an intoxicating, colourless, volatile, and highly inflammable liquor called alcohol; in common language rectified spirits of wine. It may be obtained by distillation from wine, cyder, perry, brandy, &c. &c.; and from whatever liquor it be obtained, when freed from extraneous matter, it is in every case the same. Alcohol consists of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Its usual specific gravity is 825, water being 1000.
After vegetables have passed through these fermenting processes, the decomposition continuing, unless checked by extraneous means, the remainder of their constituents become separated, many of them being volatilized in the form of gas, and nothing remains but a black or brown residuum called mould, consisting of carbon, some salts, a little oil, and extractive matter.
In the decomposition of animal substances, we perceive the union of hydrogen and nitrogen forming ammonia; the combination of carbon with oxygen produces carbonic acid; and nitric acid arises from the union of oxygen and nitrogen. A quantity of hydrogen is also extricated in the form of gas, carrying off with it sulphur and phosphorus, which produce together the disagreeable smell arising from animal putrefaction. Nothing now remains but a portion of carbon mixed with phosphate of soda and phosphate of lime.
Hence we see that, by the processes of fermentation, complex bodies are converted into more simple substances, and that nature restores, in the new combinations, the principles which she had borrowed from the atmosphere for the formation of both animals and vegetables; and that she accomplishes a perpetual circle of ever-changing being, at once demonstrating the fecundity of her resources, and the grandeur and simplicity of her operations.
30.1.15
The Dyer's Guide. Chapter I. Introductory. On the drugs used in dyeing.
The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
It may be useful, before we proceed any farther in noticing the theories of dyeing, to give a brief description of the
DRUGS APPLICABLE TO DYEING.
Alum, or Potash-sulphate of alumina, is a concrete salt, composed of alumina or clay, potash, and sulphuric acid. It is found native in some places; but the greatest part of the alum of commerce is prepared by a peculiar management of schistose pyritic clays, usually denominated alum ores. Alum is made at Civita Vecchia, in Italy, and also at many other places on the continent; at Hurlett near Glasgow, at Whitby in Yorkshire, &c. Its form and appearance are both too well known to need being described. Its chemical composition is as follows: sulphate of alumina, 36.70; sulphate of potash, 18.88; and water, 44.42— together 100. The alum called in commerce Roch alum, said to be obtained from Roccha, in Syria, is in smaller crystals than common alum, and has a reddish hue, but does not appear to be essentially different from the common alum. Common alum requires sixteen parts of water, at a temperature of 60°. to dissolve one of it; but there is another kind not generally made or known, containing soda instead of potash, and hence with propriety named soda-sulphate of alumina, which is soluble in less than its own weight of water, and which, on this account, may become valuable in some processes of dyeing. — Ure.
Acetate of Alumina is prepared in large quantities for the calico printers, by decomposing alum with acetate of lead, or more economically with aqueous acetate of lime, having a specific gravity of about 1.050, a gallon of which, equivalent to nearly half a pound avoirdupoise of dry acetic acid, is employed for every 2½ lbs. of alum. A sulphate of lime is formed by complex affinity which precipitates, and an acetate of alumina floats. — Ure.
Archil, Archilla, Rocella, Orseille, or Litmus, is said to be a whitish lichen growing upon rocks in the Canary and Cape Verd islands, which yields a rich purple tincture, fugitive, but extremely beautiful. It is brought to this country as it is gathered; it is prepared here for the dyer, by grinding it between stones, so as thoroughly to bruise but not to reduce it into powder; it is moistened occasionally with a strong spirit of urine, or urine itself, mixed with quick lime; in a few days it acquires a purplish red, and at length a blue colour; in the first state it is called archil, in the latter lacmus or litmus. The dyers rarely employ this drug by itself, on account of its dearness and the perishableness of its beauty. Its chief use is to give a bloom to other colours, as pinks, &c.
Cudbear is also manufactured in this country from archil, and is in repute for dyeing various shades, from pink and crimson to a mazarine blue; it is said these colours are very permanent.
Argol, or Tartar, is a crystalline substance deposited in wine casks during the fermentation of the wine, from the juice of the grape, in which it exists in considerable abundance. It is an impure supertartate of
potash: that is, potash combined with a superabundant quantity of tartaric acid. Argol is found in commerce of two colours, white and red. Cream of tartar is the same substance freed from colouring and other extraneous matter.
Blood. See Adrianople red.
Bran acts in some peculiar way on coloming matter, but scarcely on the mordants. It seems to loosen and remove the colouring matter; as also to alter its hue in some cases, an effect obvious in the bran pinks. — Ure.
Chlorine. See Oxy muriatic acid.
Cochineal is the female insectof the coccus cacti found on the cactus coccineUifer and cactus opuntia, Prickly pear or Indian fig, natives of South America, the West Indies, and other tropical regions. The female of the insect is the true cochineal; in her full sized, pregnant, and torpid state, she bears so small a proportion to her former or creeping state, that her antennae, legs and proboscis are scarcely discernible; her whole appearance is that of a whitish berry, and so it was formerly regarded. This insect is found in a wild state in Mexico, Georgia, South Carolina, and some of the West India Islands, feeding on several species of the cactus; but in some of the Spanish settlements, as well as in Mexico, the insect is domesticated, and fed on the cactus coccinellifer, which is cultivated for the purpose, on which it attains a much larger size than in its wild state. Cochineal is also obtained from the East Indies; but East Indian cochineal has not yet attained the quality of that produced in the West Indies and America. Its use, as a colour for dyeing many shades of red, &c. is great and important.
Copper is also used in dyeing, in the state of a sulphate or blue copperas, a nitrate, and also as an acetate. See Verdigris.
The Gall or Bile of animals consists of a saponaceous bitter, yellowish fluid, secreted by the liver, and found in the sac usually called the gall-bladder. It is sometimes preferred to soap for cleansing cloths by the dyer and the scourer.
Galls are excrescences produced on the quercus in-fectoria, a species of oak growing throughout Asia Minor. The gall grows on the shoots of the young boughs, and is produced by an insect, the cynips quercusfolii; this insect punctures the tender shoot with its sting and deposits its egg in the puncture; the egg is soon hatched, and the irritation of the maggot feeding on the plant produces the wen or gall-nut. When the nuts are gathered before the worm within changes to a fly, and not yet having eaten its way out, they are of a dusky green colour, and are called in commerce blue galls, and are by far the best. Those collected after the fly has eaten its way out have a hole in each, are of a whitish yellow colour, considerably lighter than the blue galls, and of an inferior quality: they are brought to this country chiefly from Aleppo. They are used in large quantities in the arts, principally for dyeing, and making ink. They contain a large quantity of Tannin and Gallic acid.
Indigo is a well known deep blue substance, obtained from the Indigqfera tinctoria or Indigo bearing plant, a native of the East Indies, which is propagated by seed and will thrive in most tropical climates; hence we have good indigo from South America, the East Indies, Carolina, &c. The chief criterion of the goodness of indigo is, if, when cut with a knife, it exhibits a reddish copper-like appearance; where this shade is not, or only very slight, the indigo is of inferior value. It is prepared by macerating the leaves in water, whence is obtained the blue feculence or indigo. Indigo is insoluble in water, but soluble in sulphuric acid, hence a solution of it in this acid, forming a sulphate of indigo, is well known in the art of dyeing.
The best indigo is that called Flora, which floats in water, all the other kinds sink in that fluid.
The constituent parts of indigo are Carbon, 73.22, Nitrogen 11.26. Oxygen 12.60, and Hydrogen, 2.92,=100.
When indigo is digested in concentrated sulphuric acid, it is converted into a peculiar blue substance, commonly called sulphate of indigo; this colouring matter has been, however, lately named Cerulin, by Mr. W. Crum, who has made many experiments on it; (see notes to Bertholet, vol. ii. p. 357. et seq.) he observes that cerulin dissolves more abundantly in sulphuric acid than water; but this does not prove the formation of a compound entitled to be called sulphate of indigo; that, such a solution differs in no respect from that of resins in acids or in alcohol. Another substance has been also obtained from indigo by Mr. Crum, of a purple colour, which he calls Phenicin; it dissolves both in water and alcohol.
Iron rarely in its metallic state enters into the manipulations of dyeing, but its sulphate, muriate acetate
&c. as well as its oxides contribute largely to the dyer's art.
Sulphate of Iron, or green coppevas, as it is commonly called, is too well known to need description; it is in green crystals of different sizes, and is used for various purposes in dyeing, &c.
Peracetate of Iron, or Acetate of Iron, forms a reddish-brown uncrystallizable solution, much used by the calico printers, and is prepared by keeping iron turnings or pieces of old iron for six months immersed in redistilled pyrolignous acid. It may be also prepared in a more expeditious way by boiling filings of iron with the acid.
Lac dye and lac lake are two articles now regularly imported from the East Indies, and employed for dyeing scarlet. They both appear to be the colouring matter of seed-lac, obtained from it in India by a process not generally known. Both these articles are in lumps or cakes of a dark-reddish or blackish colour.
Muriatic acid, or sinrit of salt, as it was formerly called, is obtained from common salt or muriate of soda, by distillation with sulphuric acid. When this acid is pure it is perfectly colourless, but it generally has a yellow hue arising from a little iron. It gives out, at all temperatures, a large quantity of a fuming suffocating gas of a peculiar smell. Its usual specific gravity is about 1.160. For the basis of this acid see Oxymuriatic acid.
Nitric acid is composed of oxygen and nitrogen: it is usually obtained from nitre, (the chemical name of which is nitrate of potash,) by distilling three parts of it with two of sulphuric acid. When pure, nitric acid is a colourless, extremely sour, and corrosive liquor. Its specific gravity is 1 .42; it always contains more or less water, which modifies its specific gravity. It is usually coloured with nitrous acid gas. It forms a variety of compounds with numerous other bodies. Aqua fortis is this acid diluted more or less with water; when strong it is called double, when weak single aquafortis. For Nitrogen, see forwards.
Nitro-Muriatic Acid, or Aqua Regia, is a mixture of nitric and muriatic acids. It is usually made by dissolving sal ammoniac or common salt in nitric acid. When the former is employed the usual proportion is one of the salt to four of the acid; but equal parts will be necessary to dissolve platinum. Aqua regia is the only menstruum which will dissolve gold.
Orpiment, realgar, or sulphuret of arsenic has been lately applied to the purposes of dyeing a yellow colour. Sulphur may be combined with arsenic in different proportions. Realgar is red, and occurs native in Germany and Switzerland; it is also produced by art. Orpiment is commonly produced by art and is of a yellowish colour; native orpiment is also occasionally found; it is of a bright lemon colour.
Oxymuriatic acid, or as it is now more correctly termed chlorine, from its yellowish green colour, is an elastic gaseous fluid of a pungent disagreeable smell, and highly injurious to animal life, even when largely diluted with atmospheric air. Mixed with hydrogen, and exposed to light, they combine and produce a sour compound called muriatic acid gas; this gas is greedily absorbed by water, which takes up 480 times its bulk, and has its specific gravity increased from 1 to 1.210. Thus dissolved in water it forms the liquid muriatic acid mentioned in a preceding article.
Chlorine forms combination, besides, with several other bodies; many of its combinations are termed oxymuriates, or more properly, chlorides: some of these are extremely useful in bleaching, dyeing, &c. The muriatic acid appears to be the only acid of any consequence into which oxygen does not enter.
Oxide is the combination of oxygen with some base, without being in the state of acid; it is most commonly applied to the combination of oxygen with metals; most of the different rusts of metals are oxides. As oxygen combines with the metals and other bodies in different proportions, its combinations are distinguished by different prefixes, thus: protoxide denotes an oxide containing the least quantity of oxygen; deutoxide the next larger quantity; tritoxide the next; and peroxide the largest possible quantity of oxygen in the compound when it is not acid. For Oxygen see forwards.
Pot-ashes and Pearl-ashes (one of the fixed alkalies) are both impure carbonates of potash obtained from the ashes of innumerable vegetables, over which water is poured which dissolves the salts, and by evaporating the water leaving the salt, a dry powdery white mass is obtained. The chief difference between pot-ashes and pearl-ashes consists in the superior whiteness of the latter, and in the former being of a more dirty colour, and more caustic than the latter; hence it is not so highly saturated with carbonic acid. For many purposes in the arts such caustic potash is to be preferred.
Quercitron, or American-bark is obtained from the querctis nigra or black oak, a native of North America. It is used for dyeing yellow, and was brought into notice by Dr. Bancroft, who obtained the exclusive privilege of using it as a dye by an Act of Parliament, passed in the 25th year of the reign of George III.
Safflower, bastard-saffron or carthamus, is obtained from one or two plants, species of the carthamus genus, natives of the South of Europe and the Mediterranean coasts. This dyeing material consists of two colouring substances, a yellow and a red. The former is of little value, the latter which is soluble in alkalies forms, by precipitation with acids, a beautiful red pigment sometimes used for silk dyeing, but more commonly in the preparation of rouge.
Soda, called sometimes mineral alkali, is another of the fixed alkalies; it forms the basis of common salt, that being a muriate of soda; soda, under the name of barilla, is used in making soaps, and also in dyeing.
Sulphur, or Brimstone, is scarcely used for dyeing in its crude state, but when combined with oxygen forming sulphuric acid, as well as when that acid is combined with various bases, as iron, alumina, &c. it becomes of great importance in this art; see Sulphuric acid.
Sulphate of Iron, see Iron above.
Sulphuric Acid was for many years, and still is called by the vulgar, oil of vitriol, because it was formerly obtained from green vitriol or sulphate of iron, but the more simple and ingenious processes of modern chemistry have superseded the old methods; sulphuric acid is now obtained by burning sulphur with a certain portion of saltpetre in large leaden cisterns. The acid fumes sink into the water placed at the bottom of the cistern, the water being afterwards boiled away: the acid is afterwards purified by retorts, placed in a sand heat. The specific gravity of good sulphuric acid should be 1.85.
Sumach is the production of the rhus coriaria, a shrub which grows naturally in Syria, Palestine, Spain, and Portugal. It is cultivated in the two last countries with great care. Its shoots are cut down every year quite to the root, and after being dried are reduced to powder, and thus prepared for the purposes of dyeing, &c. Sumach bears a great resemblance, as an astringent, to galls. Sumach alone gives a brown and a fawn colour, but cotton stuffs impregnated with acetate of alumina take a durable yellow from it.
Tartar, see Argol.
Tin, dissolved in nitric or muriatic acid, forms solutions of great importance in many processes of dyeing, particularly scarlet. These solutions are called respectively nitrate and muriate of tin.
Turmeric is a root obtained from a plant growing both in the East and West Indies. The root is used chiefly for dyeing yellow; but it is a fugacious colour.
Verdigris is a crude acetate of copper, obtained by exposing copper plates to the husks, &c. of grapes, which containing considerable acetic acid, the acid combines with the surface of the copper plates, forming a blueish green rust, which is scraped off, and forms the verdigris of commerce. A still more complete acetate of copper is obtained in distilled verdigris, which is in elegant green crystals. The best verdigris is made in France; some is now also made in this country.
Weld, sometimes called improperly Woulds, dyer's- weed, or Reseda luteola, is a plant found wild, in this country, but cultivated for the purposes of the dyer; it is much used for yellows.
* For the cultivation of Woad in England, see Parish's paper in vol. xii. of the Bath Society's Report, or Tilloch's Mag. vol. xxxviii. Woad, or Pastel, is obtained from a plant growing in various parts of Europe and also in this country; it is the Isatis tinctoria, and is cultivated with care for the dyeing matter which it affords, and which is obtained from the leaves of the plant, collected and prepared in a particular manner. Woad gives a full-bodied and fast blue to wool, yet not very bright, so that it is usually mixed with indigo *.
Besides the preceding substances we may mention that annatto is used for dyeing several colours; kermes, madder, and Brazil-wood for reds; log-wood for purple and black; peach-wood for maroon, &c.; fustic, dyer's-broom, saw-wort, French-berries, &c. for yellow; walnut-root, and the outside green shell of the nuts for browns. We may also mention prussiate of potash, acetate of lead, commonly called sugar of lead, and oxide of manganese, as occasional articles used for various purposes by the dyer. Several other substances are also used in dyeing, which we cannot enumerate; some are mentioned in the subsequent pages. We may, however, name cam-wood, bar-wood, redsanders, and myrobolans. We ought also to observe that how desirable soever it may be to have all woods for dyeing, in powder, in order to obtain the greatest quantity of colouring matter from them by decoction or otherwise, yet, as in a powdered state they are much more likely to be adulterated than in chips, it is most advisable to purchase them in this last state; logwood in particular ought never to be purchased in powder.
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
It may be useful, before we proceed any farther in noticing the theories of dyeing, to give a brief description of the
DRUGS APPLICABLE TO DYEING.
Alum, or Potash-sulphate of alumina, is a concrete salt, composed of alumina or clay, potash, and sulphuric acid. It is found native in some places; but the greatest part of the alum of commerce is prepared by a peculiar management of schistose pyritic clays, usually denominated alum ores. Alum is made at Civita Vecchia, in Italy, and also at many other places on the continent; at Hurlett near Glasgow, at Whitby in Yorkshire, &c. Its form and appearance are both too well known to need being described. Its chemical composition is as follows: sulphate of alumina, 36.70; sulphate of potash, 18.88; and water, 44.42— together 100. The alum called in commerce Roch alum, said to be obtained from Roccha, in Syria, is in smaller crystals than common alum, and has a reddish hue, but does not appear to be essentially different from the common alum. Common alum requires sixteen parts of water, at a temperature of 60°. to dissolve one of it; but there is another kind not generally made or known, containing soda instead of potash, and hence with propriety named soda-sulphate of alumina, which is soluble in less than its own weight of water, and which, on this account, may become valuable in some processes of dyeing. — Ure.
Acetate of Alumina is prepared in large quantities for the calico printers, by decomposing alum with acetate of lead, or more economically with aqueous acetate of lime, having a specific gravity of about 1.050, a gallon of which, equivalent to nearly half a pound avoirdupoise of dry acetic acid, is employed for every 2½ lbs. of alum. A sulphate of lime is formed by complex affinity which precipitates, and an acetate of alumina floats. — Ure.
Archil, Archilla, Rocella, Orseille, or Litmus, is said to be a whitish lichen growing upon rocks in the Canary and Cape Verd islands, which yields a rich purple tincture, fugitive, but extremely beautiful. It is brought to this country as it is gathered; it is prepared here for the dyer, by grinding it between stones, so as thoroughly to bruise but not to reduce it into powder; it is moistened occasionally with a strong spirit of urine, or urine itself, mixed with quick lime; in a few days it acquires a purplish red, and at length a blue colour; in the first state it is called archil, in the latter lacmus or litmus. The dyers rarely employ this drug by itself, on account of its dearness and the perishableness of its beauty. Its chief use is to give a bloom to other colours, as pinks, &c.
Cudbear is also manufactured in this country from archil, and is in repute for dyeing various shades, from pink and crimson to a mazarine blue; it is said these colours are very permanent.
Argol, or Tartar, is a crystalline substance deposited in wine casks during the fermentation of the wine, from the juice of the grape, in which it exists in considerable abundance. It is an impure supertartate of
potash: that is, potash combined with a superabundant quantity of tartaric acid. Argol is found in commerce of two colours, white and red. Cream of tartar is the same substance freed from colouring and other extraneous matter.
Blood. See Adrianople red.
Bran acts in some peculiar way on coloming matter, but scarcely on the mordants. It seems to loosen and remove the colouring matter; as also to alter its hue in some cases, an effect obvious in the bran pinks. — Ure.
Chlorine. See Oxy muriatic acid.
Cochineal is the female insectof the coccus cacti found on the cactus coccineUifer and cactus opuntia, Prickly pear or Indian fig, natives of South America, the West Indies, and other tropical regions. The female of the insect is the true cochineal; in her full sized, pregnant, and torpid state, she bears so small a proportion to her former or creeping state, that her antennae, legs and proboscis are scarcely discernible; her whole appearance is that of a whitish berry, and so it was formerly regarded. This insect is found in a wild state in Mexico, Georgia, South Carolina, and some of the West India Islands, feeding on several species of the cactus; but in some of the Spanish settlements, as well as in Mexico, the insect is domesticated, and fed on the cactus coccinellifer, which is cultivated for the purpose, on which it attains a much larger size than in its wild state. Cochineal is also obtained from the East Indies; but East Indian cochineal has not yet attained the quality of that produced in the West Indies and America. Its use, as a colour for dyeing many shades of red, &c. is great and important.
Copper is also used in dyeing, in the state of a sulphate or blue copperas, a nitrate, and also as an acetate. See Verdigris.
The Gall or Bile of animals consists of a saponaceous bitter, yellowish fluid, secreted by the liver, and found in the sac usually called the gall-bladder. It is sometimes preferred to soap for cleansing cloths by the dyer and the scourer.
Galls are excrescences produced on the quercus in-fectoria, a species of oak growing throughout Asia Minor. The gall grows on the shoots of the young boughs, and is produced by an insect, the cynips quercusfolii; this insect punctures the tender shoot with its sting and deposits its egg in the puncture; the egg is soon hatched, and the irritation of the maggot feeding on the plant produces the wen or gall-nut. When the nuts are gathered before the worm within changes to a fly, and not yet having eaten its way out, they are of a dusky green colour, and are called in commerce blue galls, and are by far the best. Those collected after the fly has eaten its way out have a hole in each, are of a whitish yellow colour, considerably lighter than the blue galls, and of an inferior quality: they are brought to this country chiefly from Aleppo. They are used in large quantities in the arts, principally for dyeing, and making ink. They contain a large quantity of Tannin and Gallic acid.
Indigo is a well known deep blue substance, obtained from the Indigqfera tinctoria or Indigo bearing plant, a native of the East Indies, which is propagated by seed and will thrive in most tropical climates; hence we have good indigo from South America, the East Indies, Carolina, &c. The chief criterion of the goodness of indigo is, if, when cut with a knife, it exhibits a reddish copper-like appearance; where this shade is not, or only very slight, the indigo is of inferior value. It is prepared by macerating the leaves in water, whence is obtained the blue feculence or indigo. Indigo is insoluble in water, but soluble in sulphuric acid, hence a solution of it in this acid, forming a sulphate of indigo, is well known in the art of dyeing.
The best indigo is that called Flora, which floats in water, all the other kinds sink in that fluid.
The constituent parts of indigo are Carbon, 73.22, Nitrogen 11.26. Oxygen 12.60, and Hydrogen, 2.92,=100.
When indigo is digested in concentrated sulphuric acid, it is converted into a peculiar blue substance, commonly called sulphate of indigo; this colouring matter has been, however, lately named Cerulin, by Mr. W. Crum, who has made many experiments on it; (see notes to Bertholet, vol. ii. p. 357. et seq.) he observes that cerulin dissolves more abundantly in sulphuric acid than water; but this does not prove the formation of a compound entitled to be called sulphate of indigo; that, such a solution differs in no respect from that of resins in acids or in alcohol. Another substance has been also obtained from indigo by Mr. Crum, of a purple colour, which he calls Phenicin; it dissolves both in water and alcohol.
Iron rarely in its metallic state enters into the manipulations of dyeing, but its sulphate, muriate acetate
&c. as well as its oxides contribute largely to the dyer's art.
Sulphate of Iron, or green coppevas, as it is commonly called, is too well known to need description; it is in green crystals of different sizes, and is used for various purposes in dyeing, &c.
Peracetate of Iron, or Acetate of Iron, forms a reddish-brown uncrystallizable solution, much used by the calico printers, and is prepared by keeping iron turnings or pieces of old iron for six months immersed in redistilled pyrolignous acid. It may be also prepared in a more expeditious way by boiling filings of iron with the acid.
Lac dye and lac lake are two articles now regularly imported from the East Indies, and employed for dyeing scarlet. They both appear to be the colouring matter of seed-lac, obtained from it in India by a process not generally known. Both these articles are in lumps or cakes of a dark-reddish or blackish colour.
Muriatic acid, or sinrit of salt, as it was formerly called, is obtained from common salt or muriate of soda, by distillation with sulphuric acid. When this acid is pure it is perfectly colourless, but it generally has a yellow hue arising from a little iron. It gives out, at all temperatures, a large quantity of a fuming suffocating gas of a peculiar smell. Its usual specific gravity is about 1.160. For the basis of this acid see Oxymuriatic acid.
Nitric acid is composed of oxygen and nitrogen: it is usually obtained from nitre, (the chemical name of which is nitrate of potash,) by distilling three parts of it with two of sulphuric acid. When pure, nitric acid is a colourless, extremely sour, and corrosive liquor. Its specific gravity is 1 .42; it always contains more or less water, which modifies its specific gravity. It is usually coloured with nitrous acid gas. It forms a variety of compounds with numerous other bodies. Aqua fortis is this acid diluted more or less with water; when strong it is called double, when weak single aquafortis. For Nitrogen, see forwards.
Nitro-Muriatic Acid, or Aqua Regia, is a mixture of nitric and muriatic acids. It is usually made by dissolving sal ammoniac or common salt in nitric acid. When the former is employed the usual proportion is one of the salt to four of the acid; but equal parts will be necessary to dissolve platinum. Aqua regia is the only menstruum which will dissolve gold.
Orpiment, realgar, or sulphuret of arsenic has been lately applied to the purposes of dyeing a yellow colour. Sulphur may be combined with arsenic in different proportions. Realgar is red, and occurs native in Germany and Switzerland; it is also produced by art. Orpiment is commonly produced by art and is of a yellowish colour; native orpiment is also occasionally found; it is of a bright lemon colour.
Oxymuriatic acid, or as it is now more correctly termed chlorine, from its yellowish green colour, is an elastic gaseous fluid of a pungent disagreeable smell, and highly injurious to animal life, even when largely diluted with atmospheric air. Mixed with hydrogen, and exposed to light, they combine and produce a sour compound called muriatic acid gas; this gas is greedily absorbed by water, which takes up 480 times its bulk, and has its specific gravity increased from 1 to 1.210. Thus dissolved in water it forms the liquid muriatic acid mentioned in a preceding article.
Chlorine forms combination, besides, with several other bodies; many of its combinations are termed oxymuriates, or more properly, chlorides: some of these are extremely useful in bleaching, dyeing, &c. The muriatic acid appears to be the only acid of any consequence into which oxygen does not enter.
Oxide is the combination of oxygen with some base, without being in the state of acid; it is most commonly applied to the combination of oxygen with metals; most of the different rusts of metals are oxides. As oxygen combines with the metals and other bodies in different proportions, its combinations are distinguished by different prefixes, thus: protoxide denotes an oxide containing the least quantity of oxygen; deutoxide the next larger quantity; tritoxide the next; and peroxide the largest possible quantity of oxygen in the compound when it is not acid. For Oxygen see forwards.
Pot-ashes and Pearl-ashes (one of the fixed alkalies) are both impure carbonates of potash obtained from the ashes of innumerable vegetables, over which water is poured which dissolves the salts, and by evaporating the water leaving the salt, a dry powdery white mass is obtained. The chief difference between pot-ashes and pearl-ashes consists in the superior whiteness of the latter, and in the former being of a more dirty colour, and more caustic than the latter; hence it is not so highly saturated with carbonic acid. For many purposes in the arts such caustic potash is to be preferred.
Quercitron, or American-bark is obtained from the querctis nigra or black oak, a native of North America. It is used for dyeing yellow, and was brought into notice by Dr. Bancroft, who obtained the exclusive privilege of using it as a dye by an Act of Parliament, passed in the 25th year of the reign of George III.
Safflower, bastard-saffron or carthamus, is obtained from one or two plants, species of the carthamus genus, natives of the South of Europe and the Mediterranean coasts. This dyeing material consists of two colouring substances, a yellow and a red. The former is of little value, the latter which is soluble in alkalies forms, by precipitation with acids, a beautiful red pigment sometimes used for silk dyeing, but more commonly in the preparation of rouge.
Soda, called sometimes mineral alkali, is another of the fixed alkalies; it forms the basis of common salt, that being a muriate of soda; soda, under the name of barilla, is used in making soaps, and also in dyeing.
Sulphur, or Brimstone, is scarcely used for dyeing in its crude state, but when combined with oxygen forming sulphuric acid, as well as when that acid is combined with various bases, as iron, alumina, &c. it becomes of great importance in this art; see Sulphuric acid.
Sulphate of Iron, see Iron above.
Sulphuric Acid was for many years, and still is called by the vulgar, oil of vitriol, because it was formerly obtained from green vitriol or sulphate of iron, but the more simple and ingenious processes of modern chemistry have superseded the old methods; sulphuric acid is now obtained by burning sulphur with a certain portion of saltpetre in large leaden cisterns. The acid fumes sink into the water placed at the bottom of the cistern, the water being afterwards boiled away: the acid is afterwards purified by retorts, placed in a sand heat. The specific gravity of good sulphuric acid should be 1.85.
Sumach is the production of the rhus coriaria, a shrub which grows naturally in Syria, Palestine, Spain, and Portugal. It is cultivated in the two last countries with great care. Its shoots are cut down every year quite to the root, and after being dried are reduced to powder, and thus prepared for the purposes of dyeing, &c. Sumach bears a great resemblance, as an astringent, to galls. Sumach alone gives a brown and a fawn colour, but cotton stuffs impregnated with acetate of alumina take a durable yellow from it.
Tartar, see Argol.
Tin, dissolved in nitric or muriatic acid, forms solutions of great importance in many processes of dyeing, particularly scarlet. These solutions are called respectively nitrate and muriate of tin.
Turmeric is a root obtained from a plant growing both in the East and West Indies. The root is used chiefly for dyeing yellow; but it is a fugacious colour.
Verdigris is a crude acetate of copper, obtained by exposing copper plates to the husks, &c. of grapes, which containing considerable acetic acid, the acid combines with the surface of the copper plates, forming a blueish green rust, which is scraped off, and forms the verdigris of commerce. A still more complete acetate of copper is obtained in distilled verdigris, which is in elegant green crystals. The best verdigris is made in France; some is now also made in this country.
Weld, sometimes called improperly Woulds, dyer's- weed, or Reseda luteola, is a plant found wild, in this country, but cultivated for the purposes of the dyer; it is much used for yellows.
* For the cultivation of Woad in England, see Parish's paper in vol. xii. of the Bath Society's Report, or Tilloch's Mag. vol. xxxviii. Woad, or Pastel, is obtained from a plant growing in various parts of Europe and also in this country; it is the Isatis tinctoria, and is cultivated with care for the dyeing matter which it affords, and which is obtained from the leaves of the plant, collected and prepared in a particular manner. Woad gives a full-bodied and fast blue to wool, yet not very bright, so that it is usually mixed with indigo *.
Besides the preceding substances we may mention that annatto is used for dyeing several colours; kermes, madder, and Brazil-wood for reds; log-wood for purple and black; peach-wood for maroon, &c.; fustic, dyer's-broom, saw-wort, French-berries, &c. for yellow; walnut-root, and the outside green shell of the nuts for browns. We may also mention prussiate of potash, acetate of lead, commonly called sugar of lead, and oxide of manganese, as occasional articles used for various purposes by the dyer. Several other substances are also used in dyeing, which we cannot enumerate; some are mentioned in the subsequent pages. We may, however, name cam-wood, bar-wood, redsanders, and myrobolans. We ought also to observe that how desirable soever it may be to have all woods for dyeing, in powder, in order to obtain the greatest quantity of colouring matter from them by decoction or otherwise, yet, as in a powdered state they are much more likely to be adulterated than in chips, it is most advisable to purchase them in this last state; logwood in particular ought never to be purchased in powder.
29.1.15
The Dyer's Guide. Chapter I. Introductory. On the different branches of dyeing.
The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
* Cochineal was at first supposed to be a grain, which name it still retains by way of eminence among dyers. Ure. The trade of a Dyer is, in this country, subdivided into several distinct branches. Thus we have woollen dyers, who are occupied solely in the colours obtained from cochineal, such as scarlet, crimson, orange, buff, &c.; likewise purple, or royal purple, obtained from cochineal and indigo. They are called, also, grain dyers, from the circumstance of the colouring material, cochineal, being in small grains *. Yet it ought to be observed, that the term dyed in grain is applied by the public generally in a very different sense, namely, to those cloths the raw material of which is dyed previously to being spun into thread, or at least before woven into cloth; and hence such dyes are usually more permanent than those which are dyed after the materials are woven into cloth. This class of dyers generally dye cloth in the piece, or a number of pieces of cloth tacked together, and worked over a winch in a suitable copper.
There are dyers who likewise dye worsted and woollen yarn of those grain colours, but they are generally a distinct branch. The yarn is dyed in hanks, upon sticks; and, when in the copper, the hanks are changed end for end, so that they may be kept even; such changing being performed five or six times to each turning in.
There are also silk dyers who are grain dyers. These dye in the skein, chiefly for new goods. Some silk, and some mixed silk and worsted goods, are dyed in the piece.
In dyeing cotton, the Adrianople or Turkey Red is, in many cases, a branch of itself, and comes the nearest to what may be called grain or scarlet dyeing upon cotton, because cochineal cannot be applied to cotton to any advantage; yet cotton is occasionally dyed with this material.
In woollen another branch consists of the woad dyers. These often superintend the black dye on woollen cloth, as well as the blue from woad and indigo. There is the same distinction among worsted yarn dyers, they having likewise to do slates, greys, &c. Nearly the same may be said of the silk skein dyers.
In many places, particularly in the country, browns, drabs, stone-colours, &c. constitute a branch in woollen. The same colours form also a branch in calico and muslin; but black, in calico and muslin, is a distinct branch.
The dyers (whether in London or provincial towns) who keep shops, and take in garments, furniture, &c. to be dyed, are termed by the trade Rag-dyers.
There are a few dyers in the metropolis who dye black on woollen, silk, cotton, &c. for the dye-shops, many of these putting all their black out to be dyed.
There are one or two dyers famous for dyeing silk stockings black; these constitute a particular branch. Dyeing bombasins black is also another branch.
The following constitute also particular branches: black hats, — hats of fancy colours,— fur, — chip and straw, — feathers, — leather, Morocco and Spanish, and kid leather for shoes and gloves. Many other branches of the dye-trade might be enumerated, but more detail does not appear necessary.
Concerning all these different branches, one general observation will suffice; namely, that those who are concerned in them have, for the most part, obtained their knowledge of the art of dyeing, not from theories adapted to explain the different processes, but from practice in that branch in which they are occupied. They usually, therefore, perform those processes which they have been shewn and told, without any inquiry into the causes which produce the results. There are, it is admitted, exceptions to this, men of general information and knowledge being occasionally found in the various branches of dyeing, but they are so few, that it may be questioned, when compai'ed with the great body employed in the art, whether they amount to one in a thousand. This is not, however, to be attributed to any indifference in such persons to acquire a correct knowledge of the art, but is chiefly owing to a deficiency of the ready means of acquiring such information; which information it is the design of the present Treatise to supply; there not being, as far as the present writer knows, any such work, at a moderate price, to be obtained in the English language.
It is true many of the Cyclopædias furnish us with much useful information on the subject of dyeing: one of these, Jennings's Family Cyclopædia, may be particularly mentioned as containing such; but it is scattered about in these dictionaries in various ways, at once troublesome and unpleasant to obtain. Dr. Bancroft's work on the philosophy of Permanent Colours, in two octavo volumes, will also supply much valuable information; so also will the edition, some time since published, of Berthollet's Elements of the art of Dyeing, with the addition of valuable Notes by Dr. Ure. Dr. Ure's Chemical Dictionary is also very useful to the dyer, as well as many detached papers in several of our English publications. A Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks, &c. lately published by H. M'Kernan, is also valuable, and should be consulted by the curious in this art. But all these works are expensive, and such as few dyers will be disposed to obtain; hence the necessity of the present Manual, the author of which has not servilely followed the directions or recommendations of any previous writer; but from his own practice, a practice of more than thirty years, has laid down such rules as he knows to be at once practical and efficient. At the same time he thinks it right to state, that he has not only consulted all the works mentioned above, but also Hellot, Macquer, &c. adopting all that appeared essential in these, and giving such additions as accord with the present improved state of chemistry and dyeing; and, as far as was possible, in the limits prescribed for this work, so that it may be within the reach of every dyer in the kingdom, as well as every journeyman and apprentice in all the various branches of this truly extensive and mysterious art, as carried on in London, Norwich, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, and various other parts of the British dominions.
The author has, in treating of the various matters to be dyed, adopted nearly the same arrangement as that which appears in the Title, taking Cotton first, in consequence of its having the least affinity for dyeing bodies. He has taken Silk next, which has a greater affinity for many dyes, and, when dyed, yields colours more permanent than cotton.
Wool he has not placed entirely last, although many of the colours which it receives from the dyer are complex. The black dyeing of cotton and silk is placed after the processes of black for wool, as likewise the Turkey red, &c. these being naturally difficult to perform.
White and black have been considered colours by dyers, and with propriety, black forming a part of slate, grey, &c. White is seldom pure; in proportion to its clearness and purity will the colours be with which it is dyed.
In regard to black dye, and particularly cotton black dye, the author does not know any simple and concise theory, consistent with chemical principles. He flatters himself, however, that from his extensive experience, his observations are founded on interesting facts. Cotton, for instance, will take fast blues from the cold indigo vat; this vat, with the combination of iron, and in a heat no greater than the hand can bear, will easily produce all shades of grey, slate, &c. Many of these colours may be done by logwood instead of the blue vat, and in the same heat of the dye bath; so cotton likewise, whether in pieces or skeins, may be dyed brown, fawn, drab, &c. in consequence of the great affinity which cotton has for acetate and sulphate of iron.
With respect to black, it should be also observed, that few substances are known which yield by themselves a good black. The juice of the cashew nut communicates, however, a black colour, which resists not only washing, but even boiling with soap and alkaline leys. It is used for marking linen. The Toxicodendron yields a juice which produces nearly the same effect. Some other vegetables also produce black dyes, but all of them in such small quantities as not to be available for the purposes of art; nor do they, besides, produce blacks equal to those formed in the dye-house.
Blue, red, and yellow are admitted to be three distinct colours. In many of the browns, red and yellow are combined naturally in the drugs from which they are produced, and so they are in logwood. Blue, red, and yellow, are developed by iron, whether in the state of an acetate or sulphate.
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
* Cochineal was at first supposed to be a grain, which name it still retains by way of eminence among dyers. Ure. The trade of a Dyer is, in this country, subdivided into several distinct branches. Thus we have woollen dyers, who are occupied solely in the colours obtained from cochineal, such as scarlet, crimson, orange, buff, &c.; likewise purple, or royal purple, obtained from cochineal and indigo. They are called, also, grain dyers, from the circumstance of the colouring material, cochineal, being in small grains *. Yet it ought to be observed, that the term dyed in grain is applied by the public generally in a very different sense, namely, to those cloths the raw material of which is dyed previously to being spun into thread, or at least before woven into cloth; and hence such dyes are usually more permanent than those which are dyed after the materials are woven into cloth. This class of dyers generally dye cloth in the piece, or a number of pieces of cloth tacked together, and worked over a winch in a suitable copper.
There are dyers who likewise dye worsted and woollen yarn of those grain colours, but they are generally a distinct branch. The yarn is dyed in hanks, upon sticks; and, when in the copper, the hanks are changed end for end, so that they may be kept even; such changing being performed five or six times to each turning in.
There are also silk dyers who are grain dyers. These dye in the skein, chiefly for new goods. Some silk, and some mixed silk and worsted goods, are dyed in the piece.
In dyeing cotton, the Adrianople or Turkey Red is, in many cases, a branch of itself, and comes the nearest to what may be called grain or scarlet dyeing upon cotton, because cochineal cannot be applied to cotton to any advantage; yet cotton is occasionally dyed with this material.
In woollen another branch consists of the woad dyers. These often superintend the black dye on woollen cloth, as well as the blue from woad and indigo. There is the same distinction among worsted yarn dyers, they having likewise to do slates, greys, &c. Nearly the same may be said of the silk skein dyers.
In many places, particularly in the country, browns, drabs, stone-colours, &c. constitute a branch in woollen. The same colours form also a branch in calico and muslin; but black, in calico and muslin, is a distinct branch.
The dyers (whether in London or provincial towns) who keep shops, and take in garments, furniture, &c. to be dyed, are termed by the trade Rag-dyers.
There are a few dyers in the metropolis who dye black on woollen, silk, cotton, &c. for the dye-shops, many of these putting all their black out to be dyed.
There are one or two dyers famous for dyeing silk stockings black; these constitute a particular branch. Dyeing bombasins black is also another branch.
The following constitute also particular branches: black hats, — hats of fancy colours,— fur, — chip and straw, — feathers, — leather, Morocco and Spanish, and kid leather for shoes and gloves. Many other branches of the dye-trade might be enumerated, but more detail does not appear necessary.
Concerning all these different branches, one general observation will suffice; namely, that those who are concerned in them have, for the most part, obtained their knowledge of the art of dyeing, not from theories adapted to explain the different processes, but from practice in that branch in which they are occupied. They usually, therefore, perform those processes which they have been shewn and told, without any inquiry into the causes which produce the results. There are, it is admitted, exceptions to this, men of general information and knowledge being occasionally found in the various branches of dyeing, but they are so few, that it may be questioned, when compai'ed with the great body employed in the art, whether they amount to one in a thousand. This is not, however, to be attributed to any indifference in such persons to acquire a correct knowledge of the art, but is chiefly owing to a deficiency of the ready means of acquiring such information; which information it is the design of the present Treatise to supply; there not being, as far as the present writer knows, any such work, at a moderate price, to be obtained in the English language.
It is true many of the Cyclopædias furnish us with much useful information on the subject of dyeing: one of these, Jennings's Family Cyclopædia, may be particularly mentioned as containing such; but it is scattered about in these dictionaries in various ways, at once troublesome and unpleasant to obtain. Dr. Bancroft's work on the philosophy of Permanent Colours, in two octavo volumes, will also supply much valuable information; so also will the edition, some time since published, of Berthollet's Elements of the art of Dyeing, with the addition of valuable Notes by Dr. Ure. Dr. Ure's Chemical Dictionary is also very useful to the dyer, as well as many detached papers in several of our English publications. A Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks, &c. lately published by H. M'Kernan, is also valuable, and should be consulted by the curious in this art. But all these works are expensive, and such as few dyers will be disposed to obtain; hence the necessity of the present Manual, the author of which has not servilely followed the directions or recommendations of any previous writer; but from his own practice, a practice of more than thirty years, has laid down such rules as he knows to be at once practical and efficient. At the same time he thinks it right to state, that he has not only consulted all the works mentioned above, but also Hellot, Macquer, &c. adopting all that appeared essential in these, and giving such additions as accord with the present improved state of chemistry and dyeing; and, as far as was possible, in the limits prescribed for this work, so that it may be within the reach of every dyer in the kingdom, as well as every journeyman and apprentice in all the various branches of this truly extensive and mysterious art, as carried on in London, Norwich, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, and various other parts of the British dominions.
The author has, in treating of the various matters to be dyed, adopted nearly the same arrangement as that which appears in the Title, taking Cotton first, in consequence of its having the least affinity for dyeing bodies. He has taken Silk next, which has a greater affinity for many dyes, and, when dyed, yields colours more permanent than cotton.
Wool he has not placed entirely last, although many of the colours which it receives from the dyer are complex. The black dyeing of cotton and silk is placed after the processes of black for wool, as likewise the Turkey red, &c. these being naturally difficult to perform.
White and black have been considered colours by dyers, and with propriety, black forming a part of slate, grey, &c. White is seldom pure; in proportion to its clearness and purity will the colours be with which it is dyed.
In regard to black dye, and particularly cotton black dye, the author does not know any simple and concise theory, consistent with chemical principles. He flatters himself, however, that from his extensive experience, his observations are founded on interesting facts. Cotton, for instance, will take fast blues from the cold indigo vat; this vat, with the combination of iron, and in a heat no greater than the hand can bear, will easily produce all shades of grey, slate, &c. Many of these colours may be done by logwood instead of the blue vat, and in the same heat of the dye bath; so cotton likewise, whether in pieces or skeins, may be dyed brown, fawn, drab, &c. in consequence of the great affinity which cotton has for acetate and sulphate of iron.
With respect to black, it should be also observed, that few substances are known which yield by themselves a good black. The juice of the cashew nut communicates, however, a black colour, which resists not only washing, but even boiling with soap and alkaline leys. It is used for marking linen. The Toxicodendron yields a juice which produces nearly the same effect. Some other vegetables also produce black dyes, but all of them in such small quantities as not to be available for the purposes of art; nor do they, besides, produce blacks equal to those formed in the dye-house.
Blue, red, and yellow are admitted to be three distinct colours. In many of the browns, red and yellow are combined naturally in the drugs from which they are produced, and so they are in logwood. Blue, red, and yellow, are developed by iron, whether in the state of an acetate or sulphate.
28.1.15
The Dyer's Guide. Preface. Contents.
The Dyer's Guide.
EPITOME OF COLOURS.
Colours obtained by Sir Isaac Newton's method of decomposing the rays of light, the least refrangible being placed first, the most refrangible last. See p. 18.
THE DYER'S COLOURS AND THEIR CHIEF COMPOUNDS.
* Black, according to the theory of Newton, denotes the absence, and White the presence of all colours. SIMPLE COLOURS.
Blue, Yellow, Red, Black*.
Red includes Crimson, Scarlet, Maroon, Pink, &c.
COMPOUND COLOURS.
Green is made with Blue and Yellow.
Orange with Red and Yellow.
Purple, Violet, Lilac with Blue and Red.
Greys with Black, Blue, and Red.
Olives with Blue, Yellow, and Black; or Blue, Yellow and Red.
The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse." -Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing." - Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
Preface.
To insist on the utility of the present Manual is, assuredly, superfluous. The favourable reception of the first edition, sometime since out of print, has stimulated the author to revise the work throughout, and to render it more deserving the public approbation. The Appendix to the first edition now forms a part of the Introductory Chapter , to which it naturally belongs; to the whole have been added such improvements as the present advanced state of knowledge, and particularly chemical knowledge, has rendered absolutely necessary; and which the practical dyer will find of considerable importance and much utility.
The following letter from the late Sir Humphry Davy, the first chemist of the age, appeared in the Preface to the first edition; it is here again reprinted as some proof of the sufficiency of that learned man's judgment, at least concerning the chemical theory of the art of dyeing.
No. 16, Berkeley Square,
June 18, 1823.
Sir,
I am very much obliged to you for your liberal communication on a subject of my Lectures: I will attend to the information you are so good as to give me in the next Edition.
I am Sir,
Your obliged and obedient servant,
H. Davy.
Mr. T. Packer,
Stamford Street, Black-Friars Road.
The author has only to add, that an Index is now appended to the work, by which every article may be most readily and conveniently found.
London, Nov. 1829.
ERRATUM.
Page 22, line 3, for proximate read ultimate.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.
INTRODUCTORY.
On the different branches of dyeing — On the drugs used in dyeing — On vegetable and animal substances — On substantive and adjective colours, and mordants — And on the leading facts of chemical science as connected with the art of dyeing — On the calico printer's mordant for yellow and red, and on compound colours — On bleaching — On the theory of fast and fugitive colours — On dye-houses and water — Miscellaneous observations.
Chapter II.
ON DYEING COTTON.
To dye cotton a Saxon or chemic blue — Sulphate of Indigo — Saxon or chemic green — To set a cold indigo vat — Another Indigo vat — To dye cotton a fast green with the cold indigo vat and weld — Another cold blue vat for linen and cotton — solution of indigo for penciling printed muslin, &c. — To dye cotton a fast buff — To dye cotton pink
Chapter III.
ON DYEING SILK.
To alum silk — The blue vat of indigo for silk — Another blue vat for silk — To dye silk violet, royal purple, &c. — To dye silk lilac — Another process for lilac — Another process for dyeing muslin, &c. lilac — To dye silk a violet or purple with logwood — To dye silk violet with Brazil-wood and logwood — To dye silk violet or purple with Brazil- wood and archil
Chapter IV.
ON SCOURING AND DYEING WOOL.
On the action of alum and tartar upon wool — A pastil or woad vat for blue — To prepare the indigo mentioned in the preceding directions — Rules to judge of the state of the vat — Indications when a vat has had too much or too Uttle lime — To work a vat which is in proper order — On the putrefaction of the woad vat — Methods of dyeing blues — To dye wool with lac-dye, scarlet, or crimson — To dye worsted yarn a crimson — A preparation of archil to finish the crimson — on dyeing wool scarlet — To dye wool maroon — To dye wool yellow — To dye wool brown or of a fawn colour — To dye wool purple, &c. — To dye wool green — A chemic vat for green woollen — A chemic vat for blue woollen — To dye wool orange, gold colour, &c. — To dye wool black — Another process for black without a blue ground — To dye wool a grey — Mixture of black or grey with red and blue — On browns, fawns, greys, &c. — On the yellow of Quercitron bark — On a full bright yellow from the same bark — Bancroft's murio-sulphate of tin — To dye wool buff— To dye wool peach — To set an indigo vat for worsted, serge, &c.
Chapter V.
ON DYEING SILK AND COTTON BLACK.
To dye silk black for velvets — To dye silk black London process — On dyeing cotton black at Rouen — To dye cotton black, London process — For dyeing black, particularly cotton velvets, at Manchester — On dyeing silk and cotton black with a blue ground — Another iron liquor — To dye cotton black by using the preceding solution — to dye cotton violet — To dye cotton red — To dye cotton an Adrianople or Turkey red — Miscellaneous observations relative to Adrianople red
Chapter VI.
ON DYEING COTTON AND SILK.
To dye skein cotton yellow — On dyeing and re-dyeing cotton furniture yellow — to dye cotton skein a duck's wing green and olive — Of browns, maroons, coffee colours, &c. — Observations on silk — On un-gumming and boiling silk — Whitening — Sulphuring — On aluming silk — Skein silk for yellow — Preparation of annatto for aurora or orange, moidore, gold colour, and chamois — To dye silk aurora or orange — To dye moidore — Process for orange — To dye silk poppy or coquelicot — A cheaper poppy with annatto and Brazil wood — On dyeing silk a fine crimson — Composition for dyeing silks scarlet or crimson with cochineal — Another process for crimson — Another process for crimson by Brazil wood — Of fine violet — Observations on crimson and scarlet upon silk — On dyeing silk green — On olives — On dyeing silk grey — Nut grey — Black greys — Iron greys — On dyeing silk of a Prussian blue colour — Chromate of lead for yellow on silk or cotton — Conclusion
EPITOME OF COLOURS.
Colours obtained by Sir Isaac Newton's method of decomposing the rays of light, the least refrangible being placed first, the most refrangible last. See p. 18.
THE DYER'S COLOURS AND THEIR CHIEF COMPOUNDS.
* Black, according to the theory of Newton, denotes the absence, and White the presence of all colours. SIMPLE COLOURS.
Blue, Yellow, Red, Black*.
Red includes Crimson, Scarlet, Maroon, Pink, &c.
COMPOUND COLOURS.
Green is made with Blue and Yellow.
Orange with Red and Yellow.
Purple, Violet, Lilac with Blue and Red.
Greys with Black, Blue, and Red.
Olives with Blue, Yellow, and Black; or Blue, Yellow and Red.
The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.
By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.
"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse." -Chaptal.
"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing." - Garnett.
Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.
London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
Preface.
To insist on the utility of the present Manual is, assuredly, superfluous. The favourable reception of the first edition, sometime since out of print, has stimulated the author to revise the work throughout, and to render it more deserving the public approbation. The Appendix to the first edition now forms a part of the Introductory Chapter , to which it naturally belongs; to the whole have been added such improvements as the present advanced state of knowledge, and particularly chemical knowledge, has rendered absolutely necessary; and which the practical dyer will find of considerable importance and much utility.
The following letter from the late Sir Humphry Davy, the first chemist of the age, appeared in the Preface to the first edition; it is here again reprinted as some proof of the sufficiency of that learned man's judgment, at least concerning the chemical theory of the art of dyeing.
No. 16, Berkeley Square,
June 18, 1823.
Sir,
I am very much obliged to you for your liberal communication on a subject of my Lectures: I will attend to the information you are so good as to give me in the next Edition.
I am Sir,
Your obliged and obedient servant,
H. Davy.
Mr. T. Packer,
Stamford Street, Black-Friars Road.
The author has only to add, that an Index is now appended to the work, by which every article may be most readily and conveniently found.
London, Nov. 1829.
ERRATUM.
Page 22, line 3, for proximate read ultimate.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.
INTRODUCTORY.
On the different branches of dyeing — On the drugs used in dyeing — On vegetable and animal substances — On substantive and adjective colours, and mordants — And on the leading facts of chemical science as connected with the art of dyeing — On the calico printer's mordant for yellow and red, and on compound colours — On bleaching — On the theory of fast and fugitive colours — On dye-houses and water — Miscellaneous observations.
Chapter II.
ON DYEING COTTON.
To dye cotton a Saxon or chemic blue — Sulphate of Indigo — Saxon or chemic green — To set a cold indigo vat — Another Indigo vat — To dye cotton a fast green with the cold indigo vat and weld — Another cold blue vat for linen and cotton — solution of indigo for penciling printed muslin, &c. — To dye cotton a fast buff — To dye cotton pink
Chapter III.
ON DYEING SILK.
To alum silk — The blue vat of indigo for silk — Another blue vat for silk — To dye silk violet, royal purple, &c. — To dye silk lilac — Another process for lilac — Another process for dyeing muslin, &c. lilac — To dye silk a violet or purple with logwood — To dye silk violet with Brazil-wood and logwood — To dye silk violet or purple with Brazil- wood and archil
Chapter IV.
ON SCOURING AND DYEING WOOL.
On the action of alum and tartar upon wool — A pastil or woad vat for blue — To prepare the indigo mentioned in the preceding directions — Rules to judge of the state of the vat — Indications when a vat has had too much or too Uttle lime — To work a vat which is in proper order — On the putrefaction of the woad vat — Methods of dyeing blues — To dye wool with lac-dye, scarlet, or crimson — To dye worsted yarn a crimson — A preparation of archil to finish the crimson — on dyeing wool scarlet — To dye wool maroon — To dye wool yellow — To dye wool brown or of a fawn colour — To dye wool purple, &c. — To dye wool green — A chemic vat for green woollen — A chemic vat for blue woollen — To dye wool orange, gold colour, &c. — To dye wool black — Another process for black without a blue ground — To dye wool a grey — Mixture of black or grey with red and blue — On browns, fawns, greys, &c. — On the yellow of Quercitron bark — On a full bright yellow from the same bark — Bancroft's murio-sulphate of tin — To dye wool buff— To dye wool peach — To set an indigo vat for worsted, serge, &c.
Chapter V.
ON DYEING SILK AND COTTON BLACK.
To dye silk black for velvets — To dye silk black London process — On dyeing cotton black at Rouen — To dye cotton black, London process — For dyeing black, particularly cotton velvets, at Manchester — On dyeing silk and cotton black with a blue ground — Another iron liquor — To dye cotton black by using the preceding solution — to dye cotton violet — To dye cotton red — To dye cotton an Adrianople or Turkey red — Miscellaneous observations relative to Adrianople red
Chapter VI.
ON DYEING COTTON AND SILK.
To dye skein cotton yellow — On dyeing and re-dyeing cotton furniture yellow — to dye cotton skein a duck's wing green and olive — Of browns, maroons, coffee colours, &c. — Observations on silk — On un-gumming and boiling silk — Whitening — Sulphuring — On aluming silk — Skein silk for yellow — Preparation of annatto for aurora or orange, moidore, gold colour, and chamois — To dye silk aurora or orange — To dye moidore — Process for orange — To dye silk poppy or coquelicot — A cheaper poppy with annatto and Brazil wood — On dyeing silk a fine crimson — Composition for dyeing silks scarlet or crimson with cochineal — Another process for crimson — Another process for crimson by Brazil wood — Of fine violet — Observations on crimson and scarlet upon silk — On dyeing silk green — On olives — On dyeing silk grey — Nut grey — Black greys — Iron greys — On dyeing silk of a Prussian blue colour — Chromate of lead for yellow on silk or cotton — Conclusion
27.1.15
The Combination of Colors
Manufacturer and builder 4, 1873
Colors have a shade and a hue. By shade we understand the depth of a color as in the gradations from black to white. By hue is meant any compound color undiluted. For instance, we say an orange color of a red hue or a yellow hue; or purple from the bluest to the reddest hue. Nothing is more common than in the assorting of wools to mistake these two qualities, and often we see a pale lemon color shaded down to a deep orange, or a yellow-green down to a dark blue-green, which, when worked into a subject, makes the general effect so entirely discordant. We will consider some peculiar attributes of the three primaries - red, blue, and yellow. red is the most positive of all colors. It holds the middle station between yellow, which is most allied to light, and blue, which ismost allied to shade, is decidedly a warm color, and imparts that quality into every compound color into which it enters. The effect is most apparent when compounded with yellow. Red, from its powerful nature, requires more careful management than most colors, but it is highly useful and agreeable color to look upon. Not so, when it becomes what is called "mauve," (which is crimson diluted with white,) and in some of its shades is most irritating color, an highly destructive to all other surroundings, as its contrasting color is yellow, so it yellows or fades all colors near which it is placed, and it is rarely acceptable as a color in dress without being considerably mellowed by being placed in juxtaposition with plenty of white or black. Blue is the next primary, and is the nearest to shade as yellow is to light. It is the only absolute cool color, and communicates this quality to all hues into which it comes in combination. It is a pleasing color, and may be used in almost any arrangement, and has a larger portion in the nature than any of the two other primaries. There is a popular notion that blue and green are discordant when viewed simultaneously. If we look on a blue sky shining over a green meadow, we shall see under what circumstances they agree, (as nature never errs.) It is that green is yellowed by the sunlight, which, along with the brown of nature, is sufficiently warm to be thoroughly harmonious. Yellow, the next primary, is the lightest of all colors, white excepted, which we consider the combination of all colors reflected. Black - absorbed, its proportional power to red, or blue, is as three of thirteen. It is the most positive and least agreeable color to the eye, that is pure and undiluted. Now, if nature ever errs, why, it may be asked, does she give us the largest flower we have, yellow, the yellow sun-flower? IOn analyzing this, we shall see that the great bulk of the center of this flowe is not yellow, but its contrasting or neutralizing color melodized to it; so the otherwise vulgar staring flower becomes perfect. The eye dwells with greater pleasure on yellow the more it is diluted or weakened in intensity, and we can tolerate a lemon tint or light buff; but even then, unless toned down, you often hear it denounced as sickly and bilious. And we may here remark that no combination of color can be complete without the three primaries entering into their component parts, either in their pure form or compounded with secondaties; all should be so arranged as to form a general bloom, the most powerful colors necessarily being in the smallest proportion.
We have dwelt on the pleasure experienced by the contemplation of beauty, of arrangement of colors, but we must not conclude this is a natural pleasure. It is a natural pleasure to see color, but not in its most refined combinations. A child manifests its natural taste by preferring those toys most gaudily painted, and with the greatest amount of vermilion. A collier dresses himself in a green plush waistcoat with a couple of dozen of brass buttons fown the front and a scarlet comfortable, and thinks himself perfection. We occasionally see also natural taste showing itself in the shape of a pink bonnet, orange shawl, and a green dress. But we do not set these up as examples at all to be imitated, as in nature (which we may always take as our type) we never see large masses of bright color without a larger quality of neutral or tertiary colors to tone, subdue, or counterbalance them.
Now if you are going to furnish and decorate, say your dining-room, it may be done either by the harmony of analogy, or by the harmony of contrast. Your first consideration in either case should be the aspect. If south or west it requires to be on a cool key. If north or east, it should be on a warm key. You then may consider your pictures, (if sufficient to require consideration.) Now sage green is perhaps for a background the most suitable, or claret if there is plenty of light and a cold aspect; tehy say the former. Green for the walls; you would then ask, What is the complementary color of green? The answer is, Red; so you get the three colors by fixing red for your curtains, and blue and yellow in combination, forming green, on the walls; you have only to regulate it further by ascertaining whether the green is a blue green or yellow green. If a blue green, the complementary will be made up by adopting an orange red - in other words, scarlet or cherry; if a yellow green, purple must enter into the composition of your red, which then becomes more crimsony. If the hairs are not covered with morocco, the same rule holds good. If you did not feel that you had your red blue enough, a border containing blue might be added. If short of scarlet or yellow, a gold color border would supply that deficiency.
- The Builder.
[We give the above (a short extract from a most tedious long article in an English journal) for what it is worth, without indorsing any of the opinions expressed. The subject of complementary colors has recently received some attention from the side of scientists, and we will later communicate the positive results of experiments made in this line by Prof. Wood of Columbia College, New York. - Ed.]
Colors have a shade and a hue. By shade we understand the depth of a color as in the gradations from black to white. By hue is meant any compound color undiluted. For instance, we say an orange color of a red hue or a yellow hue; or purple from the bluest to the reddest hue. Nothing is more common than in the assorting of wools to mistake these two qualities, and often we see a pale lemon color shaded down to a deep orange, or a yellow-green down to a dark blue-green, which, when worked into a subject, makes the general effect so entirely discordant. We will consider some peculiar attributes of the three primaries - red, blue, and yellow. red is the most positive of all colors. It holds the middle station between yellow, which is most allied to light, and blue, which ismost allied to shade, is decidedly a warm color, and imparts that quality into every compound color into which it enters. The effect is most apparent when compounded with yellow. Red, from its powerful nature, requires more careful management than most colors, but it is highly useful and agreeable color to look upon. Not so, when it becomes what is called "mauve," (which is crimson diluted with white,) and in some of its shades is most irritating color, an highly destructive to all other surroundings, as its contrasting color is yellow, so it yellows or fades all colors near which it is placed, and it is rarely acceptable as a color in dress without being considerably mellowed by being placed in juxtaposition with plenty of white or black. Blue is the next primary, and is the nearest to shade as yellow is to light. It is the only absolute cool color, and communicates this quality to all hues into which it comes in combination. It is a pleasing color, and may be used in almost any arrangement, and has a larger portion in the nature than any of the two other primaries. There is a popular notion that blue and green are discordant when viewed simultaneously. If we look on a blue sky shining over a green meadow, we shall see under what circumstances they agree, (as nature never errs.) It is that green is yellowed by the sunlight, which, along with the brown of nature, is sufficiently warm to be thoroughly harmonious. Yellow, the next primary, is the lightest of all colors, white excepted, which we consider the combination of all colors reflected. Black - absorbed, its proportional power to red, or blue, is as three of thirteen. It is the most positive and least agreeable color to the eye, that is pure and undiluted. Now, if nature ever errs, why, it may be asked, does she give us the largest flower we have, yellow, the yellow sun-flower? IOn analyzing this, we shall see that the great bulk of the center of this flowe is not yellow, but its contrasting or neutralizing color melodized to it; so the otherwise vulgar staring flower becomes perfect. The eye dwells with greater pleasure on yellow the more it is diluted or weakened in intensity, and we can tolerate a lemon tint or light buff; but even then, unless toned down, you often hear it denounced as sickly and bilious. And we may here remark that no combination of color can be complete without the three primaries entering into their component parts, either in their pure form or compounded with secondaties; all should be so arranged as to form a general bloom, the most powerful colors necessarily being in the smallest proportion.
We have dwelt on the pleasure experienced by the contemplation of beauty, of arrangement of colors, but we must not conclude this is a natural pleasure. It is a natural pleasure to see color, but not in its most refined combinations. A child manifests its natural taste by preferring those toys most gaudily painted, and with the greatest amount of vermilion. A collier dresses himself in a green plush waistcoat with a couple of dozen of brass buttons fown the front and a scarlet comfortable, and thinks himself perfection. We occasionally see also natural taste showing itself in the shape of a pink bonnet, orange shawl, and a green dress. But we do not set these up as examples at all to be imitated, as in nature (which we may always take as our type) we never see large masses of bright color without a larger quality of neutral or tertiary colors to tone, subdue, or counterbalance them.
Now if you are going to furnish and decorate, say your dining-room, it may be done either by the harmony of analogy, or by the harmony of contrast. Your first consideration in either case should be the aspect. If south or west it requires to be on a cool key. If north or east, it should be on a warm key. You then may consider your pictures, (if sufficient to require consideration.) Now sage green is perhaps for a background the most suitable, or claret if there is plenty of light and a cold aspect; tehy say the former. Green for the walls; you would then ask, What is the complementary color of green? The answer is, Red; so you get the three colors by fixing red for your curtains, and blue and yellow in combination, forming green, on the walls; you have only to regulate it further by ascertaining whether the green is a blue green or yellow green. If a blue green, the complementary will be made up by adopting an orange red - in other words, scarlet or cherry; if a yellow green, purple must enter into the composition of your red, which then becomes more crimsony. If the hairs are not covered with morocco, the same rule holds good. If you did not feel that you had your red blue enough, a border containing blue might be added. If short of scarlet or yellow, a gold color border would supply that deficiency.
- The Builder.
[We give the above (a short extract from a most tedious long article in an English journal) for what it is worth, without indorsing any of the opinions expressed. The subject of complementary colors has recently received some attention from the side of scientists, and we will later communicate the positive results of experiments made in this line by Prof. Wood of Columbia College, New York. - Ed.]
26.1.15
Kansantajuista tiedettä. Mitä on väri?
Jokamiehen ja joka naisen viikkolehti 40, 10.10.1908
Suurelle osalle ihmisiä ovat useat ilmiöt, joita he kohtaavat jokikinen päivä, itse olemukseltaan peräti outoja; niin on esim. laita ilman, jota alati hengitämme, ja niin on laitamyös sellaisen käsitteen kuin väri. Kuka tervesilmäinen ihminen ei kohta erota punaista, sinistä ja vihreää toisistaan? Mutta monikin varmaan hämmästyy kuullessaan, ettei väri ole minkään kappaleen itsenäinen ominaisuus, vaan ainoastaan tulos siitä vaikutuksesta, jonka auringon- tai mikä muu säde tahansa tekee kappaleeseen. Tämä vaikutus on erilainen eri kappaleihin, riippuen itse kappaleen ominaisuuksista. Kaikellainen väri saa alkunsa yksinomaan valosta. Ne kappaleet, jotka eivät vähääkään heijasta valonsäteestä edes osaakaan, ovat niitä, joita tavallisessa puheessa sanotaan mustiksi. Niitä esineitä taas, jotka heijastavat koko valon sellaisenaan kaikkine väreineen, kutsumme me valkeiksi. Niitä esineitä jotka kykenevät heijastamaan osan valonsäteestä, mutta imevät itseensä muut osat, nimitämme me värillisiksi. Siis ovat värit itse valossa eikä kappaleessa. Että näin on todellisuudessa, huomaamme, kun annamme auringon säteen kulkea kolmisärmäisen lasi- tai kristallipalan läpi. Silloin jakaantuu valo eri valo-osiinsa, väreihin, niin että punainen japunasinervä (violetti) ovat äärimmäisinä ja muut värit näiden välillä.
Mutta mistä johtuvat eri osat valossa? Siihen vastaa nykyinen tiede, että samaten kuin musikaaliset äänet syntyvät kappalten värähtelemisestä, samaten syntyy valokin eetterin värähdyksistä. Otaksutaan näet, että koko avaruus on täynnä hienon hienoa ainetta, eetteriä, joka on paljon täydellisempää ja joustavampaa kuin tämä ilma, ja siis myös sen värähdykset paljon säännöllisempiä ja verrattomasti nopeampia kuin ilman ja muiden aisteillamme havaittavien esineiden. Erivärinen valo syntyy siitä, että eetteriaalloilla on eri pituus, vaihdellen valossa yhden seitsemässadaskuudeskymmenes- ja yhden kolmassadasyhdeksäskymmenes miljoonannen osan millimetriä välillä. Miljoonia eri värivivahduksia täytyy olla yhtyneenä joka valonsäteessä. Jos johdamme valon äskenmainitun kolmisärmäisen lasiprisman läpi, niin saamme erotetuksi toisistaan seitsemän pääväriä, jotka muodostavat kauniin nauhankaltaisen juovan. Mutta näiden päävärien välillä on lukematon joukko eri värivivahduksia ja muunnoksia, ja jokaisella näistä pikkusäteistä on erilainen liikunto, voima ja vaikutus.
Mutta tuossa värijuovassa on vielä muitakin säteitä, joita emme voi nähdä. Vasemmalla puolen punaisia säteitä on jonkun matkaa huomattavissa erittäin hyvin lämpöä. Sillä puolen spektrumia, sillä siksi nimitetään prisman avulla saatua valojuovaa eri väreineen, ovat n. s. ultrapunaiset l. lämpöasteet. Ja oikealla puolella punasinerviä säteitä ovat n. s. ultrapunasinervät säteet. Näillä molemmilla ullr a säteillä on varsin tärkeä tehtävä luonnon taloudessa, vaikkemme voikaan niitä silmillämme havaita.
Nämä havainnot ovat tiedemiehet tehneet varsin aikaisin, ja he sanoivat, että auringonsäteessä on kolmea eri lajia säteitä: valosäteitä, nuo punaisesta punasinervään, lämpösäteitä (ultrapunaiset) ja kemiallisesti vaikuttavia säteitä (ultrapunasinervät). Mutta lämpö- ja valosäteillä ei ole itse asiassa muuta eroa kuin aallon - värähdyksen pituus. Se, että niillä muka olisi eroa, perustuu meidän näköaistiimme. Aivan niinkuin ei sellaisella lämpömittarilla, johon on merkitty asteet 0°-100°, voi mitata lämmön astesuuruutta yli 100 asteen, samoin ei meidän silmämmekään näe spektrumissa muuta kuin värit punaisesta punasinervään. Mitä sen ylä- tai alapuolella on, sen me voimme vain aavistaa, mutta emme nähdä. Voi olla olemassa olentoja, joiden silmä on täydellisempi rakenteeltaan kuin meidän, niin että ne voivat nähdä kokonaisen loistavan värimaailman siellä, missä meidän silmällemme on synkkä ultrapunaisen ja ultrapunasinervän yö.
Samaten kuin lämpösäteitten on kemiallisesti vaikuttavienkin säteitten laita. Me tiedämme nyt, että kaikki spektrumin säteet ultrapunaisista aina ultrapunasinertäviin voivat vaikuttaa kemiallisesti - niiden kemiallinen vaikutusvoima on vain erilainen. Esimerkiksi viheriä kasvi, jota väliin sanotaan maailman suurenmoisimmaksi valokemialliseksi laboratooriumiksi, käyttää yksinomaan punaisia säteitä tarkotuksiinsa eikä noita kemiallisesti vaikuttavia punasinerviä tai ultrapunasinerviä. Mistä me sen tiedämme? Siitä, että jos valolta, jonka äsken osotimme sisältävän kaikki eri värit, riistetään punainen väri, niin näyttää valo vihreältä meidän silmissämme. Tämän voi jokainen saada selväksi, jos tekee itselleen hyrrän, jossa on kaikki muut auringonspektrumin väritpaitsi punainen, ja panee sen pyörimään, niin näyttää se viheriäiseltä. Tämän nojalla voi siis päättää, että kasvit imevät itseensä punaisen värin ja heijastavat muut värit pois, joten koko kasvi näyttää viheriäiseltä. Toiset valonarat esineet imevät muita värejä, ja ne värit, joita kappale heijastaa pois itsestään, määräävät sen värin. Meidän tarkastuslaitoksemme, silmämme, tutkii joka valonsädettä, joka sattuu silmäämme, ja monelle valonsäteelle se lausuu: "Tuosta on yksi tai useampi väri poissa!"
Tätä nimitämme me väriksi, sitä väriyhtymää nimittäin, jonkakappaleen heijastamat säkeet muodostavat.
Suurelle osalle ihmisiä ovat useat ilmiöt, joita he kohtaavat jokikinen päivä, itse olemukseltaan peräti outoja; niin on esim. laita ilman, jota alati hengitämme, ja niin on laitamyös sellaisen käsitteen kuin väri. Kuka tervesilmäinen ihminen ei kohta erota punaista, sinistä ja vihreää toisistaan? Mutta monikin varmaan hämmästyy kuullessaan, ettei väri ole minkään kappaleen itsenäinen ominaisuus, vaan ainoastaan tulos siitä vaikutuksesta, jonka auringon- tai mikä muu säde tahansa tekee kappaleeseen. Tämä vaikutus on erilainen eri kappaleihin, riippuen itse kappaleen ominaisuuksista. Kaikellainen väri saa alkunsa yksinomaan valosta. Ne kappaleet, jotka eivät vähääkään heijasta valonsäteestä edes osaakaan, ovat niitä, joita tavallisessa puheessa sanotaan mustiksi. Niitä esineitä taas, jotka heijastavat koko valon sellaisenaan kaikkine väreineen, kutsumme me valkeiksi. Niitä esineitä jotka kykenevät heijastamaan osan valonsäteestä, mutta imevät itseensä muut osat, nimitämme me värillisiksi. Siis ovat värit itse valossa eikä kappaleessa. Että näin on todellisuudessa, huomaamme, kun annamme auringon säteen kulkea kolmisärmäisen lasi- tai kristallipalan läpi. Silloin jakaantuu valo eri valo-osiinsa, väreihin, niin että punainen japunasinervä (violetti) ovat äärimmäisinä ja muut värit näiden välillä.
Mutta mistä johtuvat eri osat valossa? Siihen vastaa nykyinen tiede, että samaten kuin musikaaliset äänet syntyvät kappalten värähtelemisestä, samaten syntyy valokin eetterin värähdyksistä. Otaksutaan näet, että koko avaruus on täynnä hienon hienoa ainetta, eetteriä, joka on paljon täydellisempää ja joustavampaa kuin tämä ilma, ja siis myös sen värähdykset paljon säännöllisempiä ja verrattomasti nopeampia kuin ilman ja muiden aisteillamme havaittavien esineiden. Erivärinen valo syntyy siitä, että eetteriaalloilla on eri pituus, vaihdellen valossa yhden seitsemässadaskuudeskymmenes- ja yhden kolmassadasyhdeksäskymmenes miljoonannen osan millimetriä välillä. Miljoonia eri värivivahduksia täytyy olla yhtyneenä joka valonsäteessä. Jos johdamme valon äskenmainitun kolmisärmäisen lasiprisman läpi, niin saamme erotetuksi toisistaan seitsemän pääväriä, jotka muodostavat kauniin nauhankaltaisen juovan. Mutta näiden päävärien välillä on lukematon joukko eri värivivahduksia ja muunnoksia, ja jokaisella näistä pikkusäteistä on erilainen liikunto, voima ja vaikutus.
Mutta tuossa värijuovassa on vielä muitakin säteitä, joita emme voi nähdä. Vasemmalla puolen punaisia säteitä on jonkun matkaa huomattavissa erittäin hyvin lämpöä. Sillä puolen spektrumia, sillä siksi nimitetään prisman avulla saatua valojuovaa eri väreineen, ovat n. s. ultrapunaiset l. lämpöasteet. Ja oikealla puolella punasinerviä säteitä ovat n. s. ultrapunasinervät säteet. Näillä molemmilla ullr a säteillä on varsin tärkeä tehtävä luonnon taloudessa, vaikkemme voikaan niitä silmillämme havaita.
Nämä havainnot ovat tiedemiehet tehneet varsin aikaisin, ja he sanoivat, että auringonsäteessä on kolmea eri lajia säteitä: valosäteitä, nuo punaisesta punasinervään, lämpösäteitä (ultrapunaiset) ja kemiallisesti vaikuttavia säteitä (ultrapunasinervät). Mutta lämpö- ja valosäteillä ei ole itse asiassa muuta eroa kuin aallon - värähdyksen pituus. Se, että niillä muka olisi eroa, perustuu meidän näköaistiimme. Aivan niinkuin ei sellaisella lämpömittarilla, johon on merkitty asteet 0°-100°, voi mitata lämmön astesuuruutta yli 100 asteen, samoin ei meidän silmämmekään näe spektrumissa muuta kuin värit punaisesta punasinervään. Mitä sen ylä- tai alapuolella on, sen me voimme vain aavistaa, mutta emme nähdä. Voi olla olemassa olentoja, joiden silmä on täydellisempi rakenteeltaan kuin meidän, niin että ne voivat nähdä kokonaisen loistavan värimaailman siellä, missä meidän silmällemme on synkkä ultrapunaisen ja ultrapunasinervän yö.
Samaten kuin lämpösäteitten on kemiallisesti vaikuttavienkin säteitten laita. Me tiedämme nyt, että kaikki spektrumin säteet ultrapunaisista aina ultrapunasinertäviin voivat vaikuttaa kemiallisesti - niiden kemiallinen vaikutusvoima on vain erilainen. Esimerkiksi viheriä kasvi, jota väliin sanotaan maailman suurenmoisimmaksi valokemialliseksi laboratooriumiksi, käyttää yksinomaan punaisia säteitä tarkotuksiinsa eikä noita kemiallisesti vaikuttavia punasinerviä tai ultrapunasinerviä. Mistä me sen tiedämme? Siitä, että jos valolta, jonka äsken osotimme sisältävän kaikki eri värit, riistetään punainen väri, niin näyttää valo vihreältä meidän silmissämme. Tämän voi jokainen saada selväksi, jos tekee itselleen hyrrän, jossa on kaikki muut auringonspektrumin väritpaitsi punainen, ja panee sen pyörimään, niin näyttää se viheriäiseltä. Tämän nojalla voi siis päättää, että kasvit imevät itseensä punaisen värin ja heijastavat muut värit pois, joten koko kasvi näyttää viheriäiseltä. Toiset valonarat esineet imevät muita värejä, ja ne värit, joita kappale heijastaa pois itsestään, määräävät sen värin. Meidän tarkastuslaitoksemme, silmämme, tutkii joka valonsädettä, joka sattuu silmäämme, ja monelle valonsäteelle se lausuu: "Tuosta on yksi tai useampi väri poissa!"
Tätä nimitämme me väriksi, sitä väriyhtymää nimittäin, jonkakappaleen heijastamat säkeet muodostavat.
25.1.15
Indigon käytännön väheneminen.
Kauppalehti 16, 17.4.1901
Itävalta-Unkarin Calcutassa olevan konsuliviraston kauppakertomuksessa v:lta 1900 sanotaan m. m., että indigon viennin nykyään täytyy kestää pulaa. Taistelu aniliinivärien kanssa on kärjistynyt sietämättömäksi. Epäilemättä ei indigon kaupoissa enää voi ansaita niitä kauniita voittoja kuin tähän asti ja tuo näihin aikoihin asti tavallinen kuumeentapainen indigon viljeleminen, johon maaperää säästämättä tyhjennettiin, ei enää pysy mahdollisena. Huomioon ottaen indigoteollisuuden merkityksen Berarissa ja Bengalissa on Hallitus ollut taipuvainen ryhtymään asiaan. On m. m. tuumittu hallituspiireissä, että olisi toimeen pantava tullinkorotus kemiallisten väriaineiden tuonnille.
Indigon viennin suuri väheneminen Indiasta aivan muutamien viimeisten vuosien kuluessa käypi mitä räikeimmin selville seuraavista numeroista:
Viennin arvo Rupioissa
v. 1895 37,238,471 :-
v. 1899 18,705,530 :-
v. 1900 16,350,979 :-
Viennin paino Cvts:issä:
v. 1895 111,714
v. 1899 89,001
v. 1900 59.078
Itävalta-Unkarin Calcutassa olevan konsuliviraston kauppakertomuksessa v:lta 1900 sanotaan m. m., että indigon viennin nykyään täytyy kestää pulaa. Taistelu aniliinivärien kanssa on kärjistynyt sietämättömäksi. Epäilemättä ei indigon kaupoissa enää voi ansaita niitä kauniita voittoja kuin tähän asti ja tuo näihin aikoihin asti tavallinen kuumeentapainen indigon viljeleminen, johon maaperää säästämättä tyhjennettiin, ei enää pysy mahdollisena. Huomioon ottaen indigoteollisuuden merkityksen Berarissa ja Bengalissa on Hallitus ollut taipuvainen ryhtymään asiaan. On m. m. tuumittu hallituspiireissä, että olisi toimeen pantava tullinkorotus kemiallisten väriaineiden tuonnille.
Indigon viennin suuri väheneminen Indiasta aivan muutamien viimeisten vuosien kuluessa käypi mitä räikeimmin selville seuraavista numeroista:
Viennin arvo Rupioissa
v. 1895 37,238,471 :-
v. 1899 18,705,530 :-
v. 1900 16,350,979 :-
Viennin paino Cvts:issä:
v. 1895 111,714
v. 1899 89,001
v. 1900 59.078
24.1.15
W. E. Gladstone: The Color-Sense.
Living Age 135, 10.11.1877
From The Nineteenth Century.
*) Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. iii. sect iv., p. 437.
*2 P. 438. Twenty years go, an examination of the Homeric text led me to what I then thought a very startling conclusion. It was this: that, although Homer had used light in its various forms for his purposes with perhaps greater splendor and effect than any other poet, yet the color-adjectives and color-descriptions of the poems were not only imperfect, but highly ambiguous and confused. It as only after submitting the facts to some very competent judhes that I published in 1858 a section of my Homeric studies,* "On Homer's Perceptions and Use of Color;" for the case appeared to open up questions of great inerest, with respect to the general structure of the human organs, and to the laws of hereditary growth. My proporitions were:*2 -
1. That Homer's perceptions of the prismatic colors, or colors of the rainbow (which depend on the decomposition of light by refraction), and a fortiori of their compounds, were, as a general rule, vague and indeterminate.
2. That we must therefore seek another basis for his system of color.
* P. 488I rejected the supposition, that this was due to any defect in his individual organization: and found that his system of color, or rather his "system in lieu of color," was "founded upon light, and upond darkness, its opposite or negative;" and that "the organ of color" was "but partially developed among the Greeks of his age."* My meaning was susbtantially this; that he operated, in the main, upon a quantitative scale, with white and black, or light and dark, for its opposite extremeties, instead of the qualitative scale opened by the diversities of color.
* Researches on Color Blindness. Edinburgh, 1855. 8vo.
*2 Wilson, oo. 8, 9.
*3 Ibid, p. 10.
*4 P. 11.The curious phenomena of color-blindness had been very recently set forth by Dr. George Wilson.* He considered it in three forms: 1, as inability to discern color at all; 2, to distinguish the nicer shades of the more composite colors, such as brown, greys, and neutral tints; 3. to distinguish between the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, or between these and the secondary or tertiary colors, under which head he names green, purple, orange and brown. The first form, he says, is rare, and perhaps not absolutely ascertained.*2 Color-blindness does not depend upon weakness in the organ: for he mentions the casxe of a woman, who could distinguish no colors, yet "could often read for nearly a quarter of an hour in the greatest darkness." In one family, three persons called all bright tints white, and all dull ones black.*3 A house-painter in Australia could not distinguish colors, but had a good eye for form, and was excellent in designing and drawing. Once, however, he mixed his own colors, and thought he had got the stone tint, but it was found that he was painting the building blue.*4 Painters, days Dr. Wilson, "know how long it is before the most susceptible eye acquires its maximum sensibility to color." But the commonest form of color-blindness appears to be that which confounds red and green. Now these are not neighboring colors in the spectrum. Were it a question only of imperfect development of a sense, it would be shown first and most in inability to distinguish a color from that next to it. But red is separated from green by the intervening spaces of orange and yellow. Color-blindness proper, then, appears to partake of the nature of organic defect. But, as Dr. Wilson has pointed out (and I have had an opportunity of verifying the remark), painters know that there is an education of the eye for color in the individual. The proposition, which I desire to suggest, is that this education subsists also for the race.
Within the last few years, this subject has been freely discussed both in Germany among philologists and physiologists, and likewise among Oriental scholars. I understand the general tendency of the discussions to be in favor of the doctrine that color was little known to the ancients, and that the sense of it has been gradually developed, until it has now become a familiar and unquestioned part of our inheritance. Perhaps one of the most significant relics of the older state of things is to be found in the preference, known to the manufacturing world, of the uncivilized races for strong, and what is called in the spontaneous poetry of trading phrases loud, color.
I shall endeavor to give a view of the subject from Dr. Hugo Magnus, a German inquirer who has recently written on it with great care and ability. He is a physiologist as well as a scholar, and teaches, as Privatdocent in the University of Breslau, on the care and treatment of the eye. He gives some indications of a conflict of opinion which has been manifested in his country. But my principal object, after presenting a sketch of his labors, will be to make a contribution to the stores of material, upon which the questions at issue will ultimately be determined, from the quarter where I feel myself most competent, or least incompetent, to search for it.
I understand from an able Hebraist that the Old Testament offers much evidence of the imperfect conception of color in early times. But I take it that by far the most important magazine of information on this subject is to be found in the Homeric poems: the most important on account of its mass, of its unity, and of that high organization which belongs in a degree to genius in general, and which the text of Homer indisputably proves him to have possessed with regard to the two kindred subjects of motion and form. Treading, therefore, with a bolder and firmer step, than when I had no one within view to lean on, I shall now endeavor to present the results, which are to be obtained from Homer, in a more positive and decided shape: and shall suggest a method of meeting, at least in part, the principal and not inconsiderable difficulties which they bring into view.
Dr. Magnus has published (I.) "Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes" (Leipzig, 1877), and (II.) a tract which partially covers the same ground, and is entitled "Die Entwickelung des Farbensinnes" (Jena, 1877). I shall refer to these tracts as I. and II. respectively.
He observes in his preface on the extreme pauxity of materials supplied by previous labor; and proceeds to anticipate the counter-argument, which some might be disposed to draw from the admitted sharpness of sense in the savage. This sharpness of sense, which may be observed also in the inferior animals, is wholly distinct from a high development of special aptitudes contained within the bounds of each domain. There appears , I would remark, to be a sort of analogy in the relation of the two to the relation between muscular strength and muscular pliability. Homer himself illustrates the argument of Magnus. I have observed that hardly any poet has made such free and effective use of light in general for poetical purposes. Nowhere has he been more bold than in his figure of black pains (II. iv. 117, 191; xv. 394), of the soul purpling in painful apprehension (II. xxi. 551, et al.), of blazing rumor, or battle (II. ii. 93, et al.), and the like. We must presume that his retina was especially sensitive to light and dark; and yet it is in him, too, that we lack the developed sense of color. And we may find an independent analogy in the case of mental gifts; where it will sometimes be found that those who are clearest and strongest in their perception of board outline are endowed with the narrowest capacity for apprehending even essential distinctions. Dr. Magnus quotes Geiger, who published in 1871 on the historical development of man, as pointing out that the dog with his wonderful faculty of scent, had no power of distinction between smells which are agreeable and smells which are offensive. He can deal with quantity only, not with kind, in smell. And so a keen perception of sound is entirely distinct from a good ear for music. As to the sense of smell, I may observe that it would be difficult to find in Homer and instance of its pleasurable exercise except once in relation to the aroma or bouquet of wine (Od. ix. 210); unless we allow that another instance is supplied by the rather carnal idea of the [---], or savor which ascends to heaven from the sacrifices, and which apparently is more related to tasthe than smell. He calls a store-room fragrant (II. iii. 382(, and he calls the growing cypress and oil, oddly enough to our apprehension, by the same name (Od. ii 339, v. 64). He was not, however, insensible to a strong stench, and he mentions with a vigorous and hearty detestation the seals of Proteus: - [---] - Od. iv. 442. He speaks of flowers as tender (Od. ix. 449), white (II. xvii. 56), and hyacinthine, but nowhere as sweet-smelling. And Magnus observes that the frangrance of flowers is nowhere noticed in the Old Testament until we reach the Song of Solomon.
* Newton's Optics.So much for the principle involced. Having drawn the distinction between the elementary activity of one organ, and its higher exhibitions of function, we may now proceed to a brief outline of the facts. And I shall best introduce the general view of Dr. Magnus by quoting Sir Isaac Newton on the scale of colors: "The lights of colors are more refrangible one than another in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, deep violet."*
Dr. Magnus considers that, in the progressive education of the human organ, three colors have been successively disclosed to it, and have by degrees come to be part of its regular perceptions, in the order here given: the order of their greater or less refrangibility, of their wealth or poverty in light. The increase of susceptibility acquired by the retina has become hereditary, and has grown with a long series of generations.
*Magnus, II, p. 8.We will now pass to the stages of the historical development. The startingpoint is, an absolute blindness to color in the primitive man. Anaxagoras, it seems, believed that in the earliest times there was no sence of color at all. The first stage attained is that at which the eye becomes able to distinguish between red and black. Red comes first into our perceptions, because it is the most luminous of the colors; but, says Geiger, in the "Rigveda" white and red are hardly severed.* Greek philosophers, Aristotle in particular, lean to treating colors chiefly as degrees of the luminous and non-luminous, or as mixtures, atomistic or otherwise, of black and white.
* Magnus II, p. 10.In the next stage of the development, the sense of color becomes completely distinct from the sense of light. Both red and yellow, with their shades, that is to say, the red, orange, and yellow of the Newtonian scale, are now clearly discerned. To this stage Magnus* refers the Homeric poems, in which red and yellow colors are set forth, but there is no mention of green or blue; for example of green for trees and plants, or of blue for the heavens. I may intimate in passing, that in my opinion it is hardly possible to pass more than an approximative judgment on the sense of color in Homer, but I think the estimate of it given by Magnus is liberal rather than the reverse.
With this comparatively early axquisition of the sense of redness, Magnus connects the prominence which that color acquired both in the initial stages of the painter's art, and in the costumes of high personages. It had as it were got a start, and had the first possession of the ground which, in costume particularly, it has retained. But we must remember that, in public exhibition and ceremonial, it is, from its luminous character, highly satisfactory to the eye.
The characteristic of the third stage is the recognition of colors which in point of luminouness belong to neither extreme, but are in a mean: he refers to green with its varieties. The clear and bright green he regards as a next onward step from yellow; but the dark green is classed as belonging to the dark family in general. At this point we are reminded of what seems to be the greatest difficulty of the entire subject. We find its lines traverse one another; the light and dark, within the limits of each particular color, giving us one scale of comparison, while the colors as such present another, and the two scales having no common measure. Nay, it may even seem that each color is capable of being deepened into black, by a road of its own, without passing through the other colors. But, making these remarks as I pass, I proceed with the historical outline.
* Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, B. I., s.89.
*2 Magnus, II, p.12.In the fourth stage of the development, we find an acquaintance with blue begin to emerge.This is a stage not even now reached universally. "Bastian relates* that in Burmah a striking confusion between blue and green is a perfectly common phenomenon, which in fact attracts the attention of strangers arriving there, in a manner thoroughly surprising."*2 A like confusion is sometimes observable among ourselves as to these two colors when seen by candle-light, in the case of persons who have not, in any degree, the specific defect of color-blindness.
Our author next gives his adhesion to the Newtonian doctrine, and finds the law of that progression, which has now been traced, in the wealth or poverty of living force possessed by the respective colors, which determines their early or late admission to the list of things perceived by the average man. Thus red begins, blue and violet close, the scale; and the retina, gradually trained to a higher susceptibility, grasps at length with ease what formerly and long eluded it.
* II, p. 13.
*2 Magnus II, p. 16.
*3 I., p.38.By way of illustration, he considers the manner in which the ancients have treated the rainbow. Homer deals with it, he thinks,* as one-colored, red or purple ([---], II. xvii. 547); so does the Arabic, which describes it as nadathon, red, and applies the same phrase to the sunset and sunrise. Also as castalanijjathon, with the same meaning and applications. The reader will observe how we again strike upon the "stone of stumbling." How were men led to equate the color-impression from the rainbow with that from the morning and evening glow? So, about 600 B.C., we find Ezekiel (i. 27-8) in a similarly backward state. I quote the English version: "I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about." Which cannot be explained but by supposing that, for the eye of the prophet, red was the fundamental, and exclusively prevailing color of the rainbow. But I shall have to show that this was a point which Homer, living, as I think, many centuries earlier, had by no means reached. Magnus, now passing beyond it, brings us to Xenophanes, who sees in the rainbow the several hues of red (phoinikeon), purple (porphureon), and yellow-green (chloron). In Aristotle it is still tri-color; but, with red and green, blue is now set forth as a substantive color. Ovid (Met. vi. 65-7) treats it as of a thousand colors, with shades hardly distinguishable each from its next neighbor, but with extremes very remote from one another. Him Seneca seems to follow. But Aristotelian triad of colors is reproduced by Suidas and Galen; is found in the Edda and in Varahamihira; in the Arabian literature, and in the West down to the opening of modern times,*2 notwithstanding the struggle of the improving sense to assert itself, at least by recognizing minor shades as innumerable. Finally Newton appears on the scene, and establishes the scientific (yet not undisputed) doctrine of color. Throwing back one glance as far as the Augustan age, we see Virgil (Æn. iii. 63-4) using cæruleus, blue, in a sense interpreted by Servius as equivalent to niger, and not capable of being rendered more mildly than by the word "dark."*3 Statius, Juvenal, and Valearius Flaccus may be quoted to the same effect. The details concerning the rainbow are treated by Magnus as a verifying formula for the general doctrine.
I now come to consider and present the Homeric materials.
It has been said above that there is difficulty in determining with any precision the true bounds of Homer's perception of color. Prolonged examination moves me rather to reduce than no extend former estimates. I find that the more we treat, as a general rule, what are apparently his words of color as quantitative expressions of light or its opposite, the nearer do we come to the establishment of harmony and coherence in his terminology. With regret, but in deference to truth, I find it safe to lean to this canon of interpretation. Perhaps, in thus exhibiting the narrow range of his [---] or material, I am doing a special homage to his transcendent genius. If without the aids of lengthened history, of wider survey of the earth and man, of long heredtary development of the organs, he has achieved his present results, what would he have accomplished had he been possessed of the vast and varied apparatus of all kinds which we enjoy! And what have natural selection, and the survival of the fittest, with their free play through three thousand years, done for us, who at an immeasurable distance are limping afgter him, amidst the laughter, I sometimes fear, of the immortal gods?
To pass at once in medias res. The epithets which are even apparently true epithets of color in Homer are but few, although they are apparently multiplied by the fact that some of them have a large progeny. For example, we have phoinix (II. xxiii. 454), phoinceis (II. xii. 202), phoinos (II. xvi. 159), phoinios (Od. xviii. 96), phoinikoies (II. x. 133, et al.) phoinikopareos (Od. xi. 124, xxiii. 271), and finally daphoinos (II. ii. 308), with its verb daphoineo (II. xviii. 538).
In speaking of true color, I here strike out of view the extremes of white, with brightness, on the oe side, and of black, with darkness, on the other.
When we proceed to examine these words of color, we find that the poet's sense of color was not only narrow, but also vague, and wanting in discrimination.
Take first the word phoinix. We are introduced to it as a substantive, describing a material which was used as a dye for ivory; and it is made the subject of a comparison with the blood of Menelaos flowing forth upon his flesh (II. iv. 141). So far so good. With this some other passages agree. But in the games the word describes the color of a horse (xxiii. 454), who was phoinix all over, but had a white spot, like the moon, on the forehead. The same epithet sits very ill upon blood and the bay color of a horse; nor would it mend the matter if we were to render the word chestnut. It is a new difficulty to connect these senses of the word with Od. vi. 163, where it means the palm.
Passing to the other members of the family, we find applied to blood phoenecis (II. xii. 202, 220), phoinos (II. xvi. 159), phonikoeis (xxiii. 716), daphoineo (II. xviii. 538).
Of these words the three first named are used in no other connection. But daphoinos, the adjective, is used in II. ii. 308 for the back of a serpent; and thus we are thrown back at once from the color red, the near neighbor of light, and from blood associated with it, upon blackness or darkness, at the other end of the scale. If more evidence on this word be desired, we find it applied in II. xi. 474 to jackals, and in II. x. 23 to the skin of a lion, which could hardly be either black or red, except upon a sign-post.
So again, phoinikoeis is principally used for a cloak or mantle (II. x. 133, et al.). Now it is pretty certain that these were not red; because Homer never once applies to them the word [---], or any other word directly connected with that color.
Durther, we have phoinikopareos applied to the painted bows of a ship (Od. xi. 123, xxiii. 272). It is commonly supposed that this means red, and agrees with the word [---] (II. ii. 627), which is rendered vermilion. Now, whatever this word meant, it seems to have been descriptive no only of the twelve ships of Odusseus, as in this place, but of ships in general; for in Od. ix. 125 we are told that [---] are not found among the Kuklopes. But, proceedng a step further, we find not only that the favorite phrase of Homer for ships is "black ships," but that he has another epithet for the pwos much more distinctive than the two compound words already quoted, namely kuanoproros, with pronzed or dark prows, which he uses no less than thirteen times, agains twice for each of the other two. Consequently the strongest presumption arises that phoinikopareos and miltopareos mean for him the same thing as kuanoproros. And to set the matter at rest we find that, while all the twelve ships of Odusseus have called miltopareoi in II. ii., we have kuanoproros applied to his ship in Od. ix. 432, 539, x. 127, and elsewhere.
From these difficulties we are of course tempted to escape by generalizing the sense, and interpreting the words as only having the force of dark at large. But this way is in some degree stopped against us; for (a) we are thus travelling at once from red, the strongest light color, down to the opposite of light; and (b) brightness is directly and strongly associated with the present root in II. vi. 219, vii. 305, Od. cciii. 201, where it is distinctly applied to a girdle or a stripe of leather [---], bright with the dye called phoinix.
If we pass on to the important word porphureos, we shall find it not less embarrassing. Of all the color-words this, with its verb [---], has the largest and most varied application in Homer. They are used, in all, thirty-two times. The verb [---], like the adjective [---], is employed to describe mental operations and [---] is also applied to immaterial subjects. We find it placed in connection with -
1. clothing:
[---], carpets (II. ix, 200, Od. xx. 278).
[---], blankets (II. xxiv. 643).
[---], the mantle (Od. xix. 225).
[---], the cloack (II, viii. 221, Od. viii. 85).
[---], female robe (II, xxiv. 796).
[---], a web (II. iii. 124, xxii. 441).
2. The Rainbow (II. xvii. 547).
3. Blood (II. xvii. 361.)
4. A cloud (II, xvii. 552).
5.
The sea (II. xvi. 381).
The wave (II. i. 482, xxi. 326; Od. ii. 428, sea or river).
The sea darkening ([---], II.xiv. 16).
6. The ball for play in Scheria (Od. viii. 373).
7. Death (II. v. 83, xx. 477, xvi. 334).
8. The mind in painful apprehension (II. xxi. 552), or perplexity (Od. iv. 427, 572, x. 398); ([---]),
9. Lastly, the wool on Kalupso's distaff is of the porphurean of the sea, [---] (Od. vi. 53); also on Arete's distaff (ibid. 306); and garments made of it (Od. xiii. 108) are the same.
Upon examining this remarkable phrase in its several applications, I think it is clear -
a) That in many cases the idea to be conveyed is undeniably that of darkness.
b) That in no one case can we positively affirm it to be a color-epithet, as contradistinguished from a light-epithet.
In proof of the first I cite the figurative application like [---] to death, and as it seems only to bloody death; and to painful rumination, in which it recalls the [---]; and to a dark cloud.
Again, the light robes cast over the body of Hector in II. xxiv. are porpureoi. Now we know, from the case of thetis (II. xxiv. 93) after the death of Patroclos, that dark vestments were even thus early used in connection with death, and evidently by way of mourning. Such then were, in all likelihoood, these peploi.
Again, the rainbow is porphuree. But, it may be asked, did Homer, like the Arabians, mean brightness by this phrase? Evidently not. For, firstly, we may remark that to his personal Iris he never attaches an epithet either of color or of light. The nearest to it is aellopous, strom-footed. He might have said, if he had liked, ray-footed. But more; he mentions the physical phenomenon in one other passage, II. xi. 23, where the three serpents on the breastplate of Agamemnon are compared to rainbows, but are also called [---], bronzed, or of bronze; an expression which I think settles the question, and shows that the bow for Homer's eye was dark; the indigo and violet were mor, for his perception, than the red, orange, and yellow.
Further, I cannot doubt that, when the poet applies porphureon to the sea, he so applies it as an image of darkness. It is (II. xiv. 16) the sea darkening for a storm: again, we have the roaring water of Scamandros when angry and in flood (II. xxi. 386); and the sea swollen by furious rivers (II. xvi. 391).
Besides all this, we have to consider that, if he did not mean the dark lowering color of the sea, be it green or brown, and intended to convey brightness, this would be a blue brightness. But blue is a color weak in light; and of a blue brightness Homer nowhere shows the smallest idea. The negative proof becomes overwhelming, when we consider that, living under a Mediterranean sky, he never calls that sky by the name blue.
This argument covers the wool on the distaff and the garments made of it; and presumably the other objects named, such as vestments. I doubt, indeed, if any one case Homer gives us a vestment bright by color. In Od. xxiv. 147 we have the web of Penelope, bright, not with color, but with light, "as the sun or the moon is bright." It is, however, when she has just washed it, and when it carries some gloss of light. And hence it is that in the mourning-time of Laertes he does not, we are told, use bright coverlids or blankets. The meaning appears to be that, being in sadness, he did not use fresh, bright, glossy, well-kept garments; and this appears to be in exact conformity with the force of the epithet sigaloenta (Od. xi. 189), here used to denote brightness.
I will pass now to what I take to be in itself the best approach to a true, genuine color-epithet in Homer, namely the word [---]. No garment in Homer is eruthos, or red. Of purple as a color, the weakest of all as it is in luminosity, Homer could plainly have no idea. But what is strange is that even his idea of red does not seem to be wholly distinct, as we shall find in considering the family of epithets, of which eruthos is the head.
Here the poet is so far on the right road, that he takes hold of a word which is meant to signify color in itself, and not merely as residing in some object which is taken for the standard. He deals with redness; and not with rosiness or roselike-ness. I doubt whether so much can be said of any other word in the poems except xanthos.
Eruthos is applied to -
1. Copper (II. ix. 365).
2. Nectar (II. xix. 38; Od. v. 93).
3. Wine (Od. v. 165; ix. 163, 208, xii. 19, 327, xiii. 69, xvi. 444).
4. Blood in [---] (II. x. 484, xxi. 21).
The favorite use of the word, it will bow be seen, is for wine: including nectar, we have it thus applied in nine cases out of a total of only twelve. This is very remarkable; because wine is not of a redness proper, ut only approximative, and which a decided infusion of the idea of darkness. Accordingly, we find that Homer has but one other epithet of color for wine, namely [---], and this belongs to a family in which (infra) the notion of darkness predominates.
Again, we may observe of the application of eruthos to copper, that this metal is rather freely associated with color-phrases. It is called
aithops eleven times ... Dark epithet;
enops three times ... Bright epithet;
norops eight times ... -"-
and he has splendid descriptions of the effulgence of the copper-wrought arms; as in
[---] - II. xix. 362,
No one of Homer's best color-associations in with [---], as he acalls the red blazing heaven the copper heaven (II. v. 504, xvii. 425); but this very word helps to show us the determined predominance of the light-perception over the color-perception, when he so many times uses for it both epithets of brightness and epithets of darkness, which have thei only possible meeting-point in the notion of light affused or withdrawn.
Again we have, as might be expected, the notion of red twice applied to blood, which he also once calls phoinion and once porhureon. But his favorite epithets of color for blood are all epithets of blackness; [---], II. iv. 140, and in six other places; [---], II. i. 303, and in nine other places; most of all [---], II. iv. 149, and in eleven other places.
We have also, as place-names in the catalogue Eruthrai and Eruthinai, probably with reference to the brown red of sandstone soil or rock (II. ii. 499, 855).
Thus even the red of Homer, represeted by [---], is in the great majority of instances associated with dark rather than with bright.
Passing now to the rose, we find it supply the staple epithet for morning; rhododactulos, rose-fingered. There is no direct point of contact between Homer's expressions taken from the rose, and eruthos; as they are never applied to the same objects. A very pale reddish pink, far removed from ruddiness, seems to be indicated in this epithet; and its application, we should remember, is to the dawn, not the day. It is doubtful whether the whiteness, or the redness, which are here combined, contributed most to fashion the poet's perception. Probably the whiteness, as I judge from the only other indication he has afforded as to his notion of the rose. It is in the curious phrase rosy oil, rhodoen elaion, which was used to anoint hte body of Hector, II, xxiii, 186. Here we can trace no greater resemblance to the rose than the glossy shine of oil: again an instance of the dominance of the light-sense, of the rudeness and feebleness of the color-sense.
Upon the whole, perhaps the best and truest acknowledgment of pure color in the poems is conveyed, through indirectlym in a reference to the human form, by the epithet kallipareos, fair-cheeked. This rather favorite word is applied by Homer to the following persons, all certainly or presumably beautiful: -
1. Chruseis (II. i. 143).
2. Briseis (II, i. 134).
3. Theano, the priestess of Athene (II. xi. 224).
4. Diomede, the war-concubine of Achilles (II. ix. 665).
5. Helen (Od. xv.23).
6. The goddes of Themis (II. xv. 87).
7. The goddess of Leto (II. xxiv. 607).
8. The saucy Melantho (Od. xviii, 320).
9. Penelope, in [---] (Od. xix. 91, 208).
We have here to consider what are the distinct hues of Homer's men and his women. We find him apply the name of Melas to a Greek of rank (II. xic. 117). Odusseus, on his restoration to beauty by Athene, becomes melanchoies (Od. xvi. 171(. The Melanochrös of his herald in Od. xix. 246, does not seem to bear any different sense. Homer's melas means dark rather than black, and is itself but indefinite; we are obliged to take these words as referring to an olive complexion. But, in his women, whiteness is commended. Penelope (xviii. 195) is whiter than ivory. Like Here and Andromache in the Iliad, and even like Helen herself, the attendant maidens, in Od. xviii. 197, are [---], white-armed. To the beauty of this white skin, color in the cheek is the proper supplement; nor is it easy to see on what other maked ground the cheek should be selected as a part so characteristic. This, then, is rosy or red color, and it is perhaps the best example in the poems of a normal relation between the perception, the expression, and the object.
I take now the difficult word [---] with its cognates aithos, aithe, Aithiopes and aithaloies: also with [---], wine-dark according to Liddell and Scott, which, in this rare case unable wholly to follow them, I take to be kindred in sense to aithops. I begin with oinops, wine-colored.
Oinops is applied to no more than two objects; and only to one of these two with any frequency. It is used twice of oxen, in II. xiii. 703, and Od. xiii. 32. But of the sea it may be called a stock epithet, being so employed eighteen times. Now we have already found, in arguing the case of porpuhureos, that the sea-epithets of tint are dark, though without positive color. Such, therefore, is the probable sense of oinops with the sea. This sense is supported by its special associations: as with the mental sadness of Achilles gazing over it, II. i. 350 and xxiii. 143; with the word [---], in II. v. 770-1; and with the state of the sea under a rattling breeze at night, Od. ii. 421.
Again it is plain that we cannot associate oinops with any one leading color specifically. The only question, in reference to wine, would be whether it meant the brightness of sparkling wine. But this kind of brightness is totally inapplicable to the [---]. As they cannot be white, and are not sparling, they must be dark. Oinops, then, means dark in this case also.
Having thus found the color of Homer's wine as it presented itself to his eye, we are in a better condition to judge of any epithets of color which he applies to it. There are only two, eruthos and aithops. It has already been found that eruthos, with wine, carries the notion of darkness rather than light; it is therefore unlikely that the other staple epithet should not greatly correspond with it. Yet there is an element of doubt in the case. Aithops seems t o be applied to dark objects, but commonly to such dark or dull objects as are capable of brightness by reflecting light. Thus it is a favorite epithet of chalkos, to which it is applied eleven times, and chalkos is one of the few Homeric words which decidedly lean to epithets of brightness, such as enops and norops. I do not therefore identify aithops, as applied to wine, with oinops. It includes the element of light; but it includes also the element of darkness, for we have it applied to yet the third subject, namely, smoke (Od. x. 152).
When we look to kindred words, we find them bearing witness on both sides, and thus illustrating the dualism of idea; the brightness of lights which impinge upon a dark subject.
The adjective [---], for example, is applied to
Iron (II. iv. 485, et al.),
Eagle (II. xv. 690),
Oxen, bull (II. xvi. 488; Od. xviii. 371),
where the sense of darkness, subsisting in various degrees, appears obvious. But an opposite idea, that of brightness produced by rays of light falling on a dead surface, is presented by its application to -
1. The lion (II. x. 23, et al.),
and more especially to -
2. tHE COPPER CAULDRON (II. ix. 123); also the tripod (II. xxiv. 233).
But again: the dark element prevails in Aithiopies, for the Ethiopian nation, with whom is associated Poseidon the dark-haired god (Od. i 22); probably in the horse Aithon (II. viii. 184) and the mare Aithe (II. xxiii. 295), for the horses could hardly sparkle, though the horse Lampos (II. viii. 185) might shine in the sense of Virgil, -
Quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos. - Æn. vi.
Again aithaloeis applied to dark or sooty beams of a roof, II. ii. 415, and Od. xxii. 239; and to tephre, ash, in II. xviii. 23, which in v. 25 is at once called melaina. But in the word aither for the atmosphere, in aithein, used for the lightning of a fire, and in aithousa, the open portico of colonnade of a mansion, the element of light prevails; not, however, and element of color. So it is, that we are buffered about in the attempt to deal with this the most difficult and unmanageable group of all the color of light-words of Homer.
It is not necessary to dwell long upon kuancos. I conceive it to mean (1) made of, (2) in hue like to, bronze. In the latter sense it is applied -
1. To the eyebrows of Zeus and Here (II. i. 528, xv. 102, xvii. 209).
2. To a dark cloud (II. v. 345, xx. 418, xxiii. 188).
3. To the hair of Hector (II. xxii. 402); to the beard of Odusseus restored to beauty (Od. xvi. 176); agreeing apparently with his hyacinthine hair (Od. vi. 231).
4. To the serried mass of the Greek and Trojan armies as they move (II. iv. 281, xvi. 66).
5. To the mourning garments of Thetis. Her veil is kuaneon; and the poet adds [---] (II. xxiv. 94). Nothing could be more black than this garment; and yet, in II. iv. 277, we have a cloud black as pitch.
6. To the sea-sand just left bare by the water (Od. xii. 243).
Further, in compounds -
1. To hair, of Poseidon (II. xiii. 563. xv. 174, et al.); to a mare (II. xx. 224).
2. Amphitrite, as the sea (Od. xii. 60).
3. To a ship's prow (II- xv. 693, et al.).
There are also various cases in which a question may be raised whether homer intends to signify the metal, or merely the color belonging to the metal.
1. The breasplate of Agamemnon, which has ten layers of black kuanos ([---]), together with twelve of gold and twenty of tin, carries likewise on each side three serpents called kuancoi (II. xi. 26). The change of form from the genitive to the adjective will be observed; it might possibly indicate the transition from the metal to the mere color without the metal. It should be remembered that the chruseos of Homer for the most part means not golden but gilded, and his argureos in like manner silver-plated.
2. On the belt of Agamemnon (ibid. 38, 39,) which is argureos, there is another serpent which is kuaneos.
3. On the shield of Achilles, round the golden vineyard and the silver stakes, is a trench called kuanee (II. xviii. 564).
4. The foot of a finely-wrought table is signified by the epithet kuanopeza (II. xi. 628).
Upon the whole it may be most likely that in all these four places the metal is indicated, and not the color only. But this dies not affect the argument, for it is clear that the poet has the contrast of light and dark in his eye, and that kuanos supplies the dark tint as agains silver, gold, and tin, and also against copper in Od. vii. 87. I think it almost certain that kuanos is bronze, which is normally dark and not bright. But whatever it be, it is clearly assigned, in respect of color, to the dark family by its association with the hair of Poseidon, the mourning garment, the based sea-sand, the sea itself, and the cloud. It is clear, indeed, that the word when applied to the ship's prow means something separate, as to hue, from the ship itself, which is always melas. But the word wholly refuses to lend itself to anything but what is more or less dark, and of degrees in dark and light there is no doubt that Homer had a substantive, if not a very minute, conception.
*) The learned Archimandrite Myriantheus, in his work on ancient Cyprus (with which the Greeks were in close communication), observes of a Cypriote river; [---], p. 6. Athena, 1868.This last proposition is illustrated by the fact that the violet did not escape the notice of Homer, and that, like the hyacinth named but once, it is clearly associated by him with the dark tribe. Thrice we have the sea declared to be violet-colored, ioeides, in II. ix. 298, Od. v. 55, xi. 106. But it is quite plain from what we have already seen that this means the dark sea, not the bright; therefore the brown or dark-green sea, not the blue. Then we have ioeis, violet-like, used as an epithet (II. xxiii. 850) for iron. This is manifestly dark, but not with a deep darkness. We have the iron heaven (sidereos, Od. xv. 328), in contrast undoubtedly with the burnished copper heaven, but meaning what we should call grey. Finally, we have the kindred word iodnephes applied to wool in Od. iv. 135. There can be little question that this is dark wool: first, from the sense forced upon us by iocides; secondly, from the fact that the distaff and teh wool are presents made to Helen in Egypt (ibid. v. 130), and all our southern associations of color are ineradicably dark; as the hair of Poseidon, the wool on the distaffs of Kalupso and Arete, the bulls offered to Poseidon (Od. iii. 6), and the ram promised for a sacrifice to Teiresias (Od. xi. 33).* It is plainly the wool of a dark-brown ram that the poet has in view, or else a wool dyed to a deep purple, which is not an unlikely interpretation.
The work xanthos in Homer I think resembles eruthos in being a thoroughly true word of color, though imperfectly conceived. I conceive it principally to represent orange in the scale of the spectrum, and so far probably to agree with phoinix. He found that color represented for his eye in chestnut or auburn, and in bay. It is remarkable that Homer is so limited in his applications of this word; and they are more consistent in proportion. He uses it principally for hair, male and female, as of Menelaos, passim; for the coat of horses (II. ix. 407) generally; and also as represented in the horse Xanthos; and finally in the name of the river Xanthos, a strong and often turbid stream, though likewise called by him silver-eddying, argurodines (II. xxi. 8, 130).
I conceive that we have now done with the Homeric adjectives and phrases of color, as contradistinguished from those of light. In Argos, marmareos, marmairon, there is plainly no idea conveyed except that of light. On one or two exceptional cases I shall remark further on. But I must notice here two words, which might at first sight be set down as epithets of colour, namely, polios and chloros. I take first the case of chloros, which has the stronger pretensions of the two.
The derivation of the word is from chloe, herbage. But it is plain, from the applications of it, that green was not on the list of Homer's colors. If I am to choose an English equivalent for the phrase, it will be pale: and pale is not properly an epithet of color so much as of light, although there may perhaps be detected in it a very faint inkling, so to speak, of yellow.
Including two derivatives, namely, Chloris, the wife of Neleus (Od. xi. 281), and chloreis, which is applied to the nightingale, the word is used nineteen times in Homer. Ten times metaphorically, as an epithet of fear. Twice for the paleness derived from fear (II. x. 376 and xv. 4); uses which give us the basis of the metaphor just named. Twice for honey (II. xi. 630, Od. x. 234); twice for the olivewood club of Polyphemos (Od. ix. 320, 379); one for the twigs used by Eumaios to make a "shakedown" bed for Odusseus (Od. xvi. 47). In these five cases, freshness and not color seems to be the idea. If we strive to give the sense of color, we find there is none that will cover them in common; yellow suiting in some cases, green in others, neither of the two in all.
* Liddell and Scott, in voc. Buchholz Homerische Realien, I. ii. 122.
*2 Bolton's "British Songbirds," ii. 22.The word chloreis has been the subject of much dispute. There is a temptation to give it the very poetical sense of greenwood-lowing; an epithet peculiarly suitable to the nightingale, which delights in copses, the greenest of all greenwoods. But the balance of authority* attaches the phrase to the hue or aspect of the bird; and when so attached it loses all definite idea of color. Bolton finds the color of the nightingale require a long description. "The head and back of a plain tawny, dashed with olive; the tail is of a deep tawny red; the throat, breast, and upper part of the belly are of a light glossy ash color; the lower part nearly white; the exterior parts of the quill-feathers are of a dull reddish brown; the interior of brownish ash-color."*2 Evidently enough, Homer's idea in this matter could not but be most vague and dim.
Chloros then, so far as it has a visual meaning, is a light-epithet rather than a color-epithet.
The word polios is a stock adjective for the sea, II. i. 350, and in twenty-three other places. Foam is the mere accident of the sea: and we must, I think, consider the epithet as drawn from its general and standing character. I should render it grey; and I take this word to indicate not a color proper, though we may now apply it to various - mixtures of colors, but a quantitative composition, midway, so to speak, between white and black.
*) Goldsmith, ii. 258, 268.The word is also applied -
1. To the human hair in old age (II. xxii. 74, xxiv. 516).
2. To iron (II. ix. 336, xx. 261; Od. cci. 381, xxiv. 167).
3. To the hide of a wold, which Dolon (II. x. 334) put on for his nocturnal expedition. Treating Dolon as a simpleton, the poet may have meant that he put on a white hide, which would make him visible; but perhaps this idea is far-fetched, an we must take grey, I suppose, as the dominant color of the wolf. "his color is a mixture of black, brown, and grey;" but there are also white wolves.*
The idea of whiteness is totally inapplicable to iron. But in any case it seems plain, that the conception exhibited by the polios of Homer is simply a mode of light.
By way of completion of this survey, it may be interesting to examine in exact detail the statistics of color, so to speak, taken from some sufficiently extended portions of the poems.
I select for this purpose the last ten books of the Odyssey, which contain 4,924 lines, and the last eight of the Iliad, which contain rather more, namely 5,131 lines. I begin with the Odyssey.
In the ten books, I count 133 epithets or phrases, which relate either to color, or to light and its opposite, or its modifications.
I. I fist deduct the epithets and phrases of brightness and darkness, and show the proportion which they form of the whole.
OF BRIGHTNESS.
[---] a robe (xv. 108) ... 1 times
[---] bright or flashing eyed Athene ... 18
[---] a mantle (xxiv. 148) ... 1
[---] dazzling (xxiv. 466, 499) ... 2
[---] wild boar (xix. 446) ...1
[---] bright - tunic, apartment, rug; in xix. 242 likened to the sin of a dried onion ... 9
[---] flash of copper (xvii. 437) ... 1
[---] used of the sun (xxii. 388) ... 1
[---] bright - used for a bowl, a brooch, a quiver, polished leather ... 7
[---] Aphrodite (xvii. 37, xix. 53) ... 2
[---] Eos ... 6
---
Total 49
OF DARKNESS.
[---] smutty - roof-beam (xxii.239) ... 1 times
[---] dark - of night (xv. 50) ... 1
[---] Erebus-like - the earth (xxiv. 106) ... 1
[---] dark - ways to the under-world (xx. 65) ... 1
---
Total 4
II. I next deduct the epithets of whiteness and blackness, as neither properly designates color. Argos and argennos, thought originally referable to motion and the light resulting from it, seem to have acquired in these cases the sense of white.
WHITENESS.
[---] white - a goose (xv. 161) ... 1 times
[---] white - sheep (xv. 472) ... 1
[---] white - Leucadian rock (xxiv. 11) ... 1
[---] white - sails, bones of the dead, wild boar's tusk, sails, arms, Penelope whiter than polished ivory (xviii.196) ... 10
---
Total 13
BLACKNESS.
[---] black - blood (xvi. 441, xix. 447) ... 2 times
[---] dark-skinned - Eurubates the herald (xix. 246) ... 1
[---] black - ship, fate, death, earth (xix. 111); blood, [---] (xxiv. 188); mainland (xxi. 109); evening (xviii. 305) ... 20
---
Total 23
NextI shall deduct the words which indicate the shade of grey, haltway, so to speak, between white and black, but without decomposition, or refraction, and therefore not propperly a color. The epithets used for it in these ten books are three.
1. [---] is here applied to iron (xxi. 3, 81, xxiv. 167); to the sea (xxii. 385, xxiii. 236); to the old (xxiv. 316, 498) ... 7 times
2. [---] , like [---] , [---] is applied to heaven, and if an adjective of color, which is doubtful, means grey (Od. xv. 329).
3. [---] of fresh twigs of brushwood (Od. xvi. 43); metaphorically of ([---]) fear (Od. xxiv. 449, 532); and [---] (xxix. 518): see supra. In all the passages are ... 4
---
Total 12
Thus we have
Epithets of light and dark ... 55 times
" white and black ... 30
" grey ... 12
---
Total 103
Thus there remain some thirty-one cases in nearly five thousand lines, where Homer can be said to introduce the element or idea of color; or about once in one hundred and sixty lines.
The epithets used are
[---] for redness.
[---] for auburn or chestnut.
[---] ; all these words expressing vaguely and confusedly an idea of color based upon red, purple, or brown verging into black.
It will be interesting in connection with the discussion on the identity of authorship for the two poems, and on the theory that the Iliad was produced earlier, the Odyssey later in life, to observe the relative uses of color in the one and the other.
In the last eight books of the Iliad, I find, as nearly as I can reckon, about 208 light and color phrases, as agains 133 in the last ten books of Odyssey. Allowing for an excess of about two hundred lines in the books of the Iliad, we may take the number of light and color phrases in an equal number of lines at two hundred, to be compared with 133 in the Odyssey; or, in other words, the Iliad seems to have, in the same space, three color phrases for two in the Odyssey. I do not think the difference can be wholly accounted for by the domesticity of the subject of the Odyssey. Indeed it should be remembered that in three of the books from the Iliad (xviii., xxiii., xxiv.), containing more than four-ninths of the whole, there are no field operations whatever. This remarkable difference in light and color phrases seems to be in accord with the hypothesis (of course it is nothing more) that the Iliad is the work of the poet's early maturity and more fiery mind and imagination, the Odyssey the production of his later age and less susceptible temperament.
Pursuing the same process with the Odyssean books, I first set out and deduct the phrases which relate only to light and darkness.
[Osio puuttuu]
Light Phrases ... Total 63
Phrases of Darkness ... Total 23
Whiteness ... Total 26
Blackness ... Total 26
The classification of the word [---] is disputable. As applied to dogs, I take it to mean swiftness, for this is a general charasteristic. As applied to oxen, where it cannot mean swift, I render it white, as the occasion (xxiii. 30) is that of a solemn funeral celebration, and Homer has oxen of tin as well as gold (supra) on the shield, and probably drew no broad distinction between the two hues. As, however, the whiteness signified by [---] seems to have applied originally to rapid motion, it might be classed as an epithet of light. There is another question, namely, whether [---] means strenuous oxen.
Again, Homer's idea of darkness passes into that of blackness by such vague shading that the classification on this side is merely one of approximation. But I proceed:
Lastly, I have to deduct what signifies the merely intermediate stage between white and black, namely grey. For this we have
[---] ... 9 times
[---] ... 1
---
10
Thus we have the total of light and color phrases ... 208 times
From which we deduct for
light and dark ... 63 + 23 = 86
white and black ... 26 0 20 = 52
grey ... 10
---
148
Leaving epithets of color proper ... 60
Among these, however, there stand (xix. 400, 404) wto of a doubtful character: balios, meaning dappled or perhaps piebald, and the phrase [---] applied to the horse Xanthos, which, as I contend, means the white foot on a chestnut animal, or as it is familiarly called, the white stocking. These two are hardly to be presented in any other classes, but they evidently belong rather to light than to color in this inquiry. The color phrases, then, may be thus classified: -
Redness is represented by [---] (xix. 38), [---] conveying the same idea (xxi, 21), [---] (xxiv. 6478, 676(, [---] (xxiii. 186(, and [---] (xxiii. 109).
For auburn and chestnut we again have xanthos; applied to the horse of Achilles, the river Scamandros, the hair of Achilles, and especially Menelaos.
And we have [---] (4 times), [---] (6), [---] (2), [---] (1), [---] (9), and the verb [---] (used in xxi. 551 to describe troubled and fearful meditation) as the exponents of that particular idea of color in Homer which was based upon red; and also on purple or brown verging into black.
Let us deviate for a few moments from the subject of color in order to consider the bearing of these facts upon the question whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced by the same or by different minds.
It has long been clear to me that a thorough settlement of this question, which is not free from what I may call surface difficulties, could only be had by the most minute analysis, and comparison of particulars, especially of such particulars as are undesigned. It is too wide to be settled except on a comprehensive basis, and a very diversified scrutiny is required. I do not rely then on a single result; but surely the result before us is not unworthy of notice.
We find in the first place, upon the basis of this examination, that the light and color phrases of the Odyssey, as compared with those of the Iliad, diminish in a ration proportioned to what we might expect from the subjects of the two poems, and the spirit in which they are composed.
Next, on examining the proportion between light-phrases and color-phrases, we find it nearly the same. In the Odyssey, we have 31 color-phrases to 103 light-phrases, somewhat under a third: in the Iliad we have 58 color-phrases to 150 light-phrases, somewhat under a third.
The leading light-phrases are the same in both, [---], with their respective compounds. The phrases for darkness are much more varied in the Iliad; but every word expressing it in the one selected portion is also found in the other except [---]. And here we see how much more stringent is the present mode of comparison, than would be a comparison of the entire poems; for [---] is twice used in other parts of the Iliad (ix. 15, xvi. 4). At the grey or intermediate stage, we have in each poem the same epithets, [---] and [---].
Still more remarkable is the uniformity of material, or mental stock, with which the poet worked, when we come to the epithets of color proper. The fifty-eight phrases of the Iliad are furnished from precisely the same sources as the thirty-one of the Odyssey: The word [---] (still represented in our ruddy), the rose, the beauty of the cheek, [---] and its derivatives, [---], and the well-known family of [---], [---] and [---].
It seems to me manifest that this unity in the expression of light and color raises a presumption in favor of unity of authorship. But only because of the fundamental fact, which in the whole of this paper I wish to exhibit, namely that colors were for Homer not facts but images; his words describing them are figurative words, borrowed from natural objects; in truth, colors are things illustrated rather than described. The word eruthros is in truth a rarity in Homer, from its describing color in the abstract and not as embodied in a particular object. The same may be said of xanthos; but the more common use in Homer by far is to speak of rose-color, wine-color, fire-color, bronze-color, and the like. How would it have been possible, at a time when color was only dealth with by this illustrative method, that two independent poets should light so exactly on the same family of illustrations to supply them with material? There was no fixed terminology of color; and it lay with the grenius of each true poet to choose a vocabulary for himself.
The solution of all our difficulties, as far as a solution can be attained, is in the main, perhaps, one and the same. It is in subordinating, case by case, the question of this or that color to the question of much or little light. The sleek garment freshly washed reflects the light, and is called bright; the same garment used and tumbled ceases to reflect, and is dark. Wine in motion sparkles; held up to the light it glows; withdraw these conditions, and what we call red wine is simply dark, darker indeed than the smoke. The copper arms flash back the sun; their splendor reaches to the heaven and makes the earth to laugh; place the sun behind a cloud, the rutilant effect disappears, the dull, dead face of the metal assumes the tone of the rest of the accountrements, and we have the Homeric phalanxes of bronze. Once more: thus it is that water in Homer commonly has the epithet of black, even the fountain being black-watered; and yet we have the four fountains of Kalupso flowing with white water (Od. v. 70) and the white or pure water (II. xxiii. 282( in which Patroclos used to wash the immortal horses of Achilles. Thus we have to adopt the idea of light and dark as our umpire in all difficulties, our universal solvent. But even in the use of these instruments the poet was elastic, and also ill-defined. the word melas covered many shades of deep red, dark blue, brown, no less than black, even as each one of his winds covered a large arc of the horizon. And his sense of light, however keen, was not critical, or very determinate: a favorite illustration with him as to something brilliant is that it resembles to the sun or moon -
[---]
*) Quint. Smyrn., Posthomerika.But sun-brightness and moon brightness are so different, that no modern poet could use this simile without giving himself over to be torn by the beaks of critics. I suppose that Quintus Smyrnæus was sensible of this inconguity in his model, when he substituted for it that "fond thing," his awkward formula* -
[---]
For what is the aigle of Zeus except the sun from which it is here parted?
and here, in illustration of the great wealth of Homer in the region we have traversed, I may say that this most sedulous and close but inadequate and inamate imitator does not, I think, use above one light of color phrase for ten that we find in Homer.
*) Werke, xxviii. p. 18
*2) Eastlake's translation, p. xlii.
*3) Preface, p. xii.I am not competent to enter into the philosophy of color itself, and the controversi in which Goethe has taken, with his great name, the side opposed to Newton. He has indeed, in his "Farbenlehre," much disparaged our great countryman, whom he seems t oconsider a great mathematician, but in the dark as a naturalist.* He, too, establishes a scale between light and non-light: "Next to light a color appears which we call yellow; another appears next to the non-light, which we call blue. When these in their purest state are so mixed that they are exactly equal, they produce a third color, called green."*2 Condensed and blackened, blue and yellow may become red respectively; blue passing into a blue-red, yellow into a yellow-red. Also red may be produced by mixing; and thus Goethe completes his scale of six colors. Eastlake himself *3 does not admit the division into seven; and quites Professor Leslie of Edinburgh, who thinks that "in the choice of that number Newton was apparently influenced by some lurking disposition towards mysticism," but that four or five principal colors may be named. One observation only I will hazard. It seems as if there were something in Goethe's ideas, how and what I cannot presume to say, which has a point of contact with the phenomena of color as they are represented in Homer. He appears to find a certain affinity between what lies next to light, and what lies next, at the other end of the scale, to not-light. The archaic man, we are to suppose, sets out equipped with one positive perception, namely light, and one negative, namely not-light or darkness. As his organ begins to be trained, it trespasses on the intermediate space, and Homer has already got, after a fashion, his red and orange, his eruthros and his xanthos. But may not the advance in the organ operate in some way at the other end of the scale also? May not the portphureos and the phinikoies be the indications of the invasion of the new religion from that side; and may not this in some manner account for the curious travelling backwards and forwards, so to speak. of so many of Homer's color-epithets, between a read red at the upper end of the scale and some very deep purple at the other? I cannot describe clearly what I admit that I have not conceived clearly, but I am struck with an impression that, at a certain point, the observations of Goethe appear to touch upon the Homeric facts. I do not suggest this as a substitute for the main explanation which I have already suggested, and which views Homer as often using the same phrase for bright-colored and dark-colored objects according to the greater or lesser quantity of light that falls on the surfaces. This he does in regard to his pithets of color and light generally, though less in the case of xanthos than in others. And this he could not have done, but for the fact that the organ was given to him only in its infancy, which is now full-grown in us. So full-grown it is, that a child of three years in our nurseries knows, that is to say sees more of color, than the man who founded for the race the sublime office of the poet, and who built upon his own foundations an edifice so lofty and so firm that it still towers unapproachably above the handiwork now only of common, but even of many uncommmon men.
W. E. Gladstone.
From The Nineteenth Century.
*) Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. iii. sect iv., p. 437.
*2 P. 438. Twenty years go, an examination of the Homeric text led me to what I then thought a very startling conclusion. It was this: that, although Homer had used light in its various forms for his purposes with perhaps greater splendor and effect than any other poet, yet the color-adjectives and color-descriptions of the poems were not only imperfect, but highly ambiguous and confused. It as only after submitting the facts to some very competent judhes that I published in 1858 a section of my Homeric studies,* "On Homer's Perceptions and Use of Color;" for the case appeared to open up questions of great inerest, with respect to the general structure of the human organs, and to the laws of hereditary growth. My proporitions were:*2 -
1. That Homer's perceptions of the prismatic colors, or colors of the rainbow (which depend on the decomposition of light by refraction), and a fortiori of their compounds, were, as a general rule, vague and indeterminate.
2. That we must therefore seek another basis for his system of color.
* P. 488I rejected the supposition, that this was due to any defect in his individual organization: and found that his system of color, or rather his "system in lieu of color," was "founded upon light, and upond darkness, its opposite or negative;" and that "the organ of color" was "but partially developed among the Greeks of his age."* My meaning was susbtantially this; that he operated, in the main, upon a quantitative scale, with white and black, or light and dark, for its opposite extremeties, instead of the qualitative scale opened by the diversities of color.
* Researches on Color Blindness. Edinburgh, 1855. 8vo.
*2 Wilson, oo. 8, 9.
*3 Ibid, p. 10.
*4 P. 11.The curious phenomena of color-blindness had been very recently set forth by Dr. George Wilson.* He considered it in three forms: 1, as inability to discern color at all; 2, to distinguish the nicer shades of the more composite colors, such as brown, greys, and neutral tints; 3. to distinguish between the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, or between these and the secondary or tertiary colors, under which head he names green, purple, orange and brown. The first form, he says, is rare, and perhaps not absolutely ascertained.*2 Color-blindness does not depend upon weakness in the organ: for he mentions the casxe of a woman, who could distinguish no colors, yet "could often read for nearly a quarter of an hour in the greatest darkness." In one family, three persons called all bright tints white, and all dull ones black.*3 A house-painter in Australia could not distinguish colors, but had a good eye for form, and was excellent in designing and drawing. Once, however, he mixed his own colors, and thought he had got the stone tint, but it was found that he was painting the building blue.*4 Painters, days Dr. Wilson, "know how long it is before the most susceptible eye acquires its maximum sensibility to color." But the commonest form of color-blindness appears to be that which confounds red and green. Now these are not neighboring colors in the spectrum. Were it a question only of imperfect development of a sense, it would be shown first and most in inability to distinguish a color from that next to it. But red is separated from green by the intervening spaces of orange and yellow. Color-blindness proper, then, appears to partake of the nature of organic defect. But, as Dr. Wilson has pointed out (and I have had an opportunity of verifying the remark), painters know that there is an education of the eye for color in the individual. The proposition, which I desire to suggest, is that this education subsists also for the race.
Within the last few years, this subject has been freely discussed both in Germany among philologists and physiologists, and likewise among Oriental scholars. I understand the general tendency of the discussions to be in favor of the doctrine that color was little known to the ancients, and that the sense of it has been gradually developed, until it has now become a familiar and unquestioned part of our inheritance. Perhaps one of the most significant relics of the older state of things is to be found in the preference, known to the manufacturing world, of the uncivilized races for strong, and what is called in the spontaneous poetry of trading phrases loud, color.
I shall endeavor to give a view of the subject from Dr. Hugo Magnus, a German inquirer who has recently written on it with great care and ability. He is a physiologist as well as a scholar, and teaches, as Privatdocent in the University of Breslau, on the care and treatment of the eye. He gives some indications of a conflict of opinion which has been manifested in his country. But my principal object, after presenting a sketch of his labors, will be to make a contribution to the stores of material, upon which the questions at issue will ultimately be determined, from the quarter where I feel myself most competent, or least incompetent, to search for it.
I understand from an able Hebraist that the Old Testament offers much evidence of the imperfect conception of color in early times. But I take it that by far the most important magazine of information on this subject is to be found in the Homeric poems: the most important on account of its mass, of its unity, and of that high organization which belongs in a degree to genius in general, and which the text of Homer indisputably proves him to have possessed with regard to the two kindred subjects of motion and form. Treading, therefore, with a bolder and firmer step, than when I had no one within view to lean on, I shall now endeavor to present the results, which are to be obtained from Homer, in a more positive and decided shape: and shall suggest a method of meeting, at least in part, the principal and not inconsiderable difficulties which they bring into view.
Dr. Magnus has published (I.) "Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes" (Leipzig, 1877), and (II.) a tract which partially covers the same ground, and is entitled "Die Entwickelung des Farbensinnes" (Jena, 1877). I shall refer to these tracts as I. and II. respectively.
He observes in his preface on the extreme pauxity of materials supplied by previous labor; and proceeds to anticipate the counter-argument, which some might be disposed to draw from the admitted sharpness of sense in the savage. This sharpness of sense, which may be observed also in the inferior animals, is wholly distinct from a high development of special aptitudes contained within the bounds of each domain. There appears , I would remark, to be a sort of analogy in the relation of the two to the relation between muscular strength and muscular pliability. Homer himself illustrates the argument of Magnus. I have observed that hardly any poet has made such free and effective use of light in general for poetical purposes. Nowhere has he been more bold than in his figure of black pains (II. iv. 117, 191; xv. 394), of the soul purpling in painful apprehension (II. xxi. 551, et al.), of blazing rumor, or battle (II. ii. 93, et al.), and the like. We must presume that his retina was especially sensitive to light and dark; and yet it is in him, too, that we lack the developed sense of color. And we may find an independent analogy in the case of mental gifts; where it will sometimes be found that those who are clearest and strongest in their perception of board outline are endowed with the narrowest capacity for apprehending even essential distinctions. Dr. Magnus quotes Geiger, who published in 1871 on the historical development of man, as pointing out that the dog with his wonderful faculty of scent, had no power of distinction between smells which are agreeable and smells which are offensive. He can deal with quantity only, not with kind, in smell. And so a keen perception of sound is entirely distinct from a good ear for music. As to the sense of smell, I may observe that it would be difficult to find in Homer and instance of its pleasurable exercise except once in relation to the aroma or bouquet of wine (Od. ix. 210); unless we allow that another instance is supplied by the rather carnal idea of the [---], or savor which ascends to heaven from the sacrifices, and which apparently is more related to tasthe than smell. He calls a store-room fragrant (II. iii. 382(, and he calls the growing cypress and oil, oddly enough to our apprehension, by the same name (Od. ii 339, v. 64). He was not, however, insensible to a strong stench, and he mentions with a vigorous and hearty detestation the seals of Proteus: - [---] - Od. iv. 442. He speaks of flowers as tender (Od. ix. 449), white (II. xvii. 56), and hyacinthine, but nowhere as sweet-smelling. And Magnus observes that the frangrance of flowers is nowhere noticed in the Old Testament until we reach the Song of Solomon.
* Newton's Optics.So much for the principle involced. Having drawn the distinction between the elementary activity of one organ, and its higher exhibitions of function, we may now proceed to a brief outline of the facts. And I shall best introduce the general view of Dr. Magnus by quoting Sir Isaac Newton on the scale of colors: "The lights of colors are more refrangible one than another in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, deep violet."*
Dr. Magnus considers that, in the progressive education of the human organ, three colors have been successively disclosed to it, and have by degrees come to be part of its regular perceptions, in the order here given: the order of their greater or less refrangibility, of their wealth or poverty in light. The increase of susceptibility acquired by the retina has become hereditary, and has grown with a long series of generations.
*Magnus, II, p. 8.We will now pass to the stages of the historical development. The startingpoint is, an absolute blindness to color in the primitive man. Anaxagoras, it seems, believed that in the earliest times there was no sence of color at all. The first stage attained is that at which the eye becomes able to distinguish between red and black. Red comes first into our perceptions, because it is the most luminous of the colors; but, says Geiger, in the "Rigveda" white and red are hardly severed.* Greek philosophers, Aristotle in particular, lean to treating colors chiefly as degrees of the luminous and non-luminous, or as mixtures, atomistic or otherwise, of black and white.
* Magnus II, p. 10.In the next stage of the development, the sense of color becomes completely distinct from the sense of light. Both red and yellow, with their shades, that is to say, the red, orange, and yellow of the Newtonian scale, are now clearly discerned. To this stage Magnus* refers the Homeric poems, in which red and yellow colors are set forth, but there is no mention of green or blue; for example of green for trees and plants, or of blue for the heavens. I may intimate in passing, that in my opinion it is hardly possible to pass more than an approximative judgment on the sense of color in Homer, but I think the estimate of it given by Magnus is liberal rather than the reverse.
With this comparatively early axquisition of the sense of redness, Magnus connects the prominence which that color acquired both in the initial stages of the painter's art, and in the costumes of high personages. It had as it were got a start, and had the first possession of the ground which, in costume particularly, it has retained. But we must remember that, in public exhibition and ceremonial, it is, from its luminous character, highly satisfactory to the eye.
The characteristic of the third stage is the recognition of colors which in point of luminouness belong to neither extreme, but are in a mean: he refers to green with its varieties. The clear and bright green he regards as a next onward step from yellow; but the dark green is classed as belonging to the dark family in general. At this point we are reminded of what seems to be the greatest difficulty of the entire subject. We find its lines traverse one another; the light and dark, within the limits of each particular color, giving us one scale of comparison, while the colors as such present another, and the two scales having no common measure. Nay, it may even seem that each color is capable of being deepened into black, by a road of its own, without passing through the other colors. But, making these remarks as I pass, I proceed with the historical outline.
* Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, B. I., s.89.
*2 Magnus, II, p.12.In the fourth stage of the development, we find an acquaintance with blue begin to emerge.This is a stage not even now reached universally. "Bastian relates* that in Burmah a striking confusion between blue and green is a perfectly common phenomenon, which in fact attracts the attention of strangers arriving there, in a manner thoroughly surprising."*2 A like confusion is sometimes observable among ourselves as to these two colors when seen by candle-light, in the case of persons who have not, in any degree, the specific defect of color-blindness.
Our author next gives his adhesion to the Newtonian doctrine, and finds the law of that progression, which has now been traced, in the wealth or poverty of living force possessed by the respective colors, which determines their early or late admission to the list of things perceived by the average man. Thus red begins, blue and violet close, the scale; and the retina, gradually trained to a higher susceptibility, grasps at length with ease what formerly and long eluded it.
* II, p. 13.
*2 Magnus II, p. 16.
*3 I., p.38.By way of illustration, he considers the manner in which the ancients have treated the rainbow. Homer deals with it, he thinks,* as one-colored, red or purple ([---], II. xvii. 547); so does the Arabic, which describes it as nadathon, red, and applies the same phrase to the sunset and sunrise. Also as castalanijjathon, with the same meaning and applications. The reader will observe how we again strike upon the "stone of stumbling." How were men led to equate the color-impression from the rainbow with that from the morning and evening glow? So, about 600 B.C., we find Ezekiel (i. 27-8) in a similarly backward state. I quote the English version: "I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about." Which cannot be explained but by supposing that, for the eye of the prophet, red was the fundamental, and exclusively prevailing color of the rainbow. But I shall have to show that this was a point which Homer, living, as I think, many centuries earlier, had by no means reached. Magnus, now passing beyond it, brings us to Xenophanes, who sees in the rainbow the several hues of red (phoinikeon), purple (porphureon), and yellow-green (chloron). In Aristotle it is still tri-color; but, with red and green, blue is now set forth as a substantive color. Ovid (Met. vi. 65-7) treats it as of a thousand colors, with shades hardly distinguishable each from its next neighbor, but with extremes very remote from one another. Him Seneca seems to follow. But Aristotelian triad of colors is reproduced by Suidas and Galen; is found in the Edda and in Varahamihira; in the Arabian literature, and in the West down to the opening of modern times,*2 notwithstanding the struggle of the improving sense to assert itself, at least by recognizing minor shades as innumerable. Finally Newton appears on the scene, and establishes the scientific (yet not undisputed) doctrine of color. Throwing back one glance as far as the Augustan age, we see Virgil (Æn. iii. 63-4) using cæruleus, blue, in a sense interpreted by Servius as equivalent to niger, and not capable of being rendered more mildly than by the word "dark."*3 Statius, Juvenal, and Valearius Flaccus may be quoted to the same effect. The details concerning the rainbow are treated by Magnus as a verifying formula for the general doctrine.
I now come to consider and present the Homeric materials.
It has been said above that there is difficulty in determining with any precision the true bounds of Homer's perception of color. Prolonged examination moves me rather to reduce than no extend former estimates. I find that the more we treat, as a general rule, what are apparently his words of color as quantitative expressions of light or its opposite, the nearer do we come to the establishment of harmony and coherence in his terminology. With regret, but in deference to truth, I find it safe to lean to this canon of interpretation. Perhaps, in thus exhibiting the narrow range of his [---] or material, I am doing a special homage to his transcendent genius. If without the aids of lengthened history, of wider survey of the earth and man, of long heredtary development of the organs, he has achieved his present results, what would he have accomplished had he been possessed of the vast and varied apparatus of all kinds which we enjoy! And what have natural selection, and the survival of the fittest, with their free play through three thousand years, done for us, who at an immeasurable distance are limping afgter him, amidst the laughter, I sometimes fear, of the immortal gods?
To pass at once in medias res. The epithets which are even apparently true epithets of color in Homer are but few, although they are apparently multiplied by the fact that some of them have a large progeny. For example, we have phoinix (II. xxiii. 454), phoinceis (II. xii. 202), phoinos (II. xvi. 159), phoinios (Od. xviii. 96), phoinikoies (II. x. 133, et al.) phoinikopareos (Od. xi. 124, xxiii. 271), and finally daphoinos (II. ii. 308), with its verb daphoineo (II. xviii. 538).
In speaking of true color, I here strike out of view the extremes of white, with brightness, on the oe side, and of black, with darkness, on the other.
When we proceed to examine these words of color, we find that the poet's sense of color was not only narrow, but also vague, and wanting in discrimination.
Take first the word phoinix. We are introduced to it as a substantive, describing a material which was used as a dye for ivory; and it is made the subject of a comparison with the blood of Menelaos flowing forth upon his flesh (II. iv. 141). So far so good. With this some other passages agree. But in the games the word describes the color of a horse (xxiii. 454), who was phoinix all over, but had a white spot, like the moon, on the forehead. The same epithet sits very ill upon blood and the bay color of a horse; nor would it mend the matter if we were to render the word chestnut. It is a new difficulty to connect these senses of the word with Od. vi. 163, where it means the palm.
Passing to the other members of the family, we find applied to blood phoenecis (II. xii. 202, 220), phoinos (II. xvi. 159), phonikoeis (xxiii. 716), daphoineo (II. xviii. 538).
Of these words the three first named are used in no other connection. But daphoinos, the adjective, is used in II. ii. 308 for the back of a serpent; and thus we are thrown back at once from the color red, the near neighbor of light, and from blood associated with it, upon blackness or darkness, at the other end of the scale. If more evidence on this word be desired, we find it applied in II. xi. 474 to jackals, and in II. x. 23 to the skin of a lion, which could hardly be either black or red, except upon a sign-post.
So again, phoinikoeis is principally used for a cloak or mantle (II. x. 133, et al.). Now it is pretty certain that these were not red; because Homer never once applies to them the word [---], or any other word directly connected with that color.
Durther, we have phoinikopareos applied to the painted bows of a ship (Od. xi. 123, xxiii. 272). It is commonly supposed that this means red, and agrees with the word [---] (II. ii. 627), which is rendered vermilion. Now, whatever this word meant, it seems to have been descriptive no only of the twelve ships of Odusseus, as in this place, but of ships in general; for in Od. ix. 125 we are told that [---] are not found among the Kuklopes. But, proceedng a step further, we find not only that the favorite phrase of Homer for ships is "black ships," but that he has another epithet for the pwos much more distinctive than the two compound words already quoted, namely kuanoproros, with pronzed or dark prows, which he uses no less than thirteen times, agains twice for each of the other two. Consequently the strongest presumption arises that phoinikopareos and miltopareos mean for him the same thing as kuanoproros. And to set the matter at rest we find that, while all the twelve ships of Odusseus have called miltopareoi in II. ii., we have kuanoproros applied to his ship in Od. ix. 432, 539, x. 127, and elsewhere.
From these difficulties we are of course tempted to escape by generalizing the sense, and interpreting the words as only having the force of dark at large. But this way is in some degree stopped against us; for (a) we are thus travelling at once from red, the strongest light color, down to the opposite of light; and (b) brightness is directly and strongly associated with the present root in II. vi. 219, vii. 305, Od. cciii. 201, where it is distinctly applied to a girdle or a stripe of leather [---], bright with the dye called phoinix.
If we pass on to the important word porphureos, we shall find it not less embarrassing. Of all the color-words this, with its verb [---], has the largest and most varied application in Homer. They are used, in all, thirty-two times. The verb [---], like the adjective [---], is employed to describe mental operations and [---] is also applied to immaterial subjects. We find it placed in connection with -
1. clothing:
[---], carpets (II. ix, 200, Od. xx. 278).
[---], blankets (II. xxiv. 643).
[---], the mantle (Od. xix. 225).
[---], the cloack (II, viii. 221, Od. viii. 85).
[---], female robe (II, xxiv. 796).
[---], a web (II. iii. 124, xxii. 441).
2. The Rainbow (II. xvii. 547).
3. Blood (II. xvii. 361.)
4. A cloud (II, xvii. 552).
5.
The sea (II. xvi. 381).
The wave (II. i. 482, xxi. 326; Od. ii. 428, sea or river).
The sea darkening ([---], II.xiv. 16).
6. The ball for play in Scheria (Od. viii. 373).
7. Death (II. v. 83, xx. 477, xvi. 334).
8. The mind in painful apprehension (II. xxi. 552), or perplexity (Od. iv. 427, 572, x. 398); ([---]),
9. Lastly, the wool on Kalupso's distaff is of the porphurean of the sea, [---] (Od. vi. 53); also on Arete's distaff (ibid. 306); and garments made of it (Od. xiii. 108) are the same.
Upon examining this remarkable phrase in its several applications, I think it is clear -
a) That in many cases the idea to be conveyed is undeniably that of darkness.
b) That in no one case can we positively affirm it to be a color-epithet, as contradistinguished from a light-epithet.
In proof of the first I cite the figurative application like [---] to death, and as it seems only to bloody death; and to painful rumination, in which it recalls the [---]; and to a dark cloud.
Again, the light robes cast over the body of Hector in II. xxiv. are porpureoi. Now we know, from the case of thetis (II. xxiv. 93) after the death of Patroclos, that dark vestments were even thus early used in connection with death, and evidently by way of mourning. Such then were, in all likelihoood, these peploi.
Again, the rainbow is porphuree. But, it may be asked, did Homer, like the Arabians, mean brightness by this phrase? Evidently not. For, firstly, we may remark that to his personal Iris he never attaches an epithet either of color or of light. The nearest to it is aellopous, strom-footed. He might have said, if he had liked, ray-footed. But more; he mentions the physical phenomenon in one other passage, II. xi. 23, where the three serpents on the breastplate of Agamemnon are compared to rainbows, but are also called [---], bronzed, or of bronze; an expression which I think settles the question, and shows that the bow for Homer's eye was dark; the indigo and violet were mor, for his perception, than the red, orange, and yellow.
Further, I cannot doubt that, when the poet applies porphureon to the sea, he so applies it as an image of darkness. It is (II. xiv. 16) the sea darkening for a storm: again, we have the roaring water of Scamandros when angry and in flood (II. xxi. 386); and the sea swollen by furious rivers (II. xvi. 391).
Besides all this, we have to consider that, if he did not mean the dark lowering color of the sea, be it green or brown, and intended to convey brightness, this would be a blue brightness. But blue is a color weak in light; and of a blue brightness Homer nowhere shows the smallest idea. The negative proof becomes overwhelming, when we consider that, living under a Mediterranean sky, he never calls that sky by the name blue.
This argument covers the wool on the distaff and the garments made of it; and presumably the other objects named, such as vestments. I doubt, indeed, if any one case Homer gives us a vestment bright by color. In Od. xxiv. 147 we have the web of Penelope, bright, not with color, but with light, "as the sun or the moon is bright." It is, however, when she has just washed it, and when it carries some gloss of light. And hence it is that in the mourning-time of Laertes he does not, we are told, use bright coverlids or blankets. The meaning appears to be that, being in sadness, he did not use fresh, bright, glossy, well-kept garments; and this appears to be in exact conformity with the force of the epithet sigaloenta (Od. xi. 189), here used to denote brightness.
I will pass now to what I take to be in itself the best approach to a true, genuine color-epithet in Homer, namely the word [---]. No garment in Homer is eruthos, or red. Of purple as a color, the weakest of all as it is in luminosity, Homer could plainly have no idea. But what is strange is that even his idea of red does not seem to be wholly distinct, as we shall find in considering the family of epithets, of which eruthos is the head.
Here the poet is so far on the right road, that he takes hold of a word which is meant to signify color in itself, and not merely as residing in some object which is taken for the standard. He deals with redness; and not with rosiness or roselike-ness. I doubt whether so much can be said of any other word in the poems except xanthos.
Eruthos is applied to -
1. Copper (II. ix. 365).
2. Nectar (II. xix. 38; Od. v. 93).
3. Wine (Od. v. 165; ix. 163, 208, xii. 19, 327, xiii. 69, xvi. 444).
4. Blood in [---] (II. x. 484, xxi. 21).
The favorite use of the word, it will bow be seen, is for wine: including nectar, we have it thus applied in nine cases out of a total of only twelve. This is very remarkable; because wine is not of a redness proper, ut only approximative, and which a decided infusion of the idea of darkness. Accordingly, we find that Homer has but one other epithet of color for wine, namely [---], and this belongs to a family in which (infra) the notion of darkness predominates.
Again, we may observe of the application of eruthos to copper, that this metal is rather freely associated with color-phrases. It is called
aithops eleven times ... Dark epithet;
enops three times ... Bright epithet;
norops eight times ... -"-
and he has splendid descriptions of the effulgence of the copper-wrought arms; as in
[---] - II. xix. 362,
No one of Homer's best color-associations in with [---], as he acalls the red blazing heaven the copper heaven (II. v. 504, xvii. 425); but this very word helps to show us the determined predominance of the light-perception over the color-perception, when he so many times uses for it both epithets of brightness and epithets of darkness, which have thei only possible meeting-point in the notion of light affused or withdrawn.
Again we have, as might be expected, the notion of red twice applied to blood, which he also once calls phoinion and once porhureon. But his favorite epithets of color for blood are all epithets of blackness; [---], II. iv. 140, and in six other places; [---], II. i. 303, and in nine other places; most of all [---], II. iv. 149, and in eleven other places.
We have also, as place-names in the catalogue Eruthrai and Eruthinai, probably with reference to the brown red of sandstone soil or rock (II. ii. 499, 855).
Thus even the red of Homer, represeted by [---], is in the great majority of instances associated with dark rather than with bright.
Passing now to the rose, we find it supply the staple epithet for morning; rhododactulos, rose-fingered. There is no direct point of contact between Homer's expressions taken from the rose, and eruthos; as they are never applied to the same objects. A very pale reddish pink, far removed from ruddiness, seems to be indicated in this epithet; and its application, we should remember, is to the dawn, not the day. It is doubtful whether the whiteness, or the redness, which are here combined, contributed most to fashion the poet's perception. Probably the whiteness, as I judge from the only other indication he has afforded as to his notion of the rose. It is in the curious phrase rosy oil, rhodoen elaion, which was used to anoint hte body of Hector, II, xxiii, 186. Here we can trace no greater resemblance to the rose than the glossy shine of oil: again an instance of the dominance of the light-sense, of the rudeness and feebleness of the color-sense.
Upon the whole, perhaps the best and truest acknowledgment of pure color in the poems is conveyed, through indirectlym in a reference to the human form, by the epithet kallipareos, fair-cheeked. This rather favorite word is applied by Homer to the following persons, all certainly or presumably beautiful: -
1. Chruseis (II. i. 143).
2. Briseis (II, i. 134).
3. Theano, the priestess of Athene (II. xi. 224).
4. Diomede, the war-concubine of Achilles (II. ix. 665).
5. Helen (Od. xv.23).
6. The goddes of Themis (II. xv. 87).
7. The goddess of Leto (II. xxiv. 607).
8. The saucy Melantho (Od. xviii, 320).
9. Penelope, in [---] (Od. xix. 91, 208).
We have here to consider what are the distinct hues of Homer's men and his women. We find him apply the name of Melas to a Greek of rank (II. xic. 117). Odusseus, on his restoration to beauty by Athene, becomes melanchoies (Od. xvi. 171(. The Melanochrös of his herald in Od. xix. 246, does not seem to bear any different sense. Homer's melas means dark rather than black, and is itself but indefinite; we are obliged to take these words as referring to an olive complexion. But, in his women, whiteness is commended. Penelope (xviii. 195) is whiter than ivory. Like Here and Andromache in the Iliad, and even like Helen herself, the attendant maidens, in Od. xviii. 197, are [---], white-armed. To the beauty of this white skin, color in the cheek is the proper supplement; nor is it easy to see on what other maked ground the cheek should be selected as a part so characteristic. This, then, is rosy or red color, and it is perhaps the best example in the poems of a normal relation between the perception, the expression, and the object.
I take now the difficult word [---] with its cognates aithos, aithe, Aithiopes and aithaloies: also with [---], wine-dark according to Liddell and Scott, which, in this rare case unable wholly to follow them, I take to be kindred in sense to aithops. I begin with oinops, wine-colored.
Oinops is applied to no more than two objects; and only to one of these two with any frequency. It is used twice of oxen, in II. xiii. 703, and Od. xiii. 32. But of the sea it may be called a stock epithet, being so employed eighteen times. Now we have already found, in arguing the case of porpuhureos, that the sea-epithets of tint are dark, though without positive color. Such, therefore, is the probable sense of oinops with the sea. This sense is supported by its special associations: as with the mental sadness of Achilles gazing over it, II. i. 350 and xxiii. 143; with the word [---], in II. v. 770-1; and with the state of the sea under a rattling breeze at night, Od. ii. 421.
Again it is plain that we cannot associate oinops with any one leading color specifically. The only question, in reference to wine, would be whether it meant the brightness of sparkling wine. But this kind of brightness is totally inapplicable to the [---]. As they cannot be white, and are not sparling, they must be dark. Oinops, then, means dark in this case also.
Having thus found the color of Homer's wine as it presented itself to his eye, we are in a better condition to judge of any epithets of color which he applies to it. There are only two, eruthos and aithops. It has already been found that eruthos, with wine, carries the notion of darkness rather than light; it is therefore unlikely that the other staple epithet should not greatly correspond with it. Yet there is an element of doubt in the case. Aithops seems t o be applied to dark objects, but commonly to such dark or dull objects as are capable of brightness by reflecting light. Thus it is a favorite epithet of chalkos, to which it is applied eleven times, and chalkos is one of the few Homeric words which decidedly lean to epithets of brightness, such as enops and norops. I do not therefore identify aithops, as applied to wine, with oinops. It includes the element of light; but it includes also the element of darkness, for we have it applied to yet the third subject, namely, smoke (Od. x. 152).
When we look to kindred words, we find them bearing witness on both sides, and thus illustrating the dualism of idea; the brightness of lights which impinge upon a dark subject.
The adjective [---], for example, is applied to
Iron (II. iv. 485, et al.),
Eagle (II. xv. 690),
Oxen, bull (II. xvi. 488; Od. xviii. 371),
where the sense of darkness, subsisting in various degrees, appears obvious. But an opposite idea, that of brightness produced by rays of light falling on a dead surface, is presented by its application to -
1. The lion (II. x. 23, et al.),
and more especially to -
2. tHE COPPER CAULDRON (II. ix. 123); also the tripod (II. xxiv. 233).
But again: the dark element prevails in Aithiopies, for the Ethiopian nation, with whom is associated Poseidon the dark-haired god (Od. i 22); probably in the horse Aithon (II. viii. 184) and the mare Aithe (II. xxiii. 295), for the horses could hardly sparkle, though the horse Lampos (II. viii. 185) might shine in the sense of Virgil, -
Quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos. - Æn. vi.
Again aithaloeis applied to dark or sooty beams of a roof, II. ii. 415, and Od. xxii. 239; and to tephre, ash, in II. xviii. 23, which in v. 25 is at once called melaina. But in the word aither for the atmosphere, in aithein, used for the lightning of a fire, and in aithousa, the open portico of colonnade of a mansion, the element of light prevails; not, however, and element of color. So it is, that we are buffered about in the attempt to deal with this the most difficult and unmanageable group of all the color of light-words of Homer.
It is not necessary to dwell long upon kuancos. I conceive it to mean (1) made of, (2) in hue like to, bronze. In the latter sense it is applied -
1. To the eyebrows of Zeus and Here (II. i. 528, xv. 102, xvii. 209).
2. To a dark cloud (II. v. 345, xx. 418, xxiii. 188).
3. To the hair of Hector (II. xxii. 402); to the beard of Odusseus restored to beauty (Od. xvi. 176); agreeing apparently with his hyacinthine hair (Od. vi. 231).
4. To the serried mass of the Greek and Trojan armies as they move (II. iv. 281, xvi. 66).
5. To the mourning garments of Thetis. Her veil is kuaneon; and the poet adds [---] (II. xxiv. 94). Nothing could be more black than this garment; and yet, in II. iv. 277, we have a cloud black as pitch.
6. To the sea-sand just left bare by the water (Od. xii. 243).
Further, in compounds -
1. To hair, of Poseidon (II. xiii. 563. xv. 174, et al.); to a mare (II. xx. 224).
2. Amphitrite, as the sea (Od. xii. 60).
3. To a ship's prow (II- xv. 693, et al.).
There are also various cases in which a question may be raised whether homer intends to signify the metal, or merely the color belonging to the metal.
1. The breasplate of Agamemnon, which has ten layers of black kuanos ([---]), together with twelve of gold and twenty of tin, carries likewise on each side three serpents called kuancoi (II. xi. 26). The change of form from the genitive to the adjective will be observed; it might possibly indicate the transition from the metal to the mere color without the metal. It should be remembered that the chruseos of Homer for the most part means not golden but gilded, and his argureos in like manner silver-plated.
2. On the belt of Agamemnon (ibid. 38, 39,) which is argureos, there is another serpent which is kuaneos.
3. On the shield of Achilles, round the golden vineyard and the silver stakes, is a trench called kuanee (II. xviii. 564).
4. The foot of a finely-wrought table is signified by the epithet kuanopeza (II. xi. 628).
Upon the whole it may be most likely that in all these four places the metal is indicated, and not the color only. But this dies not affect the argument, for it is clear that the poet has the contrast of light and dark in his eye, and that kuanos supplies the dark tint as agains silver, gold, and tin, and also against copper in Od. vii. 87. I think it almost certain that kuanos is bronze, which is normally dark and not bright. But whatever it be, it is clearly assigned, in respect of color, to the dark family by its association with the hair of Poseidon, the mourning garment, the based sea-sand, the sea itself, and the cloud. It is clear, indeed, that the word when applied to the ship's prow means something separate, as to hue, from the ship itself, which is always melas. But the word wholly refuses to lend itself to anything but what is more or less dark, and of degrees in dark and light there is no doubt that Homer had a substantive, if not a very minute, conception.
*) The learned Archimandrite Myriantheus, in his work on ancient Cyprus (with which the Greeks were in close communication), observes of a Cypriote river; [---], p. 6. Athena, 1868.This last proposition is illustrated by the fact that the violet did not escape the notice of Homer, and that, like the hyacinth named but once, it is clearly associated by him with the dark tribe. Thrice we have the sea declared to be violet-colored, ioeides, in II. ix. 298, Od. v. 55, xi. 106. But it is quite plain from what we have already seen that this means the dark sea, not the bright; therefore the brown or dark-green sea, not the blue. Then we have ioeis, violet-like, used as an epithet (II. xxiii. 850) for iron. This is manifestly dark, but not with a deep darkness. We have the iron heaven (sidereos, Od. xv. 328), in contrast undoubtedly with the burnished copper heaven, but meaning what we should call grey. Finally, we have the kindred word iodnephes applied to wool in Od. iv. 135. There can be little question that this is dark wool: first, from the sense forced upon us by iocides; secondly, from the fact that the distaff and teh wool are presents made to Helen in Egypt (ibid. v. 130), and all our southern associations of color are ineradicably dark; as the hair of Poseidon, the wool on the distaffs of Kalupso and Arete, the bulls offered to Poseidon (Od. iii. 6), and the ram promised for a sacrifice to Teiresias (Od. xi. 33).* It is plainly the wool of a dark-brown ram that the poet has in view, or else a wool dyed to a deep purple, which is not an unlikely interpretation.
The work xanthos in Homer I think resembles eruthos in being a thoroughly true word of color, though imperfectly conceived. I conceive it principally to represent orange in the scale of the spectrum, and so far probably to agree with phoinix. He found that color represented for his eye in chestnut or auburn, and in bay. It is remarkable that Homer is so limited in his applications of this word; and they are more consistent in proportion. He uses it principally for hair, male and female, as of Menelaos, passim; for the coat of horses (II. ix. 407) generally; and also as represented in the horse Xanthos; and finally in the name of the river Xanthos, a strong and often turbid stream, though likewise called by him silver-eddying, argurodines (II. xxi. 8, 130).
I conceive that we have now done with the Homeric adjectives and phrases of color, as contradistinguished from those of light. In Argos, marmareos, marmairon, there is plainly no idea conveyed except that of light. On one or two exceptional cases I shall remark further on. But I must notice here two words, which might at first sight be set down as epithets of colour, namely, polios and chloros. I take first the case of chloros, which has the stronger pretensions of the two.
The derivation of the word is from chloe, herbage. But it is plain, from the applications of it, that green was not on the list of Homer's colors. If I am to choose an English equivalent for the phrase, it will be pale: and pale is not properly an epithet of color so much as of light, although there may perhaps be detected in it a very faint inkling, so to speak, of yellow.
Including two derivatives, namely, Chloris, the wife of Neleus (Od. xi. 281), and chloreis, which is applied to the nightingale, the word is used nineteen times in Homer. Ten times metaphorically, as an epithet of fear. Twice for the paleness derived from fear (II. x. 376 and xv. 4); uses which give us the basis of the metaphor just named. Twice for honey (II. xi. 630, Od. x. 234); twice for the olivewood club of Polyphemos (Od. ix. 320, 379); one for the twigs used by Eumaios to make a "shakedown" bed for Odusseus (Od. xvi. 47). In these five cases, freshness and not color seems to be the idea. If we strive to give the sense of color, we find there is none that will cover them in common; yellow suiting in some cases, green in others, neither of the two in all.
* Liddell and Scott, in voc. Buchholz Homerische Realien, I. ii. 122.
*2 Bolton's "British Songbirds," ii. 22.The word chloreis has been the subject of much dispute. There is a temptation to give it the very poetical sense of greenwood-lowing; an epithet peculiarly suitable to the nightingale, which delights in copses, the greenest of all greenwoods. But the balance of authority* attaches the phrase to the hue or aspect of the bird; and when so attached it loses all definite idea of color. Bolton finds the color of the nightingale require a long description. "The head and back of a plain tawny, dashed with olive; the tail is of a deep tawny red; the throat, breast, and upper part of the belly are of a light glossy ash color; the lower part nearly white; the exterior parts of the quill-feathers are of a dull reddish brown; the interior of brownish ash-color."*2 Evidently enough, Homer's idea in this matter could not but be most vague and dim.
Chloros then, so far as it has a visual meaning, is a light-epithet rather than a color-epithet.
The word polios is a stock adjective for the sea, II. i. 350, and in twenty-three other places. Foam is the mere accident of the sea: and we must, I think, consider the epithet as drawn from its general and standing character. I should render it grey; and I take this word to indicate not a color proper, though we may now apply it to various - mixtures of colors, but a quantitative composition, midway, so to speak, between white and black.
*) Goldsmith, ii. 258, 268.The word is also applied -
1. To the human hair in old age (II. xxii. 74, xxiv. 516).
2. To iron (II. ix. 336, xx. 261; Od. cci. 381, xxiv. 167).
3. To the hide of a wold, which Dolon (II. x. 334) put on for his nocturnal expedition. Treating Dolon as a simpleton, the poet may have meant that he put on a white hide, which would make him visible; but perhaps this idea is far-fetched, an we must take grey, I suppose, as the dominant color of the wolf. "his color is a mixture of black, brown, and grey;" but there are also white wolves.*
The idea of whiteness is totally inapplicable to iron. But in any case it seems plain, that the conception exhibited by the polios of Homer is simply a mode of light.
By way of completion of this survey, it may be interesting to examine in exact detail the statistics of color, so to speak, taken from some sufficiently extended portions of the poems.
I select for this purpose the last ten books of the Odyssey, which contain 4,924 lines, and the last eight of the Iliad, which contain rather more, namely 5,131 lines. I begin with the Odyssey.
In the ten books, I count 133 epithets or phrases, which relate either to color, or to light and its opposite, or its modifications.
I. I fist deduct the epithets and phrases of brightness and darkness, and show the proportion which they form of the whole.
OF BRIGHTNESS.
[---] a robe (xv. 108) ... 1 times
[---] bright or flashing eyed Athene ... 18
[---] a mantle (xxiv. 148) ... 1
[---] dazzling (xxiv. 466, 499) ... 2
[---] wild boar (xix. 446) ...1
[---] bright - tunic, apartment, rug; in xix. 242 likened to the sin of a dried onion ... 9
[---] flash of copper (xvii. 437) ... 1
[---] used of the sun (xxii. 388) ... 1
[---] bright - used for a bowl, a brooch, a quiver, polished leather ... 7
[---] Aphrodite (xvii. 37, xix. 53) ... 2
[---] Eos ... 6
---
Total 49
OF DARKNESS.
[---] smutty - roof-beam (xxii.239) ... 1 times
[---] dark - of night (xv. 50) ... 1
[---] Erebus-like - the earth (xxiv. 106) ... 1
[---] dark - ways to the under-world (xx. 65) ... 1
---
Total 4
II. I next deduct the epithets of whiteness and blackness, as neither properly designates color. Argos and argennos, thought originally referable to motion and the light resulting from it, seem to have acquired in these cases the sense of white.
WHITENESS.
[---] white - a goose (xv. 161) ... 1 times
[---] white - sheep (xv. 472) ... 1
[---] white - Leucadian rock (xxiv. 11) ... 1
[---] white - sails, bones of the dead, wild boar's tusk, sails, arms, Penelope whiter than polished ivory (xviii.196) ... 10
---
Total 13
BLACKNESS.
[---] black - blood (xvi. 441, xix. 447) ... 2 times
[---] dark-skinned - Eurubates the herald (xix. 246) ... 1
[---] black - ship, fate, death, earth (xix. 111); blood, [---] (xxiv. 188); mainland (xxi. 109); evening (xviii. 305) ... 20
---
Total 23
NextI shall deduct the words which indicate the shade of grey, haltway, so to speak, between white and black, but without decomposition, or refraction, and therefore not propperly a color. The epithets used for it in these ten books are three.
1. [---] is here applied to iron (xxi. 3, 81, xxiv. 167); to the sea (xxii. 385, xxiii. 236); to the old (xxiv. 316, 498) ... 7 times
2. [---] , like [---] , [---] is applied to heaven, and if an adjective of color, which is doubtful, means grey (Od. xv. 329).
3. [---] of fresh twigs of brushwood (Od. xvi. 43); metaphorically of ([---]) fear (Od. xxiv. 449, 532); and [---] (xxix. 518): see supra. In all the passages are ... 4
---
Total 12
Thus we have
Epithets of light and dark ... 55 times
" white and black ... 30
" grey ... 12
---
Total 103
Thus there remain some thirty-one cases in nearly five thousand lines, where Homer can be said to introduce the element or idea of color; or about once in one hundred and sixty lines.
The epithets used are
[---] for redness.
[---] for auburn or chestnut.
[---] ; all these words expressing vaguely and confusedly an idea of color based upon red, purple, or brown verging into black.
It will be interesting in connection with the discussion on the identity of authorship for the two poems, and on the theory that the Iliad was produced earlier, the Odyssey later in life, to observe the relative uses of color in the one and the other.
In the last eight books of the Iliad, I find, as nearly as I can reckon, about 208 light and color phrases, as agains 133 in the last ten books of Odyssey. Allowing for an excess of about two hundred lines in the books of the Iliad, we may take the number of light and color phrases in an equal number of lines at two hundred, to be compared with 133 in the Odyssey; or, in other words, the Iliad seems to have, in the same space, three color phrases for two in the Odyssey. I do not think the difference can be wholly accounted for by the domesticity of the subject of the Odyssey. Indeed it should be remembered that in three of the books from the Iliad (xviii., xxiii., xxiv.), containing more than four-ninths of the whole, there are no field operations whatever. This remarkable difference in light and color phrases seems to be in accord with the hypothesis (of course it is nothing more) that the Iliad is the work of the poet's early maturity and more fiery mind and imagination, the Odyssey the production of his later age and less susceptible temperament.
Pursuing the same process with the Odyssean books, I first set out and deduct the phrases which relate only to light and darkness.
[Osio puuttuu]
Light Phrases ... Total 63
Phrases of Darkness ... Total 23
Whiteness ... Total 26
Blackness ... Total 26
The classification of the word [---] is disputable. As applied to dogs, I take it to mean swiftness, for this is a general charasteristic. As applied to oxen, where it cannot mean swift, I render it white, as the occasion (xxiii. 30) is that of a solemn funeral celebration, and Homer has oxen of tin as well as gold (supra) on the shield, and probably drew no broad distinction between the two hues. As, however, the whiteness signified by [---] seems to have applied originally to rapid motion, it might be classed as an epithet of light. There is another question, namely, whether [---] means strenuous oxen.
Again, Homer's idea of darkness passes into that of blackness by such vague shading that the classification on this side is merely one of approximation. But I proceed:
Lastly, I have to deduct what signifies the merely intermediate stage between white and black, namely grey. For this we have
[---] ... 9 times
[---] ... 1
---
10
Thus we have the total of light and color phrases ... 208 times
From which we deduct for
light and dark ... 63 + 23 = 86
white and black ... 26 0 20 = 52
grey ... 10
---
148
Leaving epithets of color proper ... 60
Among these, however, there stand (xix. 400, 404) wto of a doubtful character: balios, meaning dappled or perhaps piebald, and the phrase [---] applied to the horse Xanthos, which, as I contend, means the white foot on a chestnut animal, or as it is familiarly called, the white stocking. These two are hardly to be presented in any other classes, but they evidently belong rather to light than to color in this inquiry. The color phrases, then, may be thus classified: -
Redness is represented by [---] (xix. 38), [---] conveying the same idea (xxi, 21), [---] (xxiv. 6478, 676(, [---] (xxiii. 186(, and [---] (xxiii. 109).
For auburn and chestnut we again have xanthos; applied to the horse of Achilles, the river Scamandros, the hair of Achilles, and especially Menelaos.
And we have [---] (4 times), [---] (6), [---] (2), [---] (1), [---] (9), and the verb [---] (used in xxi. 551 to describe troubled and fearful meditation) as the exponents of that particular idea of color in Homer which was based upon red; and also on purple or brown verging into black.
Let us deviate for a few moments from the subject of color in order to consider the bearing of these facts upon the question whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced by the same or by different minds.
It has long been clear to me that a thorough settlement of this question, which is not free from what I may call surface difficulties, could only be had by the most minute analysis, and comparison of particulars, especially of such particulars as are undesigned. It is too wide to be settled except on a comprehensive basis, and a very diversified scrutiny is required. I do not rely then on a single result; but surely the result before us is not unworthy of notice.
We find in the first place, upon the basis of this examination, that the light and color phrases of the Odyssey, as compared with those of the Iliad, diminish in a ration proportioned to what we might expect from the subjects of the two poems, and the spirit in which they are composed.
Next, on examining the proportion between light-phrases and color-phrases, we find it nearly the same. In the Odyssey, we have 31 color-phrases to 103 light-phrases, somewhat under a third: in the Iliad we have 58 color-phrases to 150 light-phrases, somewhat under a third.
The leading light-phrases are the same in both, [---], with their respective compounds. The phrases for darkness are much more varied in the Iliad; but every word expressing it in the one selected portion is also found in the other except [---]. And here we see how much more stringent is the present mode of comparison, than would be a comparison of the entire poems; for [---] is twice used in other parts of the Iliad (ix. 15, xvi. 4). At the grey or intermediate stage, we have in each poem the same epithets, [---] and [---].
Still more remarkable is the uniformity of material, or mental stock, with which the poet worked, when we come to the epithets of color proper. The fifty-eight phrases of the Iliad are furnished from precisely the same sources as the thirty-one of the Odyssey: The word [---] (still represented in our ruddy), the rose, the beauty of the cheek, [---] and its derivatives, [---], and the well-known family of [---], [---] and [---].
It seems to me manifest that this unity in the expression of light and color raises a presumption in favor of unity of authorship. But only because of the fundamental fact, which in the whole of this paper I wish to exhibit, namely that colors were for Homer not facts but images; his words describing them are figurative words, borrowed from natural objects; in truth, colors are things illustrated rather than described. The word eruthros is in truth a rarity in Homer, from its describing color in the abstract and not as embodied in a particular object. The same may be said of xanthos; but the more common use in Homer by far is to speak of rose-color, wine-color, fire-color, bronze-color, and the like. How would it have been possible, at a time when color was only dealth with by this illustrative method, that two independent poets should light so exactly on the same family of illustrations to supply them with material? There was no fixed terminology of color; and it lay with the grenius of each true poet to choose a vocabulary for himself.
The solution of all our difficulties, as far as a solution can be attained, is in the main, perhaps, one and the same. It is in subordinating, case by case, the question of this or that color to the question of much or little light. The sleek garment freshly washed reflects the light, and is called bright; the same garment used and tumbled ceases to reflect, and is dark. Wine in motion sparkles; held up to the light it glows; withdraw these conditions, and what we call red wine is simply dark, darker indeed than the smoke. The copper arms flash back the sun; their splendor reaches to the heaven and makes the earth to laugh; place the sun behind a cloud, the rutilant effect disappears, the dull, dead face of the metal assumes the tone of the rest of the accountrements, and we have the Homeric phalanxes of bronze. Once more: thus it is that water in Homer commonly has the epithet of black, even the fountain being black-watered; and yet we have the four fountains of Kalupso flowing with white water (Od. v. 70) and the white or pure water (II. xxiii. 282( in which Patroclos used to wash the immortal horses of Achilles. Thus we have to adopt the idea of light and dark as our umpire in all difficulties, our universal solvent. But even in the use of these instruments the poet was elastic, and also ill-defined. the word melas covered many shades of deep red, dark blue, brown, no less than black, even as each one of his winds covered a large arc of the horizon. And his sense of light, however keen, was not critical, or very determinate: a favorite illustration with him as to something brilliant is that it resembles to the sun or moon -
[---]
*) Quint. Smyrn., Posthomerika.But sun-brightness and moon brightness are so different, that no modern poet could use this simile without giving himself over to be torn by the beaks of critics. I suppose that Quintus Smyrnæus was sensible of this inconguity in his model, when he substituted for it that "fond thing," his awkward formula* -
[---]
For what is the aigle of Zeus except the sun from which it is here parted?
and here, in illustration of the great wealth of Homer in the region we have traversed, I may say that this most sedulous and close but inadequate and inamate imitator does not, I think, use above one light of color phrase for ten that we find in Homer.
*) Werke, xxviii. p. 18
*2) Eastlake's translation, p. xlii.
*3) Preface, p. xii.I am not competent to enter into the philosophy of color itself, and the controversi in which Goethe has taken, with his great name, the side opposed to Newton. He has indeed, in his "Farbenlehre," much disparaged our great countryman, whom he seems t oconsider a great mathematician, but in the dark as a naturalist.* He, too, establishes a scale between light and non-light: "Next to light a color appears which we call yellow; another appears next to the non-light, which we call blue. When these in their purest state are so mixed that they are exactly equal, they produce a third color, called green."*2 Condensed and blackened, blue and yellow may become red respectively; blue passing into a blue-red, yellow into a yellow-red. Also red may be produced by mixing; and thus Goethe completes his scale of six colors. Eastlake himself *3 does not admit the division into seven; and quites Professor Leslie of Edinburgh, who thinks that "in the choice of that number Newton was apparently influenced by some lurking disposition towards mysticism," but that four or five principal colors may be named. One observation only I will hazard. It seems as if there were something in Goethe's ideas, how and what I cannot presume to say, which has a point of contact with the phenomena of color as they are represented in Homer. He appears to find a certain affinity between what lies next to light, and what lies next, at the other end of the scale, to not-light. The archaic man, we are to suppose, sets out equipped with one positive perception, namely light, and one negative, namely not-light or darkness. As his organ begins to be trained, it trespasses on the intermediate space, and Homer has already got, after a fashion, his red and orange, his eruthros and his xanthos. But may not the advance in the organ operate in some way at the other end of the scale also? May not the portphureos and the phinikoies be the indications of the invasion of the new religion from that side; and may not this in some manner account for the curious travelling backwards and forwards, so to speak. of so many of Homer's color-epithets, between a read red at the upper end of the scale and some very deep purple at the other? I cannot describe clearly what I admit that I have not conceived clearly, but I am struck with an impression that, at a certain point, the observations of Goethe appear to touch upon the Homeric facts. I do not suggest this as a substitute for the main explanation which I have already suggested, and which views Homer as often using the same phrase for bright-colored and dark-colored objects according to the greater or lesser quantity of light that falls on the surfaces. This he does in regard to his pithets of color and light generally, though less in the case of xanthos than in others. And this he could not have done, but for the fact that the organ was given to him only in its infancy, which is now full-grown in us. So full-grown it is, that a child of three years in our nurseries knows, that is to say sees more of color, than the man who founded for the race the sublime office of the poet, and who built upon his own foundations an edifice so lofty and so firm that it still towers unapproachably above the handiwork now only of common, but even of many uncommmon men.
W. E. Gladstone.