Of course, God cares about color. If he didn't, why create them? Why build churches with colorful stained glass or make flowers with hundreds of different colors? Colors are important and here for a reason. Without them, this world would be ugly and would lose all its divinity. And that's the agenda in modern times.
The point about colorful beauty in churches is a good one. There's a great line by Abbot Suger that speaks to this:
“Thus, when—out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God—the loveliness of the many-colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues, then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven.”
There’s an interesting discussion in Krista West’s book “The Garments of Salvation” about how Newton’s discovery of the color spectrum changed the way we interact with color. She says that, essentially, we went from a much more straightforward spectrum of bright vs. dark and matte vs. shiny to the modern color wheel with its overbearing emphasis on matching and balance.
I think my larger point is that, to embrace color and vibrancy properly, there needs to be a cultural framework that tolerates at least a certain amount of chaos.
That's an interesting point. Perhaps the habit or desire to systematize is undercutting our ability to engage with color as more than just the system we've boxed it into.
As with all creative endeavors, you need some structure and limitations, but once the system becomes an end in itself (as it always does once mediocre practitioners hit a critical mass) the system is made to kill any actual creativity that turns up. Kinda seems to be one of the main plots or subplots of modernity in general.
That's very interesting - and it goes very much with the era that Newton inaugurated, an era of organisation, systematic thinking, classification, and the discoveries of the "laws" of nature.
Maybe movies and social media are satisfying our hunger for color? We sit in our gray rooms, wearing our drab clothes, peering raptly into the sparkling, brilliantly colored worlds in our glowing screens.
It's an interesting thought, especially in light of how much screentime most of us are getting. Perhaps the abundance of time staring at the colorful distractions on our phones means we don't notice the increasing drabness around us?
When I see recreations of the Parthenon as it was originally painted I am repelled. I have been trained to admire its stone austerity and to reject a gaudy, psychedelic monstrosity.
There’s an article on here, can’t remember who it was from but something like “the Greeks didn’t have uglily painted statues”, that spoke about how modern recreations of painted statues and buildings are done without any aesthetic sense (which the Greeks and Romans certainly possessed) and without entering the mindset of their creators. They were painted, but probably in a much more tasteful and harmonious style, nothing like the hideous recreations that “archaeologists” would have us believe peopled the cities of the ancient world.
Of course, God cares about color. If he didn't, why create them? Why build churches with colorful stained glass or make flowers with hundreds of different colors? Colors are important and here for a reason. Without them, this world would be ugly and would lose all its divinity. And that's the agenda in modern times.
Great article on colors and their importance.
The point about colorful beauty in churches is a good one. There's a great line by Abbot Suger that speaks to this:
“Thus, when—out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God—the loveliness of the many-colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues, then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven.”
There’s an interesting discussion in Krista West’s book “The Garments of Salvation” about how Newton’s discovery of the color spectrum changed the way we interact with color. She says that, essentially, we went from a much more straightforward spectrum of bright vs. dark and matte vs. shiny to the modern color wheel with its overbearing emphasis on matching and balance.
I think my larger point is that, to embrace color and vibrancy properly, there needs to be a cultural framework that tolerates at least a certain amount of chaos.
That's an interesting point. Perhaps the habit or desire to systematize is undercutting our ability to engage with color as more than just the system we've boxed it into.
As with all creative endeavors, you need some structure and limitations, but once the system becomes an end in itself (as it always does once mediocre practitioners hit a critical mass) the system is made to kill any actual creativity that turns up. Kinda seems to be one of the main plots or subplots of modernity in general.
That's very interesting - and it goes very much with the era that Newton inaugurated, an era of organisation, systematic thinking, classification, and the discoveries of the "laws" of nature.
Maybe movies and social media are satisfying our hunger for color? We sit in our gray rooms, wearing our drab clothes, peering raptly into the sparkling, brilliantly colored worlds in our glowing screens.
It's an interesting thought, especially in light of how much screentime most of us are getting. Perhaps the abundance of time staring at the colorful distractions on our phones means we don't notice the increasing drabness around us?
Very likely! Any way you look at it, many of us seem to be living virtual lives and sleepwalking through our real ones.
One of my favourite poems is Gerard Manley Hopkins's Pied Beauty. Such joy in the colours and variegations of the world!
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
When I see recreations of the Parthenon as it was originally painted I am repelled. I have been trained to admire its stone austerity and to reject a gaudy, psychedelic monstrosity.
There’s an article on here, can’t remember who it was from but something like “the Greeks didn’t have uglily painted statues”, that spoke about how modern recreations of painted statues and buildings are done without any aesthetic sense (which the Greeks and Romans certainly possessed) and without entering the mindset of their creators. They were painted, but probably in a much more tasteful and harmonious style, nothing like the hideous recreations that “archaeologists” would have us believe peopled the cities of the ancient world.
This is my intuition as well, and the essay you mention went a long way towards informing that intuition.
For anyone curious, this is the article in question: https://substack.com/home/post/p-182068631
That is reassuring.