Peculiar question of the day: what colour is Christ?

[tree_and_leaf]

The trip to Weimar involved - as how could it not? - a trip round Goethe's house. Now Goethe, as well as being a mostly brilliant poet (and egotist), rather fancied himself a scientist, with particular interest in what he called the 'urform' of life, and in optics and colours. His scientific stuff is a characteristic mix of sharply intelligent observation and wilfully eccentric flannel† - Darwin mentions him appreciatively in "On the Origins of the Species", and some of his practical observations of how the human eye perceives colour are spot on (for instance, the changes the ring of colour you see after looking at a bright light progress through, and how this changes depending on background, and the like). On the other hand, he thought that light could not be broken - largely because he disliked the idea, I think - and, even more oddly in a way, that there were only two primary colours, namely blue and yellow. Colour, according to him, arose from 'Betrübnis' - the obscuring of light.

That wasn't, really, what caught my attention, though, but rather the colour circles which he and Schiller made together, and associated, though not consistently, various human traits with various colours. On one of the wheels, 'mysticism' was marked as a sort of bluey-purple (a negative colour, I think, though I'm not sure entirely what G meant by 'mystik') "Strange, that, I think of mysticism as more a gold or white" said my companion, and, as I stared at her, added "Well, what colour do you think of it?"

"I don't", I replied. "I don't think I've ever thought of abstract concepts as colours."

"I suppose I don't mean mysticism, exactly, I mean Christ. Like a candle flame, only clearer and brighter: light, but a warm light. What colour do you associate with Christ?"

This was not, in fact, a question I'd considered before, so my answer was along the lines of "Red. Or more purple, I suppose. Or possibly green" - and was on the point of saying "a sort of purpley-green" before I realised that I seemed to be describing octarine, and instead, thinking about it further, added that I could see white-gold as well.

Further consultation with acquaintances produced the answers (i) white (twice) (ii) green (iii) purple, and, from one person who'd misunderstood the question, 'sort of Mediterranean, I suppose, and definitely not blond'.

So, question of the day: what colour is Christ for you? Or, if you don't like the question, are there any concepts/ people/ emotions/ things that you associate with a particular colour?


† A bit like the more theological aspects of his thought, really.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

The luminosity of abstracts makes sense to me, though as I understand synaesthesia, there's no reason why it should (or have I got that wrong?)

[owl]

Well, I'm not sure how well I understand it myself, as opposd to experiencing it. Sometimes I'm not sure what is bleed-over from collective consciousness (like other people talking about warm and cold colours), and what's just me. I don't even think luminous is quite the word for it, either. And it isn't just abstracts=luminous. Some sounds are, and numbers aren't.