In the human sciences, to speak of the “color red” is almost a redundancy. For thousands of years in the west, red was the only true colour. As much on the chronological as hierarchical level, it outstripped all others.
Red is the archetypal color, the first color humans mastered, fabricated, reproduced, and broke down into different shades, first in painting, later in dyeing.
The primary role played by red can perhaps be explained by the two principal referents for this colour: fire and blood, two natural elements that are encountered in almost all societies in every period of their history. Even today, nearly all dictionaries define ‘red’ with a phrase like ‘having the colour of fire or blood’. Of course, other colours have one or many powerful referents in nature, but they seem less universal and immutable.
With Newton’s discovery of the colour spectrum in 1666, a new classification system that the physics and chemistry of colours still relies on, red lost the place assigned to it by Aristotle. He had put it at the centre of a chromatic scale arranged from lightest to darkest. Now it was located at one end of the spectrum: an inglorious position for the former queen of colours, which seemed to have lost some – but just a little – of its symbolic powers.
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Excerpts from Michel Pastoureau’s history of the colour red.
Images from
@permanent.files archives projects:
1-
@epoch.review issue 1 cover by
@marvin.leuvrey
2- A document on Lesotho mountain people by Lea Colombo for
@uselessfighters first issue
3- EPOCH 2 launch exhibition featuring Harley Weir.
4-
@nabil document of a Blood funeral in Los Angeles for EPOCH issue 1
5- A flexi vinyl disc collaboration between EPOCH and LARAAJI. Inserted in EPOCH issue 1
6- EPOCH metamorphosis dossier opening
@roughversion
7- Lea Colombo document of the Sangomas rituals in South Africa for EPOCH
