Mike don’t be surprised if that color comes back into form again. After all we are still in the midst of a “70’s retro” (still gaining) and “50’s retro” (starting to fizzle) craze in Interior Design and have been for about 4 or 5 years now. It has been slowly gaining popularity again.

So, like bell bottoms, and other gifts from the 70’s I wouldn’t be surprised if one day not too far off we see avocado make a come back. I wouldn’t want it in my place, but as an interior decorator I could make it come off spectacular for those who would…I just don’t think I’d want to dine there after it is all done.

Interesting thread, interesting collectiion of viewpoints.  If I can be so bold as to suggest an overview of the underlying issues (??) it would be that heraldry is or should be—among other things—both practical and beautiful.  There is a tension between these two goals—limiting colors aids ready identification but constrains artistic interpretation; broadening the palette "too much" (pick your own limits) enriches the artistic possibilities at the risk of fuzzing the lines between e.g. gules and purpure and azure and vert… its a question of balancing competing priorities.  I tend to lean in favor of ease of identification, without which arms serve little practical purpose, and place on the artist a bit more of a burden in coming up with pleasing renditions using a palette which is less variable than in, say, painting portraits or landscapes.

Another strained analogy might be evolution—most mutations are immediately or eventually fatal, but those relatively few which actually work have lead, over time, to a wonderous divesity of life and beauty—but in every case, deriving clearly from that which has gone before.

Time to get some dinner, where I can puzzle over whether I want the potatoes & the gravy to appear distinctly or be stirred together…

Michael Swanson;47185 wrote:

...Their authority has no force to bring this about, because they, at that moment, cease to be heralds even though they might still hold their positions and continue to draw paychecks.

This is one distinction between essential and nonessential elements.  Tradition provides the basic tinctures, the new ones must endure the test of time to earn their place among the core group.  No edict can do this.

I think that your idea of the relationship between heraldic tradition and heraldic authorities hits very wide of the mark. Heralds created heraldic tradition and very often (although admittedly not exclusively) they did it by edict. While heralds of today are also subject to heraldic traditions of the past they are not only shaped by it. They shape it.

gselvester;47215 wrote:

I think that your idea of the relationship between heraldic tradition and heraldic authorities hits very wide of the mark. Heralds created heraldic tradition and very often (although admittedly not exclusively) they did it by edict. While heralds of today are also subject to heraldic traditions of the past they are not only shaped by it. They shape it.

I am agreeing with you.  I agree that heralds shape heraldry.  I am just arguing there are lines in their respective traditions they can’t cross, and that these lines are of interest to American heraldists.

Heralds came onto the scene after there was already a practice of decorating shields. They shaped it, but their act of shaping it assumed they had some behavioral material to shape.

Here is a more extreme thought experiment to make my point:  suppose all heralds outlawed the use of any tincture, but instead said heraldry consisted of a serious of blazoned clicks and beeps.  (An excellent change for blind knights!)

Of course this in nonsense.  And that is my point.  They would be playing a different game.  Heraldry—the traditional kind—would go on without them.

That is why I say heraldic tradition sometimes trumps the heralds.  Heralds can no more make such radical changes in heraldry than the National Football League can declare that football is a race between 20 pigs in a swimming pool.  Kids will still play football—the traditional kind—although they may call it something else.

Heralds can shape heraldry.  By edict, even.  But their edicts must respect certain conceptual boundaries.  If they stray from these boundaries then their edicts make no sense and are just as well ignored.  I am drawing attention to the boundaries and their source.

Michael Swanson;47229 wrote:

I am arguing against the heralds’ omnipotence with regard to heraldic matters. If I understand your argument, you assert their omnipotence.

Then I’m not putting it right so let me try another way. I wouldn’t go so far as to say "ominipotence" or even "semi-omnipotence". Is there another degree one step down from that? Call it quasi-omnipotence. Is that even a word? There can’t be an omnipotence of heralds (regarding us here in the USA) because there is no unanimity among them. Within their own countries, yes, there authority is so extensive as to be almost absolute.

Anyway, my point being that some of your examples (by your own admission) are extreme to the point of being absurd. That is, heralds could do some of those things…but they wouldn’t being respecters themselves of the tradition they have created. I suppose it could be said that the difference there is between what they can do and what they may or should do.

For those of us in America who don’t usually take an absolute approach of entirely adopting one system of heraldry (like the English, or Spanish, etc.) but draw from several different places reflecting the mixed bag of our own country’s cultures and ethnicities there remains this question of the role that heralds (of the past and of today) play in shaping what we do. There is still the question of what you can do vs. what you may do.

You can, in fact, design and adopt arms that look any way you please and appeal to innovation, creativity, thinking outside the box or what have you in order to justify anything in it. But, just because you can do that in America doesn’t make it well-designed or good heraldry. The bucket shops prove this every day.

At no time have I ever advocated setting heraldry in stone (so to speak) as having evolved to a certain point and no further. Quite the opposite. Anyone who has been visiting this forum for a while can find lots of examples where I have strongly supported the evolving nature of heraldry as one of the reasons it has survived for so long and can be seen as relevant today. (for example adopting a partition line sapine in my own arms, thanks to the innovations of the Finns, was considered less than traditional)

I simply feel that within the framework of designing arms according to traditions and customs that go back a long way there still needs to be an arbiter of some kind who determines what is and isn’t good heraldry. Such an arbiter is the herald. Since we don’t have any in America that does not, in my opinion, give us the right or the ability to design arms in any way we please and call it good heraldry because there is no herald here to decide otherwise. It is precisely because we have no heraldic authority here that we should be extra vigilant to look for the least common denominator when it comes to guidelines for good design.

In the case of tinctures that least common denominator would be to steer clear of worrying about particular shades of a color and stick to the traditional basic palette, i.e. "blue is blue", "purple is purple", etc. Since heralds in one country can call copper an acceptable metal and heralds in another call it not acceptable then the best path to follow for an American adopting new arms is to avoid it altogether. If you were Canadian, however, it would be different.

So, am I saying that Americans designing and adopting arms should use a standard for design that is more limited than, say, a Canadian or an Englishman or a Scot? Yes. Because those others have the benefit of having heralds who can make new rules for them and we do not. It is out of respect for the quasi-omnipotence of heralds as the ones who shape and change heraldic tradition that we should avoid being the ones to do it ourselves.

Michael Swanson wrote:

I am agreeing with you.  I agree that heralds shape heraldry.  I am just arguing there are lines in their respective traditions they can’t cross, and that these lines are of interest to American heraldists.

I agree.                      .

gselvester;47230 wrote:

Anyway, my point being that some of your examples (by your own admission) are extreme to the point of being absurd.

Yes, they are absurd or, better classified, apagogical.

Metaphorically, one can remove bricks from a building to see if it still stands or still serves its essential purpose.  My point was to show that if a herald removed the foundation stones of heraldry, then absurdity would result and thus there exists a minimal set of heraldic behaviors which the herald must respect, and over which he has no power to "edict away."

More subtle thought experiments are needed once the larger point is made.  In other words, we need to know which bricks are essential and which are not.  We may be able to sacrifice the porch, but not the kitchen.

Michael Swanson;47234 wrote:

Yes, they are absurd or, better classified, apagogical.

Metaphorically, one can remove bricks from a building to see if it still stands or still serves its essential purpose.  My point was to show that if a herald removed the foundation stones of heraldry, then absurdity would result and thus there exists a minimal set of heraldic behaviors which the herald must respect, and over which he has no power to "edict away."

 

More subtle thought experiments are needed once the larger point is made.  In other words, we need to know which bricks are essential and which are not.  We may be able to sacrifice the porch, but not the kitchen.

Which leads me to consider the question - which of the foundation stones of heraldry may not be dispensed with by a herald? Living in Canada - the land of heraldic innovation I would be hard pressed to find any heraldic rule that has not been bent or or even set aside.

Which rules does the herald not have the power to "edict away"?

Patrick Williams;47107 wrote:

The color-on-color rule makes sense: the design should be easily readable across a battlefield.

Again, though that’s the reason for its genesis, the converse doesn’t follow, that something not easily readable across a battlefield contravenes the rule.

Focusing on whether or not a particular practice or example "contravenes the rule" IMO is not - or at least to me shouldn’t be - the focus of analysis or artistic criticism.  The rules don’t exist, or control good practice, for their own sake; rather they are "rules of thumb" to ensure or promote some underlying purpose.  The color rule and all the legalistic parsing by this or that writer or commentator, all exist to promote the underlying purpose of identification; and the so-called "postage stamp" or "across a crowded field" tests are intended to measure how well a given design promotes ease of recognition and thus of identification.

Adherence to the "color rule" and a fairly limited palette of distinct colors - or more generally stated, higher visual contrast—generally serves the purpose of ready identification better than designs that ignore the color rule.  But the value of a design that honors the color rule isn’t the mere adherence to a rule as such, but rather the generally better - i.e. more useful - end result.

This doesn’t mean that the artist cannot, or even shouldn’t, exercise artistic license in those situation where small size or distant viewing or high contrast aren’t a factor—go for it!—but this is license for a particular rendition, not for the underlying design of the arms themselves, which should be capable of effective, easily recognizable rendition in a variety of settings and mediums.