Hugh Brady;78268 wrote:

As to whether Orange is a color or metal, I don’t know and it’s a good question. I would say that it’s a color and that Texas’s use is correct. There is some evidence that the French disregarded the rule of tinctures at times, and so I would say that Princeton’s use and the example cited from Rietstap’s fall there.

I’d have to agree that orange is a color as it’s used with a metal (Argent) with UT’s arms, and with Or in these French arms:

[ATTACH]755[/ATTACH]

Joseph McMillan;78270 wrote:

When, where, and how?

Francois Velde has indicated that there are instances where the rule was disregarded by the French in his discussion of the rule on heraldica.org, where he writes that, " French [heraldry], arms that seem to violate the "rule of tinctures" are called "armes à enquerre", because they were supposed to prompt you to inquire about their origins. French heraldry uses the term "cousu" (literally, sewn) to get around an apparent violation by an ordinary (most commonly a chief). For example, Sandberg (Netherlands) as blazoned in Rietstap is: d’argent au chevron cousu d’or accompagné de trois trèfles de sinople (Argent, a chevron or between three trefoils vert)."

While I disagree with both gentlemen, I thought the exchange was rather timely.

Hugh Brady;78293 wrote:

Why hasn’t the English society been elevated to "Royal" status, I always wonder…

Well, from what I am told by the Canadians that I know, their Queen is quite different from the British Queen.  So, I suppose the Canadian Queen is just more generous than that other one. Perhaps HM Elizabeth of the United Kingdom could learn a thing or two from HM Elizabeth of Canada. :-D

Having followed this discussion with interest, I couldn’t resist sharing this little gem I came up with

lol.

of course the orange, or stain tenne, is very much brown, like tenne would be and unlike a true depiction of orange. but, this is clever.

To my eye, orange and red are much closer in appearance than green or blue.  I’ve never mistaken green for blue or vise versa, but there have been many times I’ve had trouble with red and orange.

It just struck me that the reason orange was left out of the heraldic color palette to start with may be that the concept of "orange" as a separate color didn’t exist when heraldry was developing.  If you look in a Latin-English dictionary, the closest Latin equivalent for this color was fulvus, which could mean anything from brownish orange to reddish brown.  "Orange" as the name of a color in English dates only to the 16th century, according to the OED; before that, we had to make do with "yellow-red" (or, in Anglo-Saxon, geoluhread), at least according to Wikipedia, which in this case cites what is apparently a serious scholarly source.

That would suggest that people in northwestern Europe circa 1200-1400, when heraldry was evolving, simply didn’t think of orange as one of the main colors in its own right; they thought of it more or less the same way we think of blue-green.  This makes sense, if you think about it, given the earlier discussion in this thread of the relative narrowness of the slice of "orange" on the color wheel/spectrum.

It’s also interesting that the symbolic colors used by various American Indian peoples don’t include orange.  We shouldn’t think, of course, that any tribe thought there were only the four colors that they specifically associated with the cardinal points of the compass; nevertheless, as far as I can tell none of them included orange (or purple, for that matter) among the main colors—the range of choices was evidently limited to red, white, yellow, blue, black, and green—the same as the core heraldic palette that was developed on the other side of the Atlantic.

You make a very interesting point Joseph.  I certainly didn’t know that…it’s always nice to learn a new thing.  That would explain why orange really isn’t used in heraldry.

I honestly am not really even a fan of using purple either, because it tends to look fairly close to the color blue.  Even though purple is a mix of red and blue, it looks far more blue than it does red.

Isn’t etymology a wonderful (and quite overlooked) resource?

I knew that the four directions colors are most often represented as white, yellow, red, and black and that sometimes green shows up as a replacement, usually for black. I had forgotten that blue shows up sometimes, too.

I imagine, too, that early dyes were highly variable in their ability to produce a red. On both sides of the Atlantic.

Joe makes a very interesting observation. I seem to recall that in medieval illuminations, when the rainbow is depicted, it is usually shown with only three colors, not the seven we think of. One fifteenth century example I found shows the rainbow as red, yellow and green. Furthermore, orange not only did not make it as a heraldic color; it also did not make it as a liturgical color.

Joseph McMillan;78363 wrote:

It just struck me that the reason orange was left out of the heraldic color palette to start with may be that the concept of "orange" as a separate color didn’t exist when heraldry was developing.  If you look in a Latin-English dictionary, the closest Latin equivalent for this color was fulvus, which could mean anything from brownish orange to reddish brown.  "Orange" as the name of a color in English dates only to the 16th century, according to the OED; before that, we had to make do with "yellow-red" (or, in Anglo-Saxon, geoluhread), at least according to Wikipedia, which in this case cites what is apparently a serious scholarly source.

Interesting. I wonder then what color Europeans considered the fruit to be before they presumably used the name of the fruit to describe a color. Buzzing around the Internet it looks as if oranges were in Europe by at least the 11th century and that "orange" (the fruit) appeared as a word by at least the 14th century in English. Did they describe the fruit as being "red-yellow" in color?

Reading more, I realize now when I initially pointed out that orange was a secondary color like purple and green, I did not appreciate how "modern" a concept primary and secondary colors is. Red-Yellow-Blue was a foundation of 18th century theories of color vision - obviously hundreds of years after the development of heraldry.

arriano;78375 wrote:

Interesting. I wonder then what color Europeans considered the fruit to be before they presumably used the name of the fruit to describe a color. Buzzing around the Internet it looks as if oranges were in Europe by at least the 11th century and that "orange" (the fruit) appeared as a word by at least the 14th century in English. Did they describe the fruit as being "red-yellow" in color?

:rofl:

i know Joe showed us they did…but…i find this soooooo dang funny not because Arian is trying to make it so, but because in reading it in both Joe’s and Arian’s posts i found myself laughing and not at either man…just that people would actually call it what Wikipedia says they did. i’ve never heard this before and it was never talked about in my art classes, so i have to trust Joe and Wiki here…but i still find that so dang funny!

arriano;78376 wrote:

Reading more, I realize now when I initially pointed out that orange was a secondary color like purple and green, I did not appreciate how "modern" a concept primary and secondary colors is. Red-Yellow-Blue was a foundation of 18th century theories of color vision - obviously hundreds of years after the development of heraldry.

good observation.

AILD;78365 wrote:

...That would explain why orange really isn’t used in heraldry.

with all due respect and with no malice intended you are simply incorrect here. asserting something as true is not the same as it being true. there are examples of its usage, so please stop asserting there aren’t in order to advance you opinion. at the very least simply say "not many" examples exist, which is correct. but not that it isn’t used.

Quote:

I honestly am not really even a fan of using purple either, because it tends to look fairly close to the color blue.  Even though purple is a mix of red and blue, it looks far more blue than it does red.

this is a matter of perspective…yours. it is incorrect to assert that how you see colors and their relation with each other is the automatic reality for everyone else. you see it as far more blue than red even though it’s a mix of the two that does not equate to everyone seeing it that way or of it being correct. again…just because you see it so, does not make it so.

De gustibus non est disputandum!

(is my Latin right?)