Dohrman Byers;78369 wrote:
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.
yes, but, but because liturgical colors and their usage has/have changed over time as well as within different churches, east & west, Catholic and Protestant, etc, their usage in liturgical services does not, for me anyway—and you know how much of a good Catholic boy i am Fr—make for a convincing argument. for while violet has been around since the beginning as a liturgical color, it is, as has been noted, rarely used in heraldry (compared to the main colors). for me anyway this is an apples and oranges argument (no pun intended and certainly no disrespect Fr.)
btw, the same logic that says we can’t use orange as a heraldic color, which it is, because it was not used until the finding of the new world could, or at least should, be used for ALL charges in heraldry that are post medieval usage as well. if it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander.
‘nothing in heraldry be it color, metal, fur, or charge that postdates [insert centruy] usage in heraldry’. sorry…i can’t go for either that or blocking the color even though it already exists in the heraldic pallet simply because we don’t like it or this person or that has a hard time registering the proper difference in color.
should we just make heraldic colors ‘gray scale’ only because some people, the color blind, can’t see some, or all, colors anyway? i’m sorry, but this is the same fuzzy logic being displayed here imo.
Donnchadh;78384 wrote:
should we just make heraldic colors ‘gray scale’ only because some people, the color blind, can’t see some, or all, colors anyway? i’m sorry, but this is the same fuzzy logic being displayed here imo.
My arms as people with color-blindness would see them. The middle two are the types of what is commonly referred to as red-green colorblindness, the far right the more rare blue-yellow colorblindness.
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http://a.imageshack.us/img841/5136/armsfortheblind.png
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Could we come down out of orbit for a moment?
Arian’s original question that started this thread was:
Quote:
Does anyone know why orange isn’t a regular heraldic color? Why is it any less of a color than vert or purpure?
This is not a moral, ethical, or theoretical question. We’ve been groping for a factual explanation for why orange is treated differently from green and purple. I think I’m onto something with the realization that people in Europe in the period when the heraldic palette was standardized apparently didn’t think of orange as a color on the same level with red, blue, yellow, white, black, green, or (sometimes) purple, to the point that English didn’t even have a word for "orange" until the 1500s.
Fr. Dohrman’s observation about liturgical colors reinforces the argument that orange wasn’t considered on the same level as the others. Kenneth’s point about the nature of early dyes and pigments and Arian’s about the relatively late development of the concept of three primary and three secondary colors are also germane to the issue.
None of this proves or is even intended to prove that orange shouldn’t be treated in heraldry the same way as green or purple, but rather to explain why it hasn’t been.
I apologize if my comment about not wearing that gaudy orange—which I thought was obviously flippant and not to be taken seriously—was misconstrued.
As for the question, "then how did people describe the color of the fruit?", I imagine they called it red, yellow, red-yellow, or yellow-red. What color are these stones, without using the word "turquoise"?
Chasing a different squirrel down a side path—Ken’s interesting illustration of how folks with different kinds of color blindness would see his arms also IMO supports the oft=stated notion that, in differencing similar arms for unrelated (or not provably related) persons/families, merely changing the colors isn’t really sufficient—there should be some difference that would show in outline or monochrome renditions.
Of course the main argument for that approach is that a seal impression won’t show color differences , unless there is hatching—which is not commonly used in small-scale seal engraving; & for other than the field or an ordinary, would tend to obscure or interfere with easy identification of most charges.
(As another aside, someone who is actually colorblind would likely see most ot all of Ken’s examples as identical.)
Kenneth, i only know 1 person whose colorblind. he’s my brother-in-law. he says he sees things in a gray-scale. i asked how he knew since he was color blind and he said that’s what he’s always been told by MDs. hence my comment. i defer to you on the exact layout of colors for the colorblind because i simply don’t know as i’m not colorblind. still, my point is valid given you illustrations.
Joe, i don’t want to come down…
seriously, though, there’s those who’ve said what you said, which in the beginning i agreed with. then there’s those who have asserted that it isn’t. there is an important distinction there imo and why i illustrated it.
also Fr. Byers argument does not hold water for me for the reason i mentioned above (ref rare of usage of violet, purple, in heraldry and it being around since beginning as liturgical color and the varying liturgical colors from the beginning into today crossing both time and church(s)).
as to how they’d describe the rocks…it’s the same boat as the oranges and i find that funny too. (as in comical/humorous, not as in odd/incorrect).
i can’t speak for others, but as i said that was one of the best lines of that very, very good movie and my favorite pro football team wears orange. so no seriously taken comment on that on my part…i don’t know about others.
p.s. i like James (Dempster’s) recent comment about arguments…that’s probably why i sometimes go out into orbit for a bit and why i don’t wanna come down. 
I think people who are completely colorblind see things in monochrome, true. But those people are much more rare than those who are simply missing the ability to distinguish certain colors. Those are the ones I illustrated. Grayscale, well, wouldn’t really be interesting to draw.
My best friend in college was red-green color blind. I once asked him if red and green looked gray to him, and he said, "No, I have red-green color-blindness, not red-gray or green-gray." So I asked, well then does red look green or does green look red?" and he answered, "Yes."
But in any case citing color blindness of any variety as a reason for or against using particular color in heraldry is like arguing for the addition or deletion of notes from the diatonic musical scale on the grounds that some people are tone-deaf.
I was intrigued by Joseph’s question on ‘how people described the colour of the fruit’. IMHO they probably didn’t. Heraldry came into existence in North-Western Europe. Before the advent of greenhouses (say in the 17th century) there were no oranges growing there. When Duchess Mary of Burgundy married Maximilian of Austria (the match of the 15th century) in 1477, the town of Bruges gave her 200 oranges as a wedding present. It was considered an outrageously expensive gift because they had to come all the way from Spain and were very difficult to keep fresh. (Apparently the gift was much appreciated because Mary had very bad teeth).
So (after all that banter), if we want to know what people said about the colour of oranges, we should probably look into Spain for an answer.
The Dictionary of the Scots Language notes that the fruit was called an "Appil orange" with notes "Cf. MDu. oranie-appel (Kilian), OF. pomme d’orenge".
The earliest usage is in 1497 and from the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer.
Quote:
For bering of the appill oreynʒeis to the hous fra the schip; 1497 Treas. Acc. I. 330.
As a colour the earliest Scots use is 1532, also from the Treasurer’s Accounts
Quote:
To be ane pair of schone to the Kingis grace agane the justing, ane ½ elne orenʒe veluot; 1532 Treas. Acc. VI. 73.
Of course, just to make this discussion more complex is the compound form orange-tawny
Quote:
The said baronnets … to weare … ane orange tannie silk ribban; 1629 Reg. Privy C. 2 Ser. III. 393.
Wikipedia notes the root of the words as Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ, and suggests that it travelled chronologically via Persian, Armenian and Arabic to Spanish where it is "naranja". It notes appearance in English in the 14th century.
As to what the colour was called in English before then will require study of 13th century literature about something that is naturally the same colour. I think it will be difficult since many things that are orangy lack the intensity of the fruit and could be described as anywhere from red through brown to yellow.
James
lucduerloo;78446 wrote:
I was intrigued by Joseph’s question on ‘how people described the colour of the fruit’.
Not so much my question as my attempt to respond to someone else’s question (Denny’s, I think), but thanks very much to Luc for the fascinating insight into the issue.
Another tidbit occurs to me: the custom of including oranges in children’s Christmas stockings in the United States is ultimately connected, by way of the Netherlands, to the gold balls that are the iconographic emblem of St. Nicholas (from his providing dowry money to poor girls to prevent their being sold into slavery). This implies that people in the Netherlands when this custom originated (Renaissance period perhaps?) thought of oranges as being golden in color.
Joseph McMillan;78396 wrote:
None of this proves or is even intended to prove that orange shouldn’t be treated in heraldry the same way as green or purple, but rather to explain why it hasn’t been.
I think the question now could turn more toward, should it be considered a heraldic tincture now. I believe that was the rabbit I was chasing more than why it wasn’t considered one in the first place. Thought several of you did make some interesting points and I learned several things in that regard. But now I think the question should be, should it be a tincture in the 21st century? Obviously some will do what they want and use it no matter what anybody says, but what do most of you think?
On the whole I fall somewhere between not encouraging its use and discouraging its use. If someone insists on it, I don’t really care enough to discount it, but I wouldn’t offer it as an option unless asked if it could be used.
On to the point I made earlier about dyes, while I am somewhat loathe to bring it up, today’s range of kilt options offers some examples of why not to use orange. Kilts these days come in a several options for each tartan. There is the Modern (or standard) color palette, which are typical dark, but bright colors. Then there is what is usually called Ancient - same pattern, still bright, but lighter colors. The intent was to mimic an old kilt, until someone realized that isn’t what the colors actual do as they fade over time. Still it is a good option if you want to go for what older natural dyes more likely looked like. Then someone came up with Weathered, which is really what would happen to a really, really old kilt over time. These colors are often washed out, greens becoming brownish, blues gray, etc. Take a look at a single tartan in the various color palettes and you’ll see that red is not red is not red. http://albanach.org/colors.html
And if you don’t want to follow the link, this is the MacDuff tartan in Standard colors…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/MacDuff_tartan_(Vestiarium_Scoticum).png/120px-MacDuff_tartan_(Vestiarium_Scoticum).png
...and here is a kilt in the MacDuff tartan made with vegetable dyes c. 1800…
I think not encouraging the use of orange, but not saying it can’t be used at all is probably the safest route to keep the peace. That being said, part of the main points of heraldry is that the coat of arms can be recognized from an extended distance. We tend to crack on people who either have too many fine details in their shields, or them being too cluttered in general. But rarely is the point brought up that colors begin being more difficult to recognize from a greater distance as well. Orange up close can be difficult to distinguise in many cases. From 100 yards away, good luck being able to tell if it’s red or orange .
