Designing Cities

The conference was opened by Charles Landury, the writer of the new book "The Creative City", saying that successful cities have allowed their inhabitants to feel ease towards the changes by giving them an opportunity to contribute towards the changes and take ownership of the change. One of theaims of the conference was to show substantial differences between cities used mainly for entertainment and designed almost like a theatrical stage such as Las Vegas, and cities designed for business such as Honk Kong.

The well established American architect Jon Jerde was the first presenter with the theme "Designing the City". He compared another "designer, bussiness-transaction city" - Los Angeles with historically ["organically"] grown cities such as London. Historically grown cities develop a co-alliance of independent entities, not aware of each other that build the whole.  Historical growth and cultural and professional diversity of London led to development of -almost invisibly logically  distributed - specialised regions within the city such as the London theatre district [and also , medical, jewels, flower, meat  and electronic market areas]. He uses London as a place to study how to build a naturally looking city elsewhere. He claimed that the design of a place must be derived from the culture of people living there. But, this saying was, apparently, contradicting by himself and his practice: he also said that he used London as a model for development of cities in US, Northern Africa and Asia where he is still very active. He presented slides of his work that demonstrated his "universal" (global) practice of building what he calls "10 year designer" cities. Those developments, aimed to have a lifecycle of about 10 years consisted of mainly commercial entertainment and communal facilities. These theme-parks, predominantly funded by the commercial culture and Holiwood film industry (e.g. "Universal city" funded by UP in LA) they were dominated by the film and sport, and some drama/lecture/concert halls and theatres with numerous open and closed - mall type - space shopping, restaurant and other commercial entertainment facilities. 

Almost all of his designs, regardless of the geographical location, unless restrained by geographical features such as larger rivers or sea, were miles large circular areas of out-of urban (sub-urban) developments. The circular areas were broken by spiralling or wave like meandering access highways and a combiation of natural and artifical water canals and lakes creating similar organic shapes. It seemed that some of the main features and traditions of Taoist art have been turned into large scale reality opening the fast growing Far-Eastern and Pacific Rim  markets for his architectural practice: rather few of the projects have been executed in those areas such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. 

As an unexpected achievement in LA, where pedestrians are a rare sight, the visitors were spending much more time walking on foot around those facilities and the crime rate was lower. 

When I asked him after the lecture why does he use the circular forms, he gave only a single reason that appeared to work only on the pragmatic, economic level: he said that the circular forms cover the largest areas [i.e. for the length of their perimeters].  Although this did not make much of economical sense to me at that moment since the economy of utilisation of circular land midst practice of dividing and selling land in rectangular units does not appear to be the cheapest way to manage your rectangular property. However, it it became much clearer later on: in addition to being in organically-shaped spaces, the higher freedom of movement and lower crime rate may have something to do with the fact that those designer cities are not un-protected public, but rather highly, security-staff controlled private spaces. The early human habitats were circular so that largest useful area of (free) land can be encircled and protected by the shortest walls along the shortest perimeter for the area. This approach made econmomical sense it required the smallest amount of material, building and protecting effort, and the smallest number of defending forces but the land was either free or almost free. Simlarly, from one of the commercial points of view, the circular form of the new entertainment "cities" may provide the cheapest ways to monitor the circular borders and enforce security in those highly controlled and security protected areas.

And, although the price of security service may be be just a superficial, business driven factor whilst the organic aspect of the circular form may be the main factor in the Jerde's philosophical decision making process, as many organicists and biologists have pointed out, the rounded form of living organisms has been developed for the similar ultimate reasons: smallest amount of material for the skin, shell or membrane to hold and protect the inner content.

 Somewhere off the gemoetric centre of those, mainly circular areas would be another circular form,  like core of a cell ,or yolk of an egg, usually a hall (a film, a theatre or a sport one) would be built on the model, as Jon Jerde admitted in a private conversation after the lecture, of classical amphitheatres.  It was then that my association of the designer city's decadent and frequently kith -y decoration with the decadence of Ancient Roman baths and the Rococo period drawing rooms was strengthened.

Rejecting any symbolic meaning, his explanation for the wave- meandering  roads was also pragmatic: one can see the progress of the mildly curved road longer in advance rather than looking around a sharp corner. 

It was then that he admitted that he was himself split between his art painting  and his architectural business. I suppose that, similarly to Le Courbisier, he was also a closeted painter influenced by the organic form and human body in his architectural work. 

He also noted that he sometimes works together with a sculptor who is specialised in figurative female nude artworks to design the main organic features of those designer cities and their main road and water transport, and walk-about facilities. 

This architectural view of how city can be designed, was followed by a  business-person's introduction to HK's business and (predominantly) commercial cultural and architectural environment, accompanied by the company's promotion material by the up and coming textile industrial complex Esquel Group and how it shapes the future of HK, all within the presentation given by the company's rather self conscious and successful manager Ms M Yang.

Branding and Signature in Architecture
Mark Gottdiener and John Warwicker introduced notion of branding and signature in architecture.  M.G. gave an introduction into another wonder of the modern commercial entertainment and social phenomena: Las Vegas and its simulated wonders of the world. The new shopping malls on upper floors of casinos built in style of Ancient Egyptian architecture and Venice squares, the latter with its virtual reality, artificial sky which goes through the daily cycle every 20 minutes and ral gondole drive along ¬ mile long and 2ft deep canals, brought back pedestrians to one of the traditionally most anti-pedestrian city: traditional casinos did not want their customers to walk out until that was to become the only mean they could afford. The city of 1.3 Mil inhabitants has now re-discovered family site-sighting tourism as an additional source of income. Such branded tourist attractions bring 34 Mil visitors a year and the airport becomes one of the main features of the city.

Although simulation of ancient worlds' features may be a way to brand and attract public to an American city such as L.V., as another example and method of architectural branding and signature we have been given Bilbao and its Frank Gaery Museum of Modern Art which attracts public more than its content. 

However, as we all know, this kind of branding is not a new phenomena: hundred years ago Parisian businessmen have discovered that, what was supposed to be a temporary Millenium fair attraction - Eifell tower - was and has been attracting more visitors to Paris than any other of its wanders; it was, therefore, to be kept there and it became an apparently unlikely symbol of Paris. How can, what has been know to be the city of love, be symbolised by an iron construction intended to symbolise superiority of French engineering? If the tower is perceived as single phalic form driving the 

J.W, who's design agency tomato recently re-designed Sony's brand image, gave presentation on his and his colleagues' way of use of large, lit or LCD based installations integrated into the buildings' designs. The screens were built to, or presented the shapes of corporate or brand signs, or other forms that can both help the visitors to uniquely identify the public spaces (e.g. malls) they are in.

Volker Buscher , a German systems engineer working for Arup Communications, a systems consulting division of Arup Construction and engineering group, introduced concept soft structure, concepts behind design of Cyberport in HK. He emphasised a need to plan the infrastructure for the new technology as late as possible towards the end of a building project design process due to fast development of the technology. He emphasised a need for faster "start-of-design-to-start-of-construction" process through parallel approach to design and construction of new business and entertainment centres that rely on new technology. His other goal, however, was to introduce new electronic methods for knowledge distribution, education and entertainment and remind architects that those aspects of the information technology may impact the way our cities will be designed in the future.  He said that instant communication and change are at the hart of the new economy. Cultural scene has been excluded from the digital debate. New economies and activities are based more on creative activities rather than repetitive activities that have been more  and more automated. New people networks result in service based economies with people-networks of key and contributing  individuals bringing the added value. The new economies are, thus, more and more dependent on people that are difficult to replace. 

In his rather rushed presentation, professor at the department of Political Geography at UCLA, Allen Scott, concentrated on two issues. Firstly, that the old [Theodor] Adorno's fear that the income driven capitalist culture will bring a uniform mass culture has not materialised. The goods for market driven economy of cultural comodities lead to a high diversity in the cultural life of LA or other centres of capitalist economy. Secondly, though not unrelated, was his reassurance that, consequently, the world cultures does not have to fear that the forcoming globalisation will bring the new uniform, mass culture. He emphasised that in the midst of ever cheaper production facilities, the new world culture is marked by high level of cultural diversity based on national and/or religious division. Prof. Scott's new book "Cultural Economy of Cities" is due in bookshops soon.

A developer and a businessman behind many of out-of centre developments such as "Bluewarter" in Kent,  David Margason introduced some of the business and humanitarian logic behind building of such large sub-urban, multipurpose shopping, training and entertainment centres.

An architect, course director and a lecturer at Bartlet School or Art and Architecture, Neil Spiller, introduced a new direction in post-post modern architecture and the notion of "Neurotic Architecture".  His architectural experiments focus on artificial organic inhabitation for humans and other living species (e.g. rainbow trout ). The neurotic architecture represent a modernists desensitisation of space and virtual space, it is an architectural "glitch". He claims that it was Raymond Llul's art of logic that enabled Leibniz and Bubbage to develop modern forms of human and binary logic which, eventually, led to the neurotic architecture.  Determined by random sampling and combinatorics, the aesthetics of the neurotic architecture is of send order. Characterised by the confusion between real and imaginary, natural and artificial, fact and fiction, organic and non-organic, the neurotic architecture results in paranod spaces and furinture that has to react to the other nearby forms that coexist in the same space so to establish an instable equilibrium in that space. 

However speculativ and theoretical concept sits behind the notion of neurotic architecture, it has real life results that are difficult to represent but they are rich with organic, rounded forms and lack geometric abstractions. 

The neo-organic forms that his students developed for habitual spaces and furniture reminded me of abstract expressionism of 50s and 60's. But, the expressionist form may not be the only link with neurotica behaviour. I reminded him that Llul's intention to build the strict formal logic methods may have resulted from his own emotional and nervous breakdown (explored in part by G Yung) after which he dedicated his life to theory of thinking and spiritual life. 

As few of the visitors noticed in their discussion, this instable, frustrated equilibrium that characterises the neurotic architecture may have been just a form of unconstrained and irresponsible academic game. One may see it as projection of its conceptor's state of mind resulting in some form of rococo culmination of the post-modernist epoch of fine-de-20ieme-ciecle  baroque.

Remarks
When I asked him to, as an academic, define one of the key notions the conference had to deal with, the notion of culture, his answer was very pragmatic and materialistic, based around the concept of culture as a product of a society. 

With little if at all any reference to the origins and the spiritual meaning of culture (cult-ure), only the marketable, commercial entertainment culture was discussed during the seminar. All reasoning had to be given the commercial tone, even when Jon Jerde was explaining the reasons for his circular spaces. 

We tend to be satisfied when we are given the reason and we like to believe that there is a (single) reason for what we do: we like to forget that there often many reasons for something to happen and the monotheistic background of our culture does not encourage us to search for any other reasons for some phenomena. When I went to a seminar on bringing up children, we were told that we should give a reason for our parental decisions, and that one reason is not just a sufficient but almost the preferred option. 

The seminar on architecture and culture where architect give talks on how architecture has to grow out of the culture and use that pep-talk of authenticity to sell the single, universal formula based on a sublimation of different cultures is a hypocritical marketing of uniformed, optimal globalisation in discise of authenticity. 

Talking of architecture as if it is something that has to grow from culture and then to talk of commercial culture as sole from of culture, is to forget the fact that that same architecture should have been part of the culture, not derived from it. 

But the difference is suttle, however, sufficient to allow global architects to apply their global formulas on individual cases and allways be able to point to the elements in their formula that have resonance with the local culture as the main reasons for the whole form and, thus, the whole formula as being the authentic derivate instead. 

However, the global architectural formula for designer entertainment city is not just based on the same global formula for the entertainment culture that is presented in those spaces. Since architecture is part of the culture, the new designer city architecture is, thus, part of the same commercial cultural packaging brand called "The Global Vilage".

After few days into my short notice visit to South Korea, its museums and traditional folk villages around the bone marrow shivering and eye-balls (sub-sub) freezing Seoul (-16C’), my Korean host and I took an almost self-defeating “long day journey into night”, a drive that should have taken less than six hours in normal circumstances but took nearly ten in the traditional, post-Lunar New Year, both live and deceased family visiting highway congestions of 99.99% new Korean made, and at most 3 foreign - all Mercedes - cars in the endless, densely populated, high-rise suburbs and the satellite sleep-towns south of Seoul - therefore missing the planned mid-way visit to the scenic hills around, and the famous Buddhist monastery that at the time of our arrival became hidden in the early winter darkness. 
 

Eventually, we arrived at the much milder, (i.e. just sub-freezing) south-eastern town Gyongju.
 

The high value for money “$100 Cab Ride”, agreed during the dinner at the local, traditional Korean food canteen upon our late evening arrival and exhausted of driving, took us the next day around about 1.5 million statues and 100,000 shrines of Buddha, all within 3.2 Buddhist temples  -one ruined by the 15th C, and another restored by the 20th C Japanese “liberators” - and 2 local museums, and, also, around thirty plus over 50ft high circular burial mounds in the Korean, 7th C equivalent of the “Valley of the Kings”, another traditional, lotus-seated, shoe-less, hand-pick-and-eat, 30 plus (and all tasty) dish per meal canteen within piles of local antiquities, a few more  examples of traditional family housing including traditionally built modern hospital and a puritan Confucian school, all that scattered around the area full of other, both the ancient and the post-modern family attractions, and almost all (that is, with the exception of the burial mounds) housed under the East-Asian, pointed roofing “preserved” for us by the ex-dictatorial, but still pretty mandatory, traditional architectural look-and-feel preservation rules.
 

After visiting a local, small traditional science and art museum placed within yet another traditional folk village reconstruction project, housing samples of early medieval technological, astronomical, horological and building construction samples including the drawings, photographs and dozen of  meticulous models representing medical vivisections of the nearby Buddha-in-round-cave Sargksa temple from various points of view, visit to the actual temple would have been almost a waste of one time if it was not for the scenic, meandering, up-hill drive and the walk along the mountain path to the temple overlooking the valley. 
 
 

Any attempt to get the feel of the cave temple has been deferred by the glass panel dividing the outsiders and the two hundred or so worshippers lotus-seating on top of each other within the few hundred feet of not – so – free space within the unventilated, sweaty cave and taking part in a live Buddhist preaching session.
 
 

After touring Korea’s other, mainly local tourist resorts such as side-road canteens, golf resorts in the middle of nowhere, sunny South-east beaches just East of the second city and port Pusan (Busan) and the north-east Sora mountain resort, adjacent temple and nearby fishing ports, I undertook another first time venture excursion, this time to Tokyo.
 

I have had to excuse for my trip to Tokyo to my friendly Korean hosts as it was in great part inspired by my interest to analyse further to which extent did Korean culture and, particularly the art and the architecture, influenced development of Japanese art and architecture, either as a source or, predominantly, as a missing and a bridging link for transitions from even more advanced, neighbouring China, and it does seem to have done so to a very high extent. However, for an example, despite the great number of the similarities and stylistic borrowings from the continental ones, the Japanese Buddhist temples may have been seen to lack some of the elaborate decoration and the warm colours present on the Korean ones. On the other hand, having embraced and amalgamated the Confucian Puritanism, Shinto and Zen (and Zen gardens), they can be also seen as more integrating, reticent, elegant and minimal, version of the Asian Buddhist styles. Also, they seem to have managed to get integrated closer into the urban centres and, thus, the centres of power, money and influence. 
 

Japan seems nearly 100 times more cosmopolitan than Korea: that is, there are only 99.00% of domestic cars on the streets: still, several Mercedes’ again leading together with singleton BMW and Volvo cars - and the majority of the foreign cars were parked in the courtyard of a Buddhist temple near Ueno station. I also greatly enjoyed another aspect of internationalism - Courbisier’s designs for the local cultural centre and the adjacent, western art museum, both located in the park near the Ueno station which, by another contrast, also “houses” the city Zoo and the homeless’ “tent city”.
 

To my another surprise, my flight from Tokyo to Seoul on my 2-stop way back to London made a big u-turn just before Seoul and then flew back to the south-east coast and over  into the sea causing fears among some of the passengers (that is, not only me) that we are going back to Japan. This was just before making another turn and then meandering back over the routes my friend and I made just days earlier and that I could now watch through the window on the nice and sunny day. The surprise re-tour was due to a thick fog low over the Seoul’s new Incheon airport, badly positioned on an island far from Seoul and anything else in Korea, however, open to the northerly winds from Manchuria plains, but the explanation from the captain came a bit too late. 
 

Rough landing to rainy and windy London Heathrow was not so welcoming form of grounding, but, as you may know, I will be in the near future very busy working on my new project starting on Monday.

Road-siders

Metaphysical sculptures by George Perendia
The Foundry, 1st – 20th March 2005

This exhibition represents a retrospective of more than 20 years of the artist's sculptural work and it is his first one-artist show in London.

His sculptural work has been greatly inspired by both, the contemporary technology and the science as well as by the archaeology and the arts of the ancient Mediterranean and Mexican cultures and the medieval art of Balkan Bogumils (an alternative, gnostic, Christian sect widely spread throughout the medieval Balkans), by their road-side steles ("Kraj-putaši" = road-siders) which defied the medieval iconoclastic movements.

"Creating contemporary "road-side" steles by juxtaposition of symbols of the ancient cultures and civilisations on the crashed car parts - the symbols of both, the contemporary, technologically advanced civilisation and of its temporality - is not just a personal quest to signify the lives and the tragedy of premature deaths or severe injuries of several close friends and a relative, and of those other, known and unknown to me travellers who lost or damaged their lives in road accidents, but also a quest to keep reminding the citizens, policy drivers and other decision makers of that same advanced, but still ephemeral, civilisation that, though statistically and apparently insignificant, the non-linear stochastic behaviour of the nature and, even more, of our psyche (despite the increasing rationalisation of our culture), may nevertheless lead to tragic consequences for the humanity as whole."

Some of these sculptural works were initially conceived in the late 1970's, developed throughout and after artist's college studies, and resulted in several of one-man shows throughout  mid 1980's before the move to London. This exhibition also includes more recent works since the late 1990's including "The Memorial for a Known Cyclist" first exhibited at the Foundry last year for the anniversary of another fellow, young artist and friend's tragic death at the nearby Old Street roundabout.

And, there are not many places that can be better suited to serve as a (temporary) road-siders chapel than the Foundry's underground art exhibition chambers by the major crossroads of both the ancient and the contemporary Londinum.
 

"These works should be displayed in every car insurer's reception"
(A visitor at a previous exhibition)
 

Contact:
George Perendia
Tel. 07951 41 54 80
E-Mail:  artilogica@btconnect.com
See also:  www.foundry.tv

Handmade paper, my chosen medium, has many advantages - it can be made to look like wood, stone, leather or metal.  It can easily be manipulated, and lends itself to layering (thereby implying depths of meaning) as well as superimposition and collage techniques.

Myths and legends, my favourite subject, although as old as the earliest societies, are as valid and multi-layered today as they were in primitive times, although they have been changed, adapted and added to over the ages and our perception of them has radically altered in recent years.

In Victorian times, myths were thought to be merely fables, legends as just sagas of heroes, and fairy stories strictly for small children - that is until Sir James Fraser published his “Golden Bough” in 1922 subtitled “A Study in Magic and Religion

Thirty years later, Robert Graves defined true myth as “reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially.......".  He was dismissive of psychology and the Jungian's and believed that a study of myth should “begin with a study of archaeology, history and comparative religion, not in the psychotherapist’s consulting ­room.

However, Joseph Campbell, writing in 1959 recognised the psychological aspects of myth, believing that “Man, apparently, cannot maintain himself in the universe without belief in some arrangement of the general inheritance of myth.”

Alexander Eliot considers that “myth educates and instructs, especially about ethics” and points out reassuringly, that “all myths tend to conclude in one or more saving thrusts - 1. Light shines in darkness  2. Frontiers open to fresh vistas  3. Love follows upon enmity  4. From what is hidden comes revelation.”

Another writer who has inspired me is Clarissa Pintola Estes who places fairy stories in the context of the necessity for primitive societies to educate their children (in a suitably entertaining and stress-free manner) to take their place in the community.

A quick glance at the shelves of any major book store will show that interest continues unabated. An enthusiasm for any subject from Atlantis to Camelot, elves to ogres can be indulged.  The constant flow of films about Robin Hood and King Arthur - each new version subtly changed in accordance with the current concerns of society shows that myths and legends are alive and well in the 21st Century.

Nor is it all heavy-going!  Robin Hood is still a cracking adventure story.  However, it is also about gaining freedom, the fight of good against evil and social justice. Depictions of Atlantean civilisation stimulate the imagination with or without philosophic considerations.  None of these implications is abstract however, as any TV News Bulletin shows.

This point of universal appeal and the fact that everyone is free today to take what they like from a myth - whether it be social comment, history, archaeology, psychology or comparative religion is what interests me.  I see the mythic figures I “illustrate” as containers in which viewers may place their own conceptions in the light of their own experiences and personal symbolism.  I have no wish to impose my own personal interpretations!

The ambiguity of handmade paper allows exploration into the contrasts between fragility and durability, transience and permanence - layering enables me to express the multiplicity of meanings inherent in these.

Much of my work is time-based, so the shadows cast by the forms are an intrinsic part of the whole. The past cannot be isolated, it affects the present and casts shadows into our future.

My original stimulus was the shape and texture of Early Music (“Galliard” and “Madrigal” for example), but with a growing interest in music-making, my recent work has concentrated on the emotional response expressed in form, outline and colour.

I have always been concerned with the many different levels at which music can be perceived and appreciated, but the emotional response to me is paramount.
 

After graduating from Bristol Polytechnic in 1974, with a Diploma in Fine Art Painting, I moved to West Berkshire and established a decorative and restorative paintwork business. This business continues and is my main source of income. With marriage, house buying and raising a family there was no time to do any of my own work for a further 13 years. 

In 1986, with my involvement with my children’s school at Lambourn, I was asked if I would tutor an art classes for the local community, through Newbury Colleges Adult Education programme. Accepting this challenge led me to other educational work and also a return to my own painting interests. 

The main interest of my painting comes from an enquiry into why I find looking so gratifying. What is it that catches my attention and why? How can it be understood and represented with the means at hand - by organising colour and line, an image will emerge.
After many years of studying the figure and landscape, the rules of colour composition, proportion and pattern are now the components of my recent work.  A series of geometric abstract paintings is produced by the playful arrangement of intersecting bands of colour placed within the format of a square. 
 

 
The notion of pink as pale red derives most likely from the appearance
of species of dianthus flower, such as the clove pink or carnation. The
name ‘pink’ (in use since the 1500s) came not from the colour of the
flower but rather from its notched or ‘pinked’ petals, trimmed as if by
pinking shears. The range of colours nowadays described as pink - from pale flesh-tint to deep carmine - also occurs in varieties of rose.
Called roseus or incarnatus in Latin, the Renaissance writer Telesio
considered pink to be ‘the most delightful [colour] of all, and very
similar to that of the finely formed human body. Thus poets call the
lips, neck, nipples and fingers roseous, that is, candid-white diffused
with lovely, rubeous sanguineness, a colour properly and commonly called incarnate’. A ‘fair’ complexion, blooming with youth, occurs, so it was thought, from the flowing together of the sanguine and phlegmatic humours, or when blood is tinted with milk or snow. So enticing was the blush of a maiden’s cheek that the poet Spenser was inspired to ask: ‘hath white and red in it such wondrous power that it can pierce through the eyes into the heart?’ In ancient times, women rouged their cheeks with purpurissum (chalk soaked with purpura dye) or with fucus (lichen-pink from orchil). According to Morato, in his colour sonnet, ‘amorous delights are clothed in carnation’; and pink is most sensuous where the skin is thinnest: the lips, the tongue, and the vulva. For centuries, pink has been associated with intimacy and secrecy, so that any transaction occurring sub rosa - beneath the rose, or under a canopy of rose petals - was never to be disclosed elsewhere.

In Christian art, a rose without thorns, a walled rose-garden, and the
pink-beaded rosary were all associated with the Virgin Mary, who
traditionally wore a roseate or incarnadine dress beneath a deep blue
outer robe. The rose-pink stresses her incarnation as the mother of a
god incarnate - of a god made flesh. In secular portraits, a carnation
held in the hand signified the betrothal of the person depicted. When
the Christ Child holds a carnation, it becomes an omen of his future
sacrifice, whereas a pink cherry betokens the promise of bliss beyond.
Previously, the pink rose (and pink myrtle) was the Flower of Venus. In her haste to help the dying Adonis, Venus treads on a thorn, and it is the blood from her wound that turns the white rose pink. In Apuleius’ fable, the donkey is showered with rose-petals to restore him to human form, and be, one might say, reincarnated - an expression that could be interpreted as ‘to become flesh-pink again’. It was no doubt with a similar hope of revival that the Romans decorated family graves with roses during their Easter festival of Rosalia.

Of all the generations of artists, the one that appeared to love pink
the most spanned the High Baroque, particularly in France and during the reign of Louis XV. After the black-and-white austerity of the late
1600s, Watteau’s flesh-coloured silks and satins breathed new life into
the artists’ palette, along with colours called rose Pompadour, nun’s
belly, and nymph’s thigh. Rococo pink was the colour of ‘kiss me with
abandon’ - baise moi - la couleur libertine, la couleur volupteuse: the
colour of sensual pleasure. For Marie Antoinette it symbolised caprice, inconstancy, and fickleness. For the artist, it was the least earthy of colours, since all sources of pink are organic: madder, mallow, kermes, cochineal, sandalwood, and the murex and purpura shellfish. To the painter, however, even in the nineteenth century, ‘pink’ was ‘yellow’. Dutch pink was a yellow lake from buckthorn berries; Italian pink was from quercitron bark. It was probably not until Webster’s dictionary of 1828 that ‘pink’ was first (and perhaps mistakenly) defined as ‘a color used by artists, from the color of the flower’.

---

 

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