Ancient Greek Color Vision
As seen through the eyes of the Ancient Greeks, color perception is a very different thing than our own color perception. Why is this, what is it about our eyes and brains that causes this difference of visual perception from person to person and culture to culture?
In his writings Homer surprises us by his use of color. His color descriptive palate was limited to metallic colors, black, white, yellowish green and purplish red, and those colors he often used oddly, leaving us with some questions as to his actual ability to see colors properly (1). He calls the sky "bronze" and the sea and sheep as the color of wine, he applies the adjective chloros (meaning green with our understanding) to honey, and a nightingale (2). Chloros is not the only color that Homer uses in this unusual way. He also uses kyanos oddly, "Hector was dragged, his kyanos hair was falling about him" (3). Here it would seem, to our understanding, that Hector's hair was blue as we associate the term kyanos with the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, in our thinking kyanos means cyan (4). But we cannot assume that Hector's hair was blue, rather, in light of the way that Homer consistently uses color adjectives, we must think about his meaning, did he indeed see honey as green, did he not see the ocean as blue, how does his perception of color reflect on himself, his people, and his world.
Homer's odd color description usage was a cultural phenomenon and not simply color blindness on his part, Pindar describes the dew as chloros, in Euripides chloros describes blood and tears (5). Empedocles, one of the earliest Ancient Greek color theorists, described color as falling into four areas, light or white, black or dark, red and yellow; Xenophanes described the rainbow as having three bands of color: purple, green/yellow, and red (6). These colors are fairly consistent with the four colors used by Homer in his color description, this leads us to the conclusion that all Ancient Greeks saw color only in the premise of Empedocles' colors, in some way they lacked the ability to perceive the whole color spectrum.
This correlation between Homer and other Ancient Greeks on the subject of color vision suggests some questions about Ancient Greek color vision leading to ideas inquiring into the ability of the Ancient Greek eye to perceive color at all. It is possible, in light of evolutionary theory, that the retina of the Ancient Greek was not evolved to the point of full color perception. Different mammals have varying degrees of color vision and eyes are especially prone to mutation. But besides this evolutionary question there is the question of consciousness, the question of the brain and language in relation to color perception. This color vision particularity could have been caused by a lack of visual consciousness that would lead to the creation of new words that were needed to explain a visual phenomenon. This inability to perceive something because of linguistic restriction is called linguistic relativity (7). Because the Ancient Greeks were not really conscious of seeing, and did not have the words to describe what they unconsciously saw, they simply did not see the full spectrum of color, they were limited by linguistic relativity.
The color spectrum aside, it remains to explain the loose and unconventional application of Homer and other's limited color descriptions, for an answer we look to the work of Eleanor Irwin. In her work, Irwin suggests that besides perceiving less chromatic distinction, the Ancient Greeks perceived less division between color, texture, and shadow, chroma may have been difficult for them to isolate (8). For the Ancient Greeks, the term chloros has been suggested to mean moistness, fluidity, freshness and living (9). It also seems likely that Ancient Greek perception of color was influenced by the qualities that they associated with colors, for instance the different temperaments being associated with colors probably affected the way they applied color descriptions to things. They didn't simply see color as a surface, they saw it as a spirited thing and the word to describe it was often fittingly applied as an adjective meaning something related to the color itself but different from the simplicity of a refined color.
Vision is as much a process of the brain as it is a process of the eye and the outside world. Experiments have been executed in which those blind from birth are proven unable to conventionally see when cataracts are removed from their eyes; it is now known that this is because the brain synapses dealing with sight begin to die at a very early age if they go unused (10). If those who are blind from birth with to see at the event of the technical recovery of their sight, they must first learn to see. The brain effects vision as strongly as the eye does. In Ancient Greece vision is shown, to be a very subjective practice and a different process from our own visual process. The importance of vision and color held a different place in the mind of the Ancient Greek, but this is the truth of vision everywhere. Sight is a gift to us, and it is a gift that we choose to use, it is a sense whose effect on us is in part created by ourselves individually. Whether we use it one way or another is simply a cultural or biological difference, and in studying the sight of others we can grow infinitely in our appreciation of our own vision and the strength of our minds over our biological and physiological processes.
1) Rebecca Bird, Language and Perception of Color among the Ancient Greeks http://www.cooper.edu/classes/art/hta321/99spring/Rebecca.html 1999
2) Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light: the entwined history of light and mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) p. 14, 15
3) Homer, The Illiad, Quoted in Zajonc p. 15
4) Zajonc p. 14
5) Zajoncp. 15
6) Bird
7) Fountain, Proof Positive That People See Colors With the Tongue, Quoted in: Bird
8) Bird
9) Bird
10) Zajonc p. 3, 4, 5, 6
colours in ancient greek
Guys please... read the Illiad!!!
When Homer speaks about "dark wine coloured sea" he only uses a poetical metaphore.. we have to suppose that he wants to describe the sea during a SUNSET... we can easily imply that, reading the passage of the Illiad.
The metaphore is also ordinary: the common base between the wine and the sea at the sunset is (of course) the color (dark red) and the cultural justification for choosing the wine (there are lots of other red things suitable for the comparison) is that wine (with oil) was one of the most important foodstuff in Greece.
And then, saying that "Greeks did not have words to call colours" you are not so right. (Better choice that of the guy who has read the Liddle-Scott!!)
If we consider ancient greek in comparison with other indoeuropean languages, we can easily see that its lessical system of colours is quite normal.
Just one example.
The indoeuropean root
*rudh- = [idea of "red"]
has the following results in different i.e. languages:
greek => e-rudh-r-o-s > erythros
latin => rudh-er (this is streamlined) > ruber
sanskrit => rudh-ir-a
proto-german => rod > rot (german)
> red (english)
etc, etc, etc...
Hope to have been usefull to the discussion.
(I'm sorry for my english... you see... I'm Italian!)
I cannot believe that the
I cannot believe that the whole theory of "under-developed eyes" of the ancient Greeks is still promulgated as well as the theory of linguistic relativity. As the ideas of the ancient Greeks existed even before Plato so too did the ideas of Emmanuel Kant in German before he coined new terms for his philosophies. But I digress, the point is, colour perception and colour naming are very different things (the two may not be mutually exclusive, but they are perceptually and qualitatively different between languages). The theory of the evolutionary development of the ancient Greek eye (as for colour perception) has been disproved on any number of accounts, particularly in light of a few points: 1.) the person who decided that the ancient Greeks were not as developed in sight was altogether an amateur philologist and the then Prime Minister of England in 1858, Gladstone, who posited that the paucity of colour terms in Homeric Greek must equate to them being colour blind. Right, so we have a NON-Scientific approach which is completely unfounded - bravo! I suppose he could find some retinae lying about from 800-500 BC and perform a rod and cone analysis of the retina, which would be the scientific approach. This smells of the same 19th Century approach that the Germans used, for denigrating the modern Greeks... positing that all Ancient Greeks were blonde and blue-eyed and so the moderns were no longer heirs, (apparantly the Germans were heirs-apparent)... smack of "Aryanism?" (SIC) by Fallmeyer?! Sorry this is just utter crap, And 2.) The ability to distinguish 7 colours in a rainbow (from Aristotle's De Anima in which he states the 7 colours of a rainbow reflect the 7 tones of musical notation and possibly the 7 heavenly spheres, and explanations on refractivity of light in Ptolemy's Optica, to name but a few). This point espouses the ability of the ancient Greeks to finitely determine the seven colours of the visible spectrum of light (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet).
It is however true in my personal opinion, that the sea is wine-coloured (as per Homer) whereby if you have ever seen the swirly waves of seas during storms, which appear dark/hazy and sometimes dark blue almost purpley. The wine-coloured aspect must be thought of as swirling wine in a cup (not distilled) that is more akin to a Ribena berry juice colour rather than a brilliant red. Don't think of the coast of the Mediterranean as being aquamarine, journey further into the sea under stormy weather and then see if it's brilliant blue!). C'mon these people were seafarers, not coastal amateurs!
A quick read through Liddle and Scott will show a plethora of colour terms or colour associated terms in ancient Greek, and just like chloros is yellow-green, there is prasinos = green from prason = leek (the vegetable). Even in English, green and grow are from the same root word (in accordance with J. Pokorny and his PIE linquistic theory) which imply a young growing plant or shoot/shrub, so too the ancient Greeks applied their colour terms. So language develops the need to describe colour as it applies to the situation and that is what Ancient Greeks did...
FYI a few colour terms in Ancient Greek (Homeric to 5th C Attic)
Melanos = black, mauros = dark,
leukos = white, pelios = grey
chloros = yellow/green
prasinos = green
chyrsos = golden
xanthos = blonde/yellow
phoinos = red (compare phoenix, crimson red dye of the Phoenicians)
erythros = red
kokkinos = scarlet
glaukos = blue, light blue
kyanos = dark blue
porphyros = purple
rhodos = pink/reddish pink, as in Rhododactylus Eos (from Homer = Rosy-fingered dawn)
khalkos = bronze coloured
and possibly kastanon = the chestnut to describe the colour dark brown
Then you have metallic colours as khrysos, phaeo, argyron, etc. to describe shining brilliant colours.
Well that was my 2 cents worth.
Colors Of Greece
Sorry, not to be politically correct,but the ancient Greeks were very racially consciouse,particularly during the Hellenistic period:400-800 B.C.Plato believed his theoretic REPUBLICs survival would be based on racial unity.Plus,fossils, and certainly the magnificent sculptures,reliefs,and pottery of the that period are Nordic types.The DORIANS are referred to as blonde,and so is the legendary Helene Of Troy.This is not "Aryanism";whatever that means,but fact.The Greek racial stock changed later,with the importation of slaves,and freeman,who were eventually granted full citizenship.
read Berlin and Kay: basic
read Berlin and Kay: basic color terms, 1969. that could help. thanks for the detail about hair in bosnian, very interesting.
love
Giulio
I believe that those days the
I believe that those days the people are really unable to differentiate the things with the colors ,because the colors were not invented and the Greek peoples are very good in astrology and other ancient sciences thats why they have figured out the things with different meanings in the form of colors,in India also people differentiate the things with imaginary objects,colors and ancient in the rocks and walls.
Homer
Homer was blind. He was born blind. Didn´t you knew that?
Hello, In my country,
Hello,
In my country, Bosnia, which is close to Greeks geographically and in some ways culturally, we refer to people with yellow hair as having "blue hair". No one will ever say that man/woman has yellow hair, it's always blue. That's just how it is, and it is quite possible that Home described Hector as being blonde, their culture was simply different. I think the evolutionary theory is quite a stretch since it wasn't that long ago.
Fellow, I agree with you! I
Fellow, I agree with you! I am a biologist too, and do not believe that 2,700 years can do this much.
And how about the sea. Do
And how about the sea. Do you still say the sea is dark wine colored?
In reality the ancient
In reality the ancient Greeks could see all the colors (blue, purple, brown, etc) but did not have words for them (I believe that color word progression moves something like white, black, red, yellow/green, blue and brown.) and simply used the words they did have as a description of the spirit of the objects they were trying to give color too; in other words, they used the same color for blood, tree sap and the ocean-- they all had something to do with life. As for calling the sky bronze, he'd be referring to the energy produced by the sky, so it comes out more as 'the sky was shining' than 'they sky was bronze'. there are still languages today that don't have words for the colors blue and brown. But, just the same, there are languages that have two words for the color blue (Russian) and some that don't have a big distinction between green and blue (Thai, until recently).
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