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How has colour been used in the past and in the present day to evoke distinct emotional responses? In particular looking at how colours have become associated with different character traits and how it has been used to create characters in story and performance. Specifically creating one costume which can effectively suggest the seven deadly sins using colour.Throughout history colour has been used to be or to create a symbol in order to gain a collective understanding either being emotional or physical. This dissertation is an investigation into how colour has been used throughout history, to analyse how it has been used symbolically to represent either an individual or an entire culture’s beliefs. Through looking at civilisations spanning from the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans and into early Christianity it will also attempt to source where some of these meanings have originated. To then explore how some representations of colour only stay within some cultures, while others have lasted over thousands of years and are still recognisable in the modern day. This study will also be looking into how colour is used in theatre, then later on in film. Showing how it has developed since the ancient era onwards, whether using a mask or an item of clothing it identifies how certain types of theatre and film use colours to define their characters. This project will explore the origin of the seven deadly sins and the reason why they were created it will also link how colours have been used to represent the seven deadly sins. The outcome of this project is to create one costume that can embody all of the seven sins by changing the lighting shined upon it, to then allow a viewer to give their own opinion of which colour matches each sin.
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Colour, seeing, and seeing colour in medieval literatureThis thesis re-approaches medieval literature in terms of its investment in visuality in general and chromatic perception in particular. The introduction raises the philosophical problem off-colour: its status as an object for science, role in perception, and relationship to language and meaning as expressed within inter-subjective evaluation. Two modes of discourse for colour studies of medieval literature are proposed: the phenomenological (from the philosophical tradition of such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty) seeking localised networks and patterns of inter-subjective, embodied, perceptual meanings and values; and linguistic (informed by the philosophical psychology and language philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein), focusing on the lexicalisation of colour experience and creation of semantic distinctions corresponding with changing colour concepts, which in turn shape individual perceptions (both first-hand experience and that of reading). Part One introduces key medieval ideas and theories pertaining to visual perception in general, and chromatic perception in particular. The authority for, and influence on medieval writers of Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's De Anima and Parva Naturalia, and relevant biblical material is considered. Subsequent chapters explore Patristic and Neo-Platonist developments in extramissive thought, locating within this tradition the roots of a synthesis of natural philosophy with Christian theology that is found in later medieval thought and its dealings with perception and colour. A key movement in the theology of light in relation to colour is connected to the wider philosophical movement from largely "extramissive" to largely "intromissive" models of perception. This shift in theory and its significance for colour perception is explained in terms of the impact of Aristotle's material colour theory as found in De anima and the De sensti et sensato section of his Parva Naturalia from the late twelfth century onwards. The part concludes with a detailed study of the nineteenth chapter of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's thirteenth-century encyclopedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum, which provides access to an important range of ideas and sources relevant for accessing the medieval mind in its intellectualized perception of colour. Lastly, such philosophical and theological sources and ideas as are found in Part One are compared with relevant examples from literary texts, ranging from the Middle English poem, The Parliament of the Three Ages, to Christine de Pisan's Le Livre de la Cite des Dames. Part Two treats colour perception in relation to a particular medieval phenomenon: the rise of medieval heraldry and the armorial function of the herald. It considers the spiritual and secular ideologies of chivalry and their relationship to armorial displays as found portrayed and construed in various genres of chivalric literature. Texts under discussion include books of chivalry and arms from the early thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, such as those principally indebted to New Testament armorial allegory and motif (from writers such as Ramon Llull to Geoffrey de Charny), to later fourteenth-century treatises employing Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato to establish a secular hierarchy of chivalric colours. The study culminates with Part Three, offering responses to and discussions of particular medieval fictions in terms of their phenomenological, linguistic and intertextual treatment of colour perception. Medieval texts addressed include, amongst others, Le Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, and four Middle English metrical romances: Sir Gowther, Sir Amadace, Sir Launfal and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.