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Chapter 5 - ORANGE

 


Ancient Egyptians used it to dye mummy wrappings and to turn their ceremonial ointments an oily orange. They valued it so much that they put garlands of safflowers entwined with willow leaves in their relatives’ tombs, to comfort them after death.

Finlay, Victoria. Color (pp. 193-194).

finding that if he fed pigeons on madder their bones would become red in a spread that was consistent with the theory that it was the calcium which was holding the color.

Finlay, Victoria. Color (p. 204).

If a mouse enters the hive then the bees will kill it. But because its body is too large for little insects to shift, and because they don’t want it to stink up their home, they mummify it in propolis.

Finlay, Victoria. Color (pp. 208-209).

Throughout the chapter, the themes of death and preservation kept catching my attention. The death of cochineal beetles discussed in the red chapter directly resulted in the presence of red pigment. Unlike cochineal, the materials to produce orange aren't the direct result of death. Instead materials like orange flowers used to comfort the dead, propolis used by bees to mummify intruders, and feeding madder to pigeons to change the color of their bones are all related to orange pigment, but none were directly required for the pigments production. I find the contrast between the prominence of death for red, and preservation in death for orange to be beautiful.


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