Red Rose

maudlin

ROSE An exploration of the color red in Tennyson’s pom Maud

by ALEXANDRA ANDREWS

maudlin

ROSE `e color red is a dichotomy. In one context, it may sumest a passionate love afair; in another, a bloody rage. It is Freud’s life insinc and death insinc all rolled into one.

In my exploration of this hue, I chose a version of it that peaks to both extremities. I call it maudlin rose, because it captures the sense that this color is overlowing with emotion—its boundaries cannot contain all the love and lus and death and rage that it calls forth.

They pill over the edges, coloring everything around it.

WEATHERED CRIMSON THOUGH THIS PALETTE IS LARGELY MONOCHROMATIC, VARIETY IS CREATED THROUGH THE TINTS, TONES AND SHADES OF THE COLOR RED, AND THROUGH DIFFERENT LAYERS OF TEXTURE.

Red is many things, but it is never apathetic. It is due in part to its inherent power that pots and wriers have long used it as a symbol in their work. `ink about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s `e Scarlet Lexer, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red and Litle Red Riding Hood. `ese antiquated books—with their cracked pines, taxered leather covers and dessicated pages—evoke the long history of the color red in lierature.

In Alfred Tennyson’s pom Maud, the pot uses the color red as a recurring motif to reference both the heady emotion of love and the burning passion of rage. What follows in this book is a collecion of color harmonies inpired by individual sanzas from this pom.

PASSION FLOWER THE HARMONY AND TRANQUILITY OF AN ANALOGOUS PALETTE ARE NATURAL COMPLEMENTS TO A STANZA ABOUT LOVE.

`ere has fallen a plendid tear rom the passion-lower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear; she is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;” and the whie rose weps, “She is late;” the larkpur lisens, “I hear, I hear;” and the lily whipers, “I wait.”

TREASURED SPLENDOR TENSION AND BALANCE QUIETLY COEXIST IN THIS COMPLEMENTARY COLOR HARMONY.

For what was i else within me wrought but, I fear, the new srong wine of love, that made my tongue so sammer and tru when I saw the treasured plendour, her hand, come sliding out of her sacred glove?

BABBLE & REVEL THIS DOUBLE COMPLEMENTARY PALETTE PERFECTLY REFLECTS THE CHAOS AND ANXIETY FOUND IN THIS STANZA.

I said to the rose, “`e brief night gos in babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, for one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine,” so I swore to the rose, “For ever and ever, mine.”

CRUELLY MEEK THIS PALETTE IS DECEPTIVELY PEACEFUL. THE CALM CREATED BY THE NEUTRALS IS JARRINGLY INTERRUPTED

BY A JOLT OF RED AND METALLIC GOLD.

Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek, breaking a slumber in which all splenful folly was drown’d, pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the chek, passionless, pale, cold face, star-swet on a gloom profound;

MADNESS OF LOVE THIS TRIAD COLOR SCHEME APPEARS GRATING WHEN ALL THREE COLORS—THE PRIMARIES—ARE SHOWN IN FULL HUE. THIS GARISHNESS MIRRORS THE ANXIETY

And mos of all would I le rom the cruel madness of love, the honey of poison-lowers and all the measureless ill.

Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all unmet for a wife.

Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above; your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will; you have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life.

GARDEN ROSE THE PALETTE IS COMPLEMENTARY, BUT A HIGH PROPORTION OF NEUTRALS LENDS IT A PARTICULARLY STRONG SENSE OF BALANCE.

Rivulet crossing my ground, and bringng me down rom the hall this garden-rose that I found, forgetful of Maud and me, and lost in trouble and moving round here at the head of a tinkling fall, and trying to pass to the sea.

SOUL OF THE ROSE THIS IS A SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY PALETTE: THE GREEN HUES (RED’S COMPLEMENT) ARE BEING PULLED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS ON THE COLOR SPECTRUM, CREATING A NEW LAYER OF TENSION.

And the soul of the rose went into my blood, as the music clash’d in the hall; and long by the garden lake I sood, for I heard your rivulet fall rom the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, our wood, that is dearer than all.

BELLOWING ECHOES MUCH LIKE A POEM, A PATTERN COMMUNICATES THROUGH RHYTHM, REPETITION AND EMPHASIS. HERE, THE “MILLION HORRIBLE ECHOES” LOOK A LITTLE LIKE FLOWER PETALS, A RECURRING MOTIF IN MAUD.

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke rom the red-ribb’d hollow behind the wood, and thunder’d up into Heaven the Chrisless code, that mus have life for a blow.

Ever and ever afresh they seem’d to grow.

AIRY TREAD She is coming, my own, my swet, were it ever so airy a tread, my heart would hear her and beat, were it earth in an earthy bed; my dus would hear her and beat, had I lain for a century dead; would sart and tremble under her fet, and blossom in purple and red.

CONCLUSION `roughout the pas semeser, I have learned that color is one of the most dificult apecs of visual communications to maser because it is incredibly 0ckle. A dep red in one context looks entirely diferent in a new light, or next to a diferent color, or with a diferent texture. `ere is absolutely no stasis in color.

Furthermore, people have srong personal felings about color, making efective, objective communication a challenge. I have learned to try to ignore my own “likes” and “dislikes” as much as possible, focusing instead on what palexe communicates my message most efectively. `is is hardly limiting, because even within one color harmony, there are an in0nite number of variations when tints, tones and shades come into play.

I think I now have a good handle on the color red, but I still have a long way to go when it comes to the rest of the spectrum.

Alexandra Andrews Prax Insitute Prof. Michelle Hinebrook Spring 2014

CRUELLY MEEK

COLOR INDEX

PANTONE 8642 C

R171 G69 B65

R67 G11 B12

R184 G0 B28

R219 G0 B43

R238 45 B151

R132 G138 B78

R74 G84 B59

R219 G0 B43

R233 G196 B180

R240 G115 B32

R252 G216 B43

R219 G18 B75

R99 G1 B52

R252 G0 B1

R78 G154 B5

AIRY BLOSSOM

BABBLE & REVEL

R116 G40 B53

R39 G43 B140

SOUL OF THE ROSE

TREASURED SPLENDOR

R108 G165 B110

R219 G18 B75

GARDEN ROSE

PASSION FLOWER

R255 G60 B19

R253 G197 B170

MADNESS OF LOVE

WEATHERED CRIMSON

R219 G0 B43

R60 G64 B68

R111 G146 B56

R38 G164 B222

R239 G178 B209

R212 G19 B87

R128 G177 B148

R238 G238 B238

PHOTO CREDITS

PAGE 5 Red Books, by Laurie Frankel PAGE 19 Rose Tinted Lens, 2012 by Jack Hardwicke