From: Patsloane-AT-aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 05:32:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: PLC: Farbenlehre In a message dated 97-11-11 01:38:00 EST, Greg writes: > Pat, you may also want to take a look, at some point, depending on the > angle > you are approaching this from, at the way in which Joyce uses (Anglo-Irish) > Berkeley's _New Theory of Vision_ as a crucial grounding for some of the > epistemic presuppositions of _Finnegans Wake_. Well, the archdruid sounds like a parody of Clerk-Maxwell's ideas about color. I did an anthology of writings on color, largely by artists. (Primary Sources). Among the few non-artists I thought had said good things were Bertrand Russell and Eliot. Russell says color and light is the weakest part of modern physics, with which I totally agree. In The Visual Nature of Color (1991), I looked at color from different perspectives. How color and light are explained in physics, in pschology, in philosophy, in colorimetry, how color names are used, theories of color vision, color symbolism, etc. What I was trying to show was that in the end none of it makes sense, and I personally think we should junk nearly all of our ideas about color and just start over. Too many contradictions and inconsistencies. This sounds extreme to say. But realize nobody is taught much about color except artists. As a result you find all kinds of misconceptions in almost every area of the sciences and the humanities. Wittgenstein is supposed to be good on color. But he had all kinds of mixups, not because he couldn't think, but he'd just never had any training in how to think about color. Now that Reg has opened this beautiful vista of net space, I'd like to revise and update a few chapters of that book and maybe post them. If people on the list are interested in color, I'll ask first what chapters might be of interest. What I'm doing on Eliot is separate. A different me. Thanks for the great stuff on color in Joyce, which I want to think about. Look for things in Joyce on W. E. Gladstone's theories about Homer's idiosyncratic use of color names. I have a hunch he'll include something. BTW, I like this list better because it's small, but with good people. On Phil-Lit, I stayed away from threads on color or art, because the level was just atrocious. Dumb topics like "is modern art crazy." I just can't deal with things on that level. I couold be perfectly happy with 12 or 20 people, if they were really interesting people to talk to. Which you certainly are Greg. I'm always amazed at how much you know. But I guess if you're doing Joyce, that goes with the territory. best, pat --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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