Colorphilia (Page 8)

Gold

All Gold Doesn't Glitter

An etymology of many things golden.

Fairytales

Storytelling and Dreaming in Color

Scheherazade, Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy.

Wine

On the Color of Ancient Wine

This newsletter includes an intro to computer science, a quick explainer in vinification (winemaking), swine-ish sailors, biblical leprosy, the Passover Seder, bright-eyed goddesses, tithing, and raisin wine.

Unsolicited Advice

The Relative Irrelevance of Historical Colors

Please don't buy paint colors for your home simply because they were popular during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Etymology

A Brief History of Shade

The Oxford English Dictionary has dozens and dozens of definitions of shade. I try to understand a few of them.

Dance

Why you should care about the color of ballet shoes.

Spoiler: This isn't just about the color of ballet shoes

Color Snack

Color Snack: Inspiration for new collection of "Paper Candy"

Warning: Art is not edible.

Psychology

What exactly is a favorite color?

While the simple question “what is your favorite color?” seems rather straightforward, three out of the five words are anything but. And here are roughly 5600 words to prove it.

Fruits

Down another rabbit hole... (Or "why are carrots orange?")

As I mentioned in my initial newsletter, I tend to go down a lot of random “rabbit holes” during my research. It seemed fitting, then, that I began this time with a theory I had about orange carrots.

Fruits

This story is bananas. (Or "how banana became a color.")

In under a half century, the humble banana went from being an exotic fruit to an eponymous color. At its peak, the fervor for this fruit could only be compared to that of the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s, albeit in a very different way.

Translation

Translating Biblical Colors

As a general rule of thumb, color is always mistranslated in the Bible. It’s not as much that they didn’t have the same colors that we do, it’s more that our concept of color is muddled.