Red

Nahua tradition

• Red appears in Nahua tradition.

  Sahagún’s books attend to ritual color, including red, in Mexica practice. Color here is a specified offering and direction language, not a European luck-red.

  from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577

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European folklore

• Red is associated with Luck.

  Some European and later popular customs treat red as protective or lucky. That is not Mexica ritual color and not alchemical fire.

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• Red is associated with Fire.

  Red is the ordinary color-name of flame. Repeating the pair from the color’s side keeps the color page from being only luck and Mexica rite.

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• Red is historically related to Violet.

  In Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, shellfish purple gathered due east and west is of a violet shade, while that from southern countries nearest the sun is naturally red before the fluid is brayed in mortars.

  from Vitruvius; Morris Hicky Morgan (translation) · De Architectura, 1st century BCE; Morgan English 1914

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• Fire is associated with Red.

  Flame is often named by redness in ordinary speech and in ritual color. The color is not a theology.

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• Blood is associated with Red.

  Blood is the ordinary reason red is the color of a wound. The material fact is not a festival code.

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• Minium is historically related to Red.

  In Theophilus On Divers Arts, after relieving a cinnabar drapery with simple minium, the outer shadow is made by mixing a little black with red.

  from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century

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• Ochre is historically related to Red.

  In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, after filling youths’ beards with deep green and red, the hair is filled by mixing ochre with black and red.

  from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century

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• Orpiment is historically related to Red.

  In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, a drapery is filled by mixing a little cinnabar with orpiment, then a little red is added for the drawing and simple red makes the outer shadow.

  from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century

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Roman religion

• Red appears in Roman religion.

  Pliny’s Natural History seats red among painter’s reds and colored earths of Book 35. A named red hue in that encyclopedia, not red-ochre, minium, or sinopia as named reds already walked.

  from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

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Egyptian religion

• Red is historically related to Typhon.

  Plutarch’s On Isis and Osiris ties red and reddish animals (ass, Typhon coloring) to Typhon’s portion in Egyptian color speech. A named red–Typhon figure under this source, not a generic danger-color dump and not green-as-Osiris alone.

  from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE

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Chinese tradition

• Cinnabar is associated with Red.

  Cinnabar is a red ore. Vermilion is a color of that mineral, not a slogan.

  from Ge Hong; James R. Ware (translation) · The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung, 1966 (this translation); Ge Hong 4th century CE

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Alchemy

• Venetian red is used in Red.

  Merrifield’s treatises and colour notes seat Venetian red among the iron-oxide reds of Italian workshop speech for oil and tempera. A named venetian-red used in red pigment craft, not indian-red as the deeper oxide grade alone and not cinnabar as mercury red.

  from Mary Philadelphia Merrifield · Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting, 1849

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