THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YELLOW.
There's a duality to yellow; it's a symbolically-rich oxymoron which, with its conflicting associations, fits Lara completely. Particularly in the 19th Century, yellow was associated with sickness, stigma, and cowardice in Western society, whilst adversely being a colour associated with value, spirituality, and heroism in the East. Interestingly, it would come to be associated with p.ornography in both Western and Eastern society.
In addition to its history, yellow’s ambivalent character as both attractive and repulsive is something that appealed to me in regards to Lara’s character, for it is in-tune with my portrayal of her character; whilst certainly beautiful, with a history of idealism and spirit, this beauty constantly is at-odds with the aspects of her personality that evoke repulsion; her violence, her temper, her blood-lust, and her undeniable greed.
To sum, the following are terms associated with the colour;
indecency. eroticism. literature. salome. spectacle. sarah bernhardt. stigma. reclamation. betrayal. repression. obsession. instability. entrapment. war. memorial. dynasty. wealth. knowledge. censorship. death. ancient. toxicity. poison. arsenic. rarity. art. incompatibility. striking. gold. eternal life. murder.
In 1895, when Oscar Wilde was arrested for 'gross indecency', he was seen to be carrying a French novel with a vivid yellow book which, at the time, would denote literature of an i.llicit and e.rotic nature. People misidentified the material to be The Yellow Book (a British quarterly literary periodical of the time that published the work of authors and artists such as Henry James, H.G Wells, William Butler Yeats, John Singer Sargent, and its first art editor, Aubrey Beardsley) and associated the publication with Wilde. The day after Wilde's arrest, people demonstrated in front of the publisher, and a flurry of media reports soon cemented an association between yellow paperbacks and homosexual content. Somewhat amusingly, Wilde had previously referred to The Yellow Book as 'dull' and 'not yellow at all' in an argument with Beardsley, whom he had once collaborated with for his play Salomé, first published in France. Less amusingly, Beardsley’s reputation was for a time so ruined by tabloid journalism after the arrest of Wilde that he and his sister were forced to vacate the house they shared.
On the subject of Salome, a play that rewrote the biblical figure of the New Testament, yellow plays a particular significance; though the colour is only mentioned seemingly in passing in the play in describing her veils, the Dance of the Seven Veils was infamous in its spectacle and, in contrast with recent depictions of Salome* (notably Rita Hayworth’s portrayal), Wilde reportedly stressed the importance of the dance being in monochrome yellow to the production's costume designer, W. Graham Robertson. Yellow’s importance can also be noted in the portrait of Salomé painted by Henri Regnault, Judith II (Salome) by Gustav Klimt, and Hans Makart’s portrait of the esteemed Sarah Bernhardt**, Wilde’s friend for whom the role Salome was written but by whom it would never be performed.
Makart, a Viennese painter, found his portrait of the ‘Divine Sarah’ was met with much criticism, however, due to its yellow appearance, and thus he withdrew it from an exhibition, an action that upset Bernhardt in a time of rife Antisemitism, thus sensitivity surrounding the figure of Salome. She formulated this response in a letter to Makart that showed her initial appreciation for the portrait, her disappointment in its removal and Makart’s shame for the piece: "Yellow on yellow was the colour of Henri Regault, the late master from Paris, when he painted his Salome shouldn’t the famed Sarah not also be permitted to be yellow? [...] Yes, Mr. Makart, even though my statue has been rescued from the Ring Theatre fire, my portrait must now be driven away. And yet my head and arms are so beautifully made up, the gown, the table cloth, the embroidery, the palm fan, everything is so beautifully yellow. Take assurance that I, too, have become truly yellow from gall, because you, whom I held to be my friend, betrayed me, after you painted me in yellow.” Bernhardt knew of the stigmatising reputation of the colour at such a time, but it would seem she was interested in its reclamation and in showcasing the colour for its beauty; when she acquired the Paris theatre, then the Théâtre des Nations, she had the red plush and gilt replaced with yellow velvet and brocade and renamed it ‘Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt’. The theatre kept the name the Occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, when the name was sadly changed to Théâtre de la Cité because of Bernhardt's Jewish ancestry.
* I do use the figure of Salome as an inspiration in itself, though not from her Antisemitic depiction in the New Testament or as the seductress of Wilde’s play, but rather in how her reputation was created in itself; almost all our information about her derives from the writings of Josephus whom relied heavily on the works of Herod’s court historian Nicolaus of Damascus, and our picture of Salome is marred by the latter’s personal feud with her. Herod’s personal life was full of intrigue and violence, and Nicolaus used Salome as a decoy so as to divert the reader’s wrath at these deeds away from her brother. Thus she is described as being the instigator of all the ‘tragedies' that befell Herod, and it is only after Herod’s death that we learn why Nicolaus hated Salome: in the question of Herod’s will and Herod’s apparent heir, she supported the claim of Herod Antipas, while Nicolaus supported the pretensions of Archelaus, thus in a public hearing on the issue in Rome they were found on two opposing sides of the question. When he eventually wrote on Herodian history, he had still not forgiven Salome for this affront and thus made her into a monster. To me, she seems to be another victim of history being written by male victors.
** Sarah Bernhardt was a primary inspiration for both Lara’s grandmother, Lady Margot Peletier, and Lara herself. Ethnically Jewish, Bernhardt was the child of a wealthy Dutch Jewish courtesan, Judith Bernard. Her father payed for her education, under the proviso that she be baptised as Roman Catholic. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied: "No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a member of the great Jewish race. I'm waiting until Christians become better."
I have briefly mentioned before the significance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper in my portrayal, though its relevance is primarily in regards to Lara’s mother, Lady Aemilia E. Croft, and her diagnosis of what was then referred to as ‘puerperal insanity’. Gilman’s story is one of repression and obsession, with the narrator so clearly struggling with her role as a woman of the time and her inability to be the mother that was expected of her, in society that advised women to stick to being mothers and wives and resist the temptation to over-exert themselves physically, creatively, and mentally. The Yellow Wallpaper is famous enough that I don’t think I need to write too much on it, but I would argue that the pairing of yellow and specifically female instability and female entrapment is a clear one, particularly in relation to Lara.
The famous song ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’, a song that has existed in various forms for at least four centuries and was a popular U.S Army marching song, also bears plenty of relevance to my portrayal of Lara, based on the tradition of a yellow ribbon being associated with those waiting for the return of a loved one or of military troops who are temporarily unable to come home from war. Thus, yellow too is associated with memorial.
Though in China the term 'yellow', in regards to printed materials like books and images, too has more recently denoted p.ornography and an association for prostitution in Hong Kong the term '黃' being a colloquial for something that is 'p.ornographic' or 'l.ewd' *, it was once a colour favoured by Imperial Emperors. The beginning of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Gaozong expressly forbade others from wearing clothing in of 'reddish-yellow' (his purported reasoning being that it was the colour of THE SUN and, just as there cannot be two suns in the sky, there cannot be two emperors in a nation'), and further regulations on wearing the colour yellow would be set by following dynasties, particularly the Qing Dynasty. Royal palaces were also recognised by their yellow roofs.
* I won't pretend to be an expert on this because I definitely am not, but I do remember reading something about forbidden books of the early Mao era being hidden under yellow covers, so I'll conjecture that perhaps as being why (as well as globalisation) as, due to censorship, it remains a difficult topic to research.
In India, the colour is associated with the Hindu deity Krishna who, generally, is depicted wearing a vivid yellow robe to contrast with his blue skin. Additionally, it’s there often associated with knowledge and peace, arguably both similar or opposing to its usage in Ancient Egypt ... ;
... there, yellow was worn to signify the dead. In contrast, it has been widely purported that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn wore yellow on receiving the news of Catherine of Aragon's death in a calculated insult to the memory of the woman Anne Boleyn had supplanted.
I based the colouring of my Google Doc and graphics on Orpiment, an inspiration that might be becoming a little more clear in my most recent promotional graphic, which is attested as another one of the reasons for yellow's negative associations. Orpiment was a pigment relied upon by artists from ancient times until the 19th century, in spite of its extreme toxicity and its incompatibility with other common lead- and copper-based pigments, due to clear and bright yellow pigments being in rare supply.
Orpiment had a hand in the infamous case of the Dutch serial killer Maria Swanenburg, once known locally as 'Goeie Mie' or 'Good Mie' when she cared for both children and the sick and elderly in the poor Leiden neighbourhood in which she lived, who murdered an confirmed number of 27 victims (though she is suspected of possibly having killed more than 90), including her own parents, with Orpiment arsenic between 1880-83.
Though commonly a golden colour, the mineral's streak (the colour of its powder when dragged across an un-weathered surface, which tends to be more consistent than a mineral's apparent colour due to various possible trace impurities) is closer to the pale lemon-yellow. It has notably been found on the walls of the Taj Mahal, as well as in the wall decor of Tutankhamen's tomb and ancient Egyptian scrolls.
Because of its visually striking colour, the mineral itself was of wide interest to alchemists throughout Europe and Asia when searching for a way to make gold and in their quest for eternal life perhaps ironic, considering its poisonous nature. In a similar vein, it was used as a medicine for a time, in spite of its toxicity as an arsenic sulphide mineral. Perhaps more suitably, it too was used to tip poison arrows.
