C. On
the other hand, the pure colored-gift, when employed for pleasure only,
degrades in another direction; so that among the Indians, Chinese, and
Japanese, all intellectual progress in art has been for ages rendered
impossible by the prevalence of that faculty; and yet it is, as I have
said again and again, the spiritual power of art; and its true brightness
is the essential characteristic of all healthy schools.
** 'eremnen Aigida pasi'.--Il. iv. 166.
95. This, then, finally, was the perfect color-conception of Athena: the
flesh, snow-white (the hands, feet, and face of marble, even when the
statue was hewn roughly in wood); the eyes of keen pale blue, often in
statues represented by jewels; the long robe to the feet, crocus-colored;
and the aegis thrown over it of thunderous purple; the helmet golden (Il.
v. 744.), and I suppose its crest also, as that of Achilles.
If you think carefully of the meaning and character which is now enough
illustrated for you in each of these colors, and remember that the
crocus-color and the purple were both of them developments, in opposite
directions, of the great central idea of fire-color, or scarlet, you will
see that this form of the creative spirit of the earth is conceived as
robed in the blue, and purple, and scarlet, the white, and the gold,
which have been recognized for the sacred chords of colors, from the day
when the cloud descended on a Rock more mighty than Ida.
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