The Pancreator's ColorsJoannes Richter

ContentsIntroduction..........................................................................................................................................2The royal paintings...............................................................................................................................3

Elizabeth I of England with a Coat of arms.....................................................................................4The religious paintings.........................................................................................................................5

Graves..............................................................................................................................................5Color Symbolism in Icons...............................................................................................................5The altarpiece at the Hospices de Beaune.......................................................................................6The rainbows in the Stuppach Madonna..........................................................................................7

The third and fourth Rainbows (?)..............................................................................................9Appendix I: False Rainbow Symbols.................................................................................................10

The rainbow bridge........................................................................................................................11Summary of historical rainbow colors...........................................................................................12600 AD-Viennese Bible.................................................................................................................131519 Resurrection Jerg Ratgeb...................................................................................................141600: Resurrection - Domenico Passignano..................................................................................151518: The double rainbow in the Stuppach Madonna...............................................................17

The third and fourth Rainbows (?)............................................................................................181414: St. John at Patmos (Limbourg brothers)..............................................................................21ca. 2010: Jesus on a rainbow.........................................................................................................23Unidentified Rainbows..................................................................................................................24

IntroductionNumerous pieces of evidence had to be turned, weighed and monitored to unveil the colors'symbolism in the medieval and earlier eras.

In the Bible1 the three basic colors had been documented, which in translations had beenmisinterpreted in various errors2:

argaman (Masculine noun, - purple)3 shani (Masculine noun, - scarlet)4 tekeleth (Feminine noun, - blue violet)5

I had been searching sources for the symbolism, but merely found references to the fourfundamental elements fire, earth, air and water such as:

Red symbolized Fire, blue symbolized Earth, yellow symbolized Air, and green symbolizedWater. Josephus (c. 37100 c.e.), the Jewish historian, writer, and soldier, associated redwith Fire, white with Earth, yellow with Air, and purple with water.6

Most of these explanations however did not restrict themselves to the triad purple, scarlet and blueand they were inconsistent in their definitions. There seemed to be another hierarchy in the colorsymbolism. Purple seemed to represent the upper hierarchical class, probably a combination of redand blue. Red and blue themselves represent the minor hierarchies.

Argaman obviously had been related to wealth & luxury in the trading traditions of Tyre7,which had been explained in Ezekiel 27:16. Shani had been related to the insect as a sourcefor the color, and tekeleth for the special mussel.

Purple and scarlet represent male nouns, whereas blue violet represents a female noun. Thesegender references suggests to link shani and argaman to male and tekeleth to female elements. Thefourth color white does not really show up in all translations. In the Luther bible I found areference to white for Exodus 25:4 and highlighted the word (wei for white) yellow:

Exodus 25:4: blauer und roter Purpur, Scharlach, kstliche weie Leinwand, Ziegenhaar.From medieval paintings there seemed to be a correlation to the rainbow's symbolism. Therainbows often had been reduced to a subset of colors. In medieval paintings hardly any rainbowhad been painted with a full specter of all identifiable colors.

Most of my previous studies have been documented in The Hermetic Codex, IlluminatedManuscripts, The Hermetic Codex II - Bipolar Monotheism, Lamentation for Tyre, Red & Blue inSalvador Dali's Illustrations. Some additional topics have been added without implementing these inearlier works. These items have been gathered in this overview.

1 Exodus 25:4 explained in Exodus 25:4 Commentaries: blue, purple and scarlet ...2 Capita Selecta on Red and Blue Coloration3 Strong's Hebrew: 713. (argaman) -- purple, red4 Strong's Hebrew: 8144. (shani) scarlet and crimson5 Strong's Hebrew: 8504. (tekeleth) -- violet6 Color Magic for Beginners7 Lamentation for Tyre

The royal paintingsOf course we must assume that some colors had been deteriorating by oxidation or darkening,which had been found in a painting of queen Elisabeth I, in which the blue colors of the coat ofarms had turned black, which also may have occurred to the colors of the garments.

A few years (July 2012) ago I had studied the topic in Capita Selecta on Red and Blue Coloration.

The painting Elizabeth I in coronation robes.jpg displays Queen Elizabeth I of England inher coronation robes, decorated with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine. Queen ElizabethI wears her hair loose, as traditional for the coronation of a queen, perhaps also as a symbolof virginity.

The necklace seems to contain an alternating sequence of red, white and blue gems, but thecolor identification is rather difficult. It may be studied in details at a high resolution imageat Wikipedia.

The white gems are pearls. The red stones may easily be identified as red. The dark stoneshowever may vary between dark blue and black. We might reconstruct the colors bycalibrating the image in a comparison of the crown's gems. Unfortunately the stones werehired for each coronation and then detached, leaving only the frame. From 1911 the jewelswere set permanently. The same procedure may have been followed in the robes.

The painting, by an unknown artist, dates to the first decade of the seventeenth century(NPG gives c.1600) and is based on a lost original also by an unknown artist. Currently inthe collection: National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG 517516

Elizabeth I of England with a Coat of armsI found another portrait of queen Elizabeth I of England, which also contains a coat of arms. Thedark blue sections coat of arms (which should be a combination of red and blue) is colored in thesame dark hue as the dark sections of her garments.

This effect suggests the darkening of blue colors towards black. These color transformations mustbe considered as unreliable sources.

Fig. 1: queen Elizabeth I of England with a coat of arms in red &black

The religious paintingsIn Blue and Red in Medieval Garments I had documented some of the color symbolism ingarments, which from ancient Celtic graves onward already had been based on red, blue and purple.

GravesAdditionally to former investigations I found two extra graves in red, respectively dark colors in Koblenz:

1. The Reconstruction of the grave of a celtic prince in Hochdorf (500 v.C.) in red, blue and purple8.

2. Widukind's tomb in Enger (Westfalia, ca. 777 AD) in red, blue & purple93. The graves of the Plantagenet dynasty in Fontevraud Abbey (red & blue, 1189-1246)10 4. The graves of Gerhard IV. (Geldern) & his wife in Roermond ( red & blue, 1240)11 5. The tomb of Kuno II. von Falkenstein in the Basilika St. Kastor in Koblenz (1388)6. The tomb of Werner von Falkenstein in de Basilika St. Kastor in Koblenz (1418)12

Color Symbolism in IconsThe icon paintings always have been disciplined by strict rules in their motives and colorsymbolism.

Rublev13's famous icon of the Trinity at the central position probably depicts Jesus Christ in red &blue garments (the Pancreator's colors). According to A.J. Dunning14 red and/or gold may symbolizethe sky and heavenly love; in contrast blue is the earth's color symbol.

The Russian Orthodox Church - Bad Ems (1876) strictly follows the conventions of the color codein red & blue for the icons, which clearly demonstrates the symbolism in red and bluecombinations. Additional photographs of the interior are found in Alexandra-Church martingerhardtcsii.de.

8 Hochdorf Revisited - A reconstructed Celtic Site Blue and Red in Medieval Garments9 Widukind's Tomb Grabrelief Widukinds in der Engeraner Kirche Enger, Widukind-Museum 10 Title (Dutch) Een Kleine Legende Van Rood, Wit en Blauw11 Title (Dutch) Rood en Blauw in Roermond12 The grave in is a dark color, blue or green, which could not be identified due to bad illumination13 Rublev (ca. 1360-70 - ca. 1430)14 Title (Dutch) Stof van dromen by A.J. Dunning (1997)

2: Last Supper -Russian Church at Bad Ems

3: St. Mary4: Jesus Christ

The altarpiece at the Hospices de BeauneThe rainbow in the Beaune Altarpiece15, by Rogier van der Weyden does not really express the basiccolors violet and blue. Instead the darkest section at the lower side seemed to represent dark, oreven black dirt. The upper side however represented bright red.

Of course the red side is found at the sky's boundary whereas the dirty side is the lower side,representing the earth's surface. Of course the dirty black hue may be considered as a darkenedblue comparable to the black colors in Elisabeth I's coat of arms. However the Beaune Altarpiececlearly displays Mary in blue garments, John the Baptist in a purple and Jesus Christ Pancreator inscarlet colors. The rainbow does not contain green, but varies from light red over yellow and orangeto a dirty dark. Somehow the red color seemed to symbolize

the upper region of the rainbow as the sky representing a holy, divine, eternal section and

the lower region of the rainbow as the earth representing the human, mortal section.

In this model the color red represents the holiness of the Pancreator, whereas the dark colors blueand purple represent the darkness of mortal, human life. Blue may represent the female element andpurple the male element of humanity.

The color composition red-yellow-black matches the color components of the Belgian flag and theGerman flag.

15 The Beaune Altarpiece (c. 144550), often called The Last Judgement, is a large polyptych altarpiece by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. The painting is located at the Hospices de Beaune.

6: John the Baptist 7: Pancreator Christ 8: The Virgin St. Mary

5: The Rainbow

The rainbows in the Stuppach MadonnaOf course I remembered to have been analyzing rainbows in the Stuppach madonna in The doublerainbow in the Stuppach Madonna.

The Stuppach Madonna is a 1514 - 1519 painting of the Madonna and Child by the GermanRenaissance painter Matthias Grnewald. The Madonna has been painted with brighter (red, purpleand blue) colors as displayed on the image.

At the end of the Middle Age the rainbow of course is to be considered as a religious symbol. Adouble rainbow even signifies both rainbows as attributes to God (who may be identified in aswarm of angels at the top left position of the paining) and to the Madonna with her child Jesus.

Strange as it may seem the double rainbow has not been drawn the correct way. The colors red andblue have been ordered in a particular way, which contrary to physics have been rearranged to fitthe symbolic meaning.

The inner rainbow has been drawn with a red banner at the inside, immediately followed by the bluebanner, which should be located at the outside borderline of the rainbow.

The blue banner is broader than the red banner, which may indicate to attribute the blue symbol tothe adult Mother Mary and the tiny red banner to the male child.

According to the laws of physics the red band should be at the upper side16 of the primary rainbow,which obviously has been ignored by the painter - probably to associate the red (male) symbol tothe child Jesus.

16 See samples at the source: Rainbow

Fig. 9: Red and blue banners located close together at the main rainbow

These red and blue banners as close neighbors are oriented at the side of the Madonna and Jesus,and suggest to consider these symbolic colors as attributes to the saints.

The upper rainbow is a secondary rainbow, which should reveal a reversed sequence of the colors.The secondary rainbow however is barely identifiable and has only be painted exactly between theMadonna and God in the sky. Probably the same red & blue tapes have been oriented at the side ofthe divine Being.

Grunewald's Stuppacher Madonna therefore probably signifies that the rainbow's red & blue colorsare the main medieval symbols in the rainbow's symbolism.

Improvement of analysis reveals the rainbows' structure better from printed medium:

Fig. 10: Red and blue banners located close togetherat the main rainbow

Fig. 11: Secondary rainbow

The third and fourth Rainbows (?)The ultimate information is found in the (two ?!) rainbows or nimbus-circles crowning the divine,probably solar image of God. This or these rainbows respectively nimbus-circles may only be seenin a good photograph from an art-book or close inspection of the artwork itself.

The rainbow crowning God is a purple image, which may symbolize a mixture of male red andfemale blue, resulting in an androgynous symbolism. The adjacent secondary (purple/blue) rainbowis hardly visible at all.

In the lower right corner of this detail photograph the upper secondary rainbow for the Madonna &Child may be seen as a curved segment of the rainbow.

In medieval art the painter may have demonstrated his skill by painting perfect circles. Such circleshave also been found in Rembrandt's painting Self-Portrait with Two Circles, which I had admiredin Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum in the exhibition Late Rembrandt, which also will be exhibiting inLondon.

The Italian master Giotto being summoned by the pope to demonstrate his artistry andresponding by drawing a perfect circle in a single motion.17

In the Stuppach Madonna however the small circles are not really perfect.

17 [11] [14]

Fig. 12: God, surrounded with one or two purple/blue (?) rainbows

Appendix I: False Rainbow SymbolsIn False Rainbow Symbols (in symbolic and religious paintings), published April 2012, I hadidentified a great number of irregular rainbow symbolism. Painters did not really care to order thecolors in any physically recognizable order. However red an blue seemed to be treated in a specialway:

Most of these rainbows have been painted in a way that the red and blue colors have beenarranged as adjacent elements.

So far no other intentional order has been identified, but the study just started and further samples offalse rainbows will be documented in this manuscript.

Period Artist Painting Rainbow' color sequence(from the outer to the inner band)

600 AD - Viennese Bible blue-green-yellow-white-red18

1414 Limburg Brothers St. John at Patmos white-yellow-red-blue-green (?) (c. 144550) Rogier v. d. Weyden The Beaune Altarpiece redyellow-dark1519 Jerg Ratgeb Resurrection blue-green-yellow-red1538 Matthias Grnewald Stuppach Madonna yellow-green-blue-red1559 1638 Domenico Passignano Resurrection blue-red-yellow-green ca. 2010 Academy St. Paul Jesus on a rainbow red-blue-red

18 In the main rainbow the correct order of the 5 colors should be (from the outer to the inner band): Red-Yellow-Green-Blue-Violet or alternatively for 7 colors: Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet.

The rainbow bridge19In Norse mythology, Bifrst or Bilrst is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard(the world) and Asgard, the realm of the gods.

The bridge is mentioned in the Prose Edda books Gylfaginning and Skldskaparml, whereit is referred to as Bifrst. Asked for the way between heaven and earth, the enthroned Highexplains that the gods built a bridge from heaven and earth. High says that Gangleri musthave seen it, and notes that Gangleri may call it a rainbow. High says that the bridge consistsof three colors, has great strength, and is built with art and skill to a greater extent than otherconstructions.

A couple of Estonian riddles are referring to the colors of the rainbow:

Punane puuder, sinine siider, ripub rikka mehe rsta all (< Je) or in Finnish Sininen siirto,punainen puurto, keskell kamarin kattoa (Korhola 1961). This riddle is hardly translatable,but broadly speaking, the rainbow is described here through two colors, red and blue.Hypothesis on the grounds of the preceding could be the proposition, that for the Estonian,Finnish and other neighbouring nations there were only two significant colors connectedwith the rainbow - red and blue. Still such conclusion could be precipitate, as the use of redand blue is rather frequent in other clichs of alliterative folk-songs. As a rule thecombination is used to emphasize (color)differences between beings or things and to refer toextraordinary phenomena.20

19 Bifrst20 Info from the chapter 4 (Rainbow Colors) in Rainbow, colors and Science Mythology by Virve Sarapik

Summary of historical rainbow colorsEspecially Aristoteles' authority seems to have defined the three-colored symbolismof the rainbow's color, which more or less complied with the Edda's definition (threecolors: probably gold, red, blue).

According to Homer the rainbow merely had one color: purple - (porphureos). Xenophanes (ca. 570- 475 BC) described the rainbow as having three bands of color: purple, green/yellow, and red21.

Aristoteles defines three colors red, green, or purple, which by the way are the most importantsymbolic colors for medieval paintings.

There are never more than two rainbows at one time. Each of them is three-colored; thecolors are the same in both and their number is the same, but in the outer rainbow they arefainter and their position is reversed. In the inner rainbow the first and largest band is red; inthe outer rainbow the band that is nearest to this one and smallest is of the same color: theother bands correspond on the same principle. These are almost the only colors whichpainters cannot manufacture: for there are colors which they create by mixing, but no mixingwill give red, green, or purple. These are the colors of the rainbow, though between the redand the green an orange color is often seen22.

Aristoteles shows why the rainbow has three colors and that these are its only colors.

Islam defines four rainbow colors, which are combined with elements: red, yellow, green, blue. 23

John Dolland considered two spectral colors blue and yellow. Albertus Magnus identified therainbow colors as red, green, and blue. The Edda-poems rainbow Bifrost has been tri-colored, probably (but not sure): gold, red, blue.Romantic writers in the early 1800s identified the following 3-color symbolism: gold symbolizesGod, the free people represented the red and the slaves the blue elements.

21 Ancient Greek Color Vision22 Source: Meteorology - by Aristotle (Written 350 B.C.E) - Translated by E. W. Webster 23 About Rainbows

600 AD-Viennese BibleNoah and his sons are receiving God's hand sign from the sky in the Viennese Bible, reachingthrough a rainbow colored (from the outside to the inner band) blue-green-yellow-white-red.

Fig. 13: Noah has been receiving God's sign from the sky in the Viennese Bible

1519 Resurrection Jerg RatgebJerg Ratgeb's Resurrection at the Herrenberg altar bases on a nimbus, which uses the rainbow'scolors in a reversed sequence: blue-green-yellow-red.

Fig. 14: Jerg Ratgeb's Resurrection at the Herrenberg altar (1519)

1600: Resurrection - Domenico Passignano24The following painting Resurrection by Domenico Passignano25 uses a band of blue at the outerborderline, directly followed by a red band, a yellow and a green inner band, which cannot beconsidered as a realistic rainbow.

public domain because its copyright has expired.

24 Also documented in Bipolar Monotheism (A Historical Record of God, Colors and Vowels)25 1559 17 May 1638

Fig. 15: Resurrection by Domenico Passignano

Domenico Passignano painted the rainbow blue-red-yellow-green from the outer to the inner band:

Detail in the Resurrection by Domenico Passignano, painted early in the 17th century.

Fig. 16: Rainbow in the Resurrection by Domenico Passignano

1518: The double rainbow in the Stuppach Madonna

Grnewald painted the main rainbow yellow-green-blue-red from the outer to the inner band.

The Stuppach Madonna (German: Stuppacher Madonna) is a 1514 - 1519 painting of the Madonnaand Child by the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grnewald. Of course the Madonna hasbeen painted with brighter (red, purple and blue) colors as displayed on the image.

At the end of the Middle Age the rainbow of course is to be considered as a religious symbol. Adouble rainbow even signifies both rainbows as attributes to God (who may be identified in aswarm of angels at the top left position of the paining) and to the Madonna with her child Jesus.

Strange as it may seem the double rainbow has not been drawn the correct way. The colors red andblue have been ordered in a particular way, which contrary to physics have been rearranged to fitthe symbolic meaning26.

The inner rainbow has been drawn with a red banner at the inside, immediately followed by the bluebanner, which should be located at the outside borderline of the rainbow.

The blue banner is broader than the red banner, which may indicate to attribute the blue symbol tothe adult Mother Mary and the tiny red banner to the male child.

According to the laws of physics the red band should be at the upper side27 of the primary rainbow,which obviously has been ignored by the painter - probably to associate the red (male) symbol tothe child Jesus.

These red and blue banners as close neighbors are oriented at the side of the Madonna and Jesus,and suggest to consider these symbolic colors as attributes to the saints.

The upper rainbow is a secondary rainbow, which should reveal a reversed sequence of the colors.The secondary rainbow however is barely identifiable and has only be painted exactly between theMadonna and God in the sky. Probably the same red & blue tapes have been oriented at the side ofthe divine Being.

Grunewald's Stuppacher Madonna therefore probably signifies that the rainbow's red & blue colorsare the main medieval symbols in the rainbow's symbolism.

26 The double rainbow in the Stuppach Madonna27 See samples at the source: Rainbow

Fig. 17: Red and blue banners located closetogether at the main rainbow

The third and fourth Rainbows (?)The ultimate information is found in the (two ?!) rainbows or nimbus-circles crowning the divine,probably solar image of God. This or these rainbows respectively nimbus-circles may only be seenin a good photograph from an art-book or close inspection of the artwork itself.

The rainbow crowning God is a purple image, which may symbolize a mixture of male red andfemale blue, resulting in an androgynous symbolism. The adjacent secondary (purple/blue) rainbowis hardly visible at all.

In the lower right corner of this detail photograph the upper secondary rainbow for the Madonna &Child may be seen as a curved segment of the rainbow.

Fig. 18: God, surrounded with one or two purple/blue (?) rainbows

1414: St. John at Patmos (Limbourg brothers)

Trs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Limbourg brothers 28

1412-1416

28 Gebroeders van Limburg: Herman, Paul, and Johan

Fig. 19: St. John at Patmos

The rainbow in St. John at Patmos has been painted white-yellow-red-blue-green (?) from theoutside to the inner band.

Fig. 20: Rainbow in St. John at Patmos

ca. 2010: Jesus on a rainbowModern icon (a few years of age) painted at a workshop at the Academy St. Paul. The rainbow hasbeen symbolized red-blue-red probably to fit to the standard red & blue garments.

Fig. 21: Jesus on a rainbow - Academy St. Paul

Unidentified RainbowsSome of the rainbows (mostly found in the list of illuminated manuscripts) have not been identified as real rainbows:

Worship before the Throne of God (Folio 10 verso del Apocalipsis de Bamberg)

Folio 78 recto from the Codex Aureus of Echternach, Lazarus and Dives.

IntroductionThe royal paintingsElizabeth I of England with a Coat of arms

The religious paintingsGravesColor Symbolism in IconsThe altarpiece at the Hospices de BeauneThe rainbows in the Stuppach MadonnaThe third and fourth Rainbows (?)

Appendix I: False Rainbow SymbolsThe rainbow bridge19Summary of historical rainbow colors600 AD-Viennese Bible1519 Resurrection Jerg Ratgeb1600: Resurrection - Domenico Passignano241518: The double rainbow in the Stuppach MadonnaThe third and fourth Rainbows (?)

1414: St. John at Patmos (Limbourg brothers)ca. 2010: Jesus on a rainbowUnidentified Rainbows