Color

Opening

The first gate.

Color comes first.

Walk into an exhibition and you see the color before you read the title.
Before you know what has been painted, the color is already in the eye.

And yet color is understood last.

Form can be carried over into words.
Say there is a hill and a person standing, and it more or less arrives.

Color does not carry over.

Say red and it does not arrive, which red.
Add dark red and it is the same.

Color is short of names.

We have a few dozen names for color.
The eye distinguishes far more.

So painters give color other names.
They take them from the things of the land.

Earth color.
Sky color.
Grass color.

That the name comes from a thing means the color came from a thing.

And the thing is in that land.

Three people stand before this gate.

Tamayo's color rose from the soil.
O'Keeffe's color came from dry air.
Munch's color came from within.

The first two came from the land. The last did not.

So Munch is the witness for the other side in this part.

A counter-instance is set beside the proposition before the proposition is raised.
Color does not necessarily come from the land.

But some color cannot be explained without it.

That difference is what this part looks at.