I took it into my head to write down my thoughts pertaining to certain ideas articulated by Oswald Spengler in his book The Decline of the West, and it became quite a task for me.
What I’ve done, is basically jot down some of the thoughts revolving in my mind long since... ever since I read Spengler in 2016 & 2017 {the book is enormous, and ten times more grueling than War & Peace, or Les Miserables}.
There are many, many more thoughts revolving inside my head, and what follows is less than one-fifth of what can be written on this particular issue.
I admire Oswald Spengler, and agree with him to a very great extent.
Every intellectual Indian must read this book, and everything written by Oswald Spengler, diligently, and learn from him.
Needless to say, I differ from him on several counts
His views about India, as I have indicated below, are ... rather negative ... and mostly wrong.
And though I have no specific predilection for Buddhism, his worst error is his total misrepresentation of Buddhism.
Yet, there is some truth to many of his statements.
Hindus today don’t realize, or understand, what was wrong with their culture, which led to its debacle & destruction.
They keep caviling against Islamic invasions and the utter destruction of Indian culture at the hands of rapacious invaders, without asking themselves why did the invaders succeed, and why couldn’t Hindus, Buddhists & Jains succeed in repulsing them & evicting them from India – despite all the knowledge of Chāṇakya-nīti, Rāja-nīti, and Daṇḍa-nīti being in place.
There must have been some fundamental flaws in our thinking, in our way of life – some might say: even in our racial characteristics – which led to this embarrassing extermination, to this persistent failure, against an unstoppable victorious external force.
These flaws may not be flaws per se, but they are flaws when one race, one faith, one culture, one community has to survive & succeed in the world, and is compelled to continually contend with others.
If I do not exercise & build my health & strength, because I devote all my time to intellectual pursuits – and get thrashed by a goon probably shorter & slimmer than me, on the street – who’s to blame? – me, or the goon?
It is possible that Spengler
So one must read him with an open mind: he may be haughty, condescending, & irritating, but we might still learn from him.
He might or might not have his own share of ignorance, mental confusion, vague half-baked inputs & ideas, and prejudice, and yet, he might open up new doors & windows unto new vistas & paths, upon which we may walk towards new discoveries & revelations about various issues: above all, about ourselves.
As a small example, we might gain new insights into the nature of the symbolism of the color blue, in Indian culture.
Oswald Spengler is a formidable opponent: a worthy adversary.
If nothing, we will learn things about others than we did not think of or know earlier, and understand the world around us better.
I know this post is very long.
Fact is, it is not long enough.
It’ll have to be extended at least into 2 more posts.
It is high time Indians spent time on deeper reflection, than vague sloganist propaganda.
The re-election of PM Modi demonstrates one thing: self-respect & a sense of dignity are more important than “development” – though I doubt this spirit of indignation will last another term.
It is high time Indians delve deeper into their own history, nature, culture, ideas, thought-process, and choices.
If they don’t, they will land up achieving nothing concrete, land up creating nothing meaningful & enduring: they’ll just keep bickering & fighting & arguing.
It is high time they spent more time on reflection, self-analysis & soul-searching.
An honorable people will admit their strengths, and their weaknesses & errors – will try to build on the former & improve them, and eliminate the latter.
Being a force to reckon with, is not easy.
So please: there is no point in telling me that such posts are too long.
Self-respect & self-examination & self-knowledge don’t come easy.
The path towards self-discovery & self-realization are circuitous, difficult to tread, long...“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” – Matthew 14.7
Indians have to contend with vastly superior & powerful intellectual, political & cultural forces: they are prepared; they have been prepared for centuries.
We are not.
This cannot be done in minutes.
It takes time, effort, commitment.
It involves suffering & sacrifice.
One not willing to accept this, will not find the respect he craves for.
------------------------------
Of all the apologists – and sophists – of modern times, the most brilliant, shrewd, casuistic, deceptive, profound, & thought-provoking, is Oswald Spengler.
His Decline of the West is undoubtedly a masterpiece.
A book bubbling with penetrating insights, utter sophistry – doused in ignorance – bursting with erudition nothing short of mind-blowing – evasive on several accounts – and downright wrong on several counts, but a brilliant, genius masterpiece nevertheless.
I definitely admire Oswald Spengler: as an intellectual with piercing perception into issues which not only develops, edifies & expands the reader’s mind, but also sets him upon a path of further discovery, of constant reflection & analysis of the world around him.
He is one of those with whom one would be glad to “agree to disagree”.
One could actually argue with such an intellectual, freely, unhesitatingly, candidly, and everyone would be the gainer.
The Decline of the West is probably one of the most passionate paeans defending & glorifying Western-Northern-North-Western European culture – and the race that created it.
Spengler chose to define this culture & race by the name Faustian, after the hero of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s famous masterpiece, Faust.
The Faustian man is essentially the Germanic man, though this is more of a soul-type (rather, a psychological type) which basically includes all Nordics, Teutons, Anglo-Saxons etc. {however Spengler understood the term}.
Spengler’s overwhelming focus in his magnum opus, is on the Faustian Man of Western-North-Western Europe – the Magian Man of the Middle East (Babylonian, Chaldean, Zoroastrian, Persian, Jewish, Islamic) – and the Apollonian Man, of the Greek & Roman world.
The fact is, the Decline of the West is largely a criticism of Greco-Roman culture, a rather contemptuous rejection of the Apollonian Man – also called Classical Man – and a fervent attempt to detach Western culture, the true beginnings of which Spengler traces to about the 9th-10th centuries CE, from any vital, fundamental “influence” of the Apollonian.
Till today, the whole Western world claims it owes its origins to – its psychological, intellectual & aesthetic roots in – the Greco-Roman world.
The Decline of the West is a rejection of precisely this point of view.
According to Spengler – and he’s correct, in my opinion – every great culture in the history of mankind is created by a broad racial-type which is a broad soul-type {you could say: psychological type}.
The Apollonian-Classical Man was a specific racial-psychological type, totally different from the Faustian Man, who emerged in his true form in the 9th-10th centuries CE – though his biological ancestors might be much older.
Spengler expends tremendous energy in trying to delineate precisely how, in what way, is the Apollonian Man fundamental
He has considerable praise & admiration for the “Magian” Man, though certainly not as much for the Faustian.
Spengler doesn’t really admire the Greeks & the Romans much: he scoffs at them most of the time {subtly or explicitly}, and his objective is to demonstrate that Western Europeans shouldn’t think they owe their highest achievements, their unique creative efflorescences, their cultural-moral-aesthetic identity, to the Greco-Roman Classical Man.
Spengler admires the Egyptians & the Chinese, though he doesn’t spend much time & space on them.
For him – as for many others – the Egyptians & Chinese share many qualities with the Faustians.
{Workshop of German genius Albrecht Durer: Madonna with the iris; between 1498 & 1512.}
One curious gap in his entire analysis is Spengler’s silence on India.
Well, he’s not altogether silent: he merely alludes to India, passingly, every now & then, and never really takes up a detailed analysis or critique of Indian culture.
His views are not very clear to me: on the one hand, there are elements of admiration {especially for the Vedic culture, which he conveniently doesn’t want to see as Brahmanical} – on the other hand, he keeps clubbing Indian culture with the Apollonian-Classical-Greco-
He clearly rejects Buddhism, on which he concentrates substantial focus, and gives, what I think is, the worst ever analysis of Buddhism & Buddhist culture.
My idea is that like most intelligent men, Spengler cannot quite make up his mind about Indian (Brahmanical-Hindu) culture: and there is more of a desire to look down upon it, than anything else.
It’s as if he doesn’t want to like it, but he’s never very clear about anything.
Most of his comments are quasi-negative – sometimes he says something pretty glowingly enthusiastic.
Often one thinks he doesn’t know much about it, and has gleaned his information from secondary sources.
As for Buddhism, he is lamentably ignorant, and speaks from the narrowest, dullest point of view possible {perhaps because Buddhism is a great threat to Christianity?}.
My impression is that he sees so many qualities of the Apollonian in Indian culture, that one can say that the faults & weaknesses of one are the faults & weaknesses of the other.
Look at one passage:
“The conception of mankind as an active, fighting, progressing whole is ... so necessary an idea for us that we find it hard indeed to realize that it is an exclusively Western hypothesis, living and valid only for a season.
To the Classical spirit mankind appears as a stationary mass, and correspondingly there is that quite dissimilar morale that we can trace from the Homeric dawn to the time of the Roman Empire.
And, more generally, we shall find that the immense activity of the Faustian life-feeling is most nearly matched in the Chinese and the Egyptian, and the rigorous passivity of the Classical in the Indian.”
He never once mentions the Konarka or Brihadīshvara
Indeed, I do not remember any mention of Hindu architecture anywhere.
Neither Indian art nor Indian architecture betrays any signs of “passivity”.
Except the ideals of yoga, dhyāna, samādhī, tyāga {renunciation}, vairāgya {dispassion}, sannyāsa {asceticism}, and mokṣa-nirvāṇa {total emancipation from all worldly bondage, & acquisition of absolute bliss}, enunciated repeatedly & passionately in our texts, there is no “passivity” anywhere in Indian culture.
The texts upholding dama {self-mastery}, tapas {austerity or penance}, ārjava {one interpretation: simplicity} & niḥsṛphatā {non-attachment}, and the abandonment of all actions, are themselves very complex, layered, masterful products of unsurpassed dynamic, brilliant minds relentless in their pursuit of the highest truths.
The level of detail, for instance, in theories & books on various forms of Tantra & Yoga – or Ayurveda – {whether we approve or understand or not} – themselves are the products of indefatigable intellectual activity, an unrelenting spiritual quest, and inexhaustible mental exertion.
{“Noli me tangere”, by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1770-71}
That said, it is possible to ignore Spengler’s regrettable, even vexing, lack of knowledge about India, though not necessarily his sophistry & barely-dissembled scorn.
{In one of the footnotes, probably by himself, & not the translator, the goddess Pārvatī is called Paewati.}
What counts is his defence of Western European culture {he is more or less skeptical of the French & Italian}, and the myriad ideas he enunciates, through the length & breadth of his discourse.
Apart from the more abstract, recondite ideas, one is easily struck by his views about color (especially in painting & clothing).
I intend to select a small but crucial fragment of his ideas, and note down the thoughts they evoked in response.
Here one can see, more easily than in other more abstruse issues, the strengths & weaknesses – the profundity & chicanery – of Spengler’s vociferations.
Let us see what does he have to say about color {underlines by me}:
“The strict style in Classical painting limited its palette to yellow, red, black and white.
This singular fact was observed long ago, and, since the explanation was only sought for in superficial and definitely material causes, wild hypotheses were brought forward to account for it, e.g., a supposed colour-blindness in the Greeks.
Even Nietzsche discussed this.
...
But why did this painting in its great days avoid blue & even blue-green, and only begin the gamut of permissible tones at greenish-yellow & bluish red?
It is not that the ancient artists did not know of blue & its effect.
The metopes of many temples had blue backgrounds so that they should appear deep in contrast with the triglyphs; and trade-painting used all the colours that were technically available.
There are authentic blue horses in archaic Acropolis work and Etruscan tomb-painting; and a bright blue colouring of the hair was quite common.
The ban upon it in the higher art was, without a doubt, imposed upon the Euclidean soul by its prime symbol.
...
Blue and green are the colours of the heavens, the sea, the fruitful plain, the shadow of the Southern noon, the evening, the remote mountains.
They are essentially atmospheric and not substantial colours.
{Indians would most emphatically disagree & demonstrate the opposite.}
They are cold, they disembody, and they evoke impressions of expanse and distance and boundlessness.
...
For this reason they were kept out of the frescoes of Polygnotus.
{How does he know?
How can he be so sure, that this is the precise reason?}
And for this reason also, an “infinitesimal” blue-to-green is the space-creating element throughout the history of our perspective oil-painting, from the Venetians right into the 19th Century; it is the basic and supremely important tone which supports the ensemble of the intended colour-effect, as the basso continuo supports the orchestra, whereas the warm yellow and red tones are put on sparingly and in dependence upon this basic tone.
{I would rather question this last point.
I agree with the passage in general: it is there for all to see: Europeans love blue.}
...
It is not the full, gorgeous and familiar green that Raphael and Durer
That quality which we have named aerial perspective in contrast to linear — and might also have called Baroque perspective in contrast to Renaissance — rests almost exclusively upon this.
...
We find it with more and more intense depth-effect in Leonardo, Guercino, Albani in the case of Italy, and in Ruysdael and Hobbema in that of Holland, but, above all, in the great French painters, from Poussin and Claude
...
Blue, equally a perspective colour, always stands in relation to the dark, the unillumined, the unactual.
It does not press in on us, it pulls us out into the remote.
An “enchanting nothingness” Goethe calls it in his Farbenlehre.
...
{The Portrait of Pope Leo X, and two Roman Catholic Cardinals, by Raphael Sanzio, c.1517. The dense velvety red is nothing short of luscious.
But note than Spengler does not admire Raphael as the highest of all artists.}
Blue and green are transcendent, spiritual, non-sensuous colours.
They are missing in the strict Attic fresco and therefore dominant in oil-painting.
...
Yellow and red, the Classical colours, are the colours of the material, the near, the full-blooded.
Red is the characteristic colour of sexuality — hence it is the only colour that works upon the beasts.
It matches best the Phallus-symbol — and therefore the statue & the Doric column — but it is pure blue that etherealizes the Madonna’s mantle.
...
This relation of the colours has established itself in every great school as a deep-felt necessity.
Violet, a red succumbing to blue, is the colour of women no longer fruitful and of priests living in celibacy.
...
Yellow and red are the popular colours, the colours of the crowd, of children, of women, and of savages.
Amongst the Venetians & the Spaniards high personages affected a splendid black or blue, with an unconscious sense of the aloofness inherent in these colours.
{Is that the reason why all the Popes, Cardinals & Bishops of the “Faustian” Roman Catholic Church, are dressed in gorgeous scarlet-reds & deep pinks?
Spengler wants to have his cake & eat it too.
He admires “Faustian” Catholic dogma no end, is all a-gush over the Roman Catholic Church, the “cult of Mary”, and is Mariolatrous ten times over, and yet, he conveniently forgets the dressing code of the Roman Catholic Church.
Look at the portraits of Popes, and of the cardinals & other ecclesiastics of the Roman Church: they are invariably, if not necessarily, awash in the most conspicuous, brilliant red – in scarlet, especially – which Spengler quite correctly, though insufficiently, identifies with sexuality.
Roman Catholic Popes are mostly portrayed in specifically the “Classical” colors: red, white, yellow & black.}
{Durán Madonna, between 1435 &1438 by the great Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden.}
Further, says Mr. Spengler:
“For red & yellow, the Apollinian, Euclidean-polytheistic colours, belong to the foreground even in respect of social life;
they are meet for the noisy hearty market-days & holidays, the naive immediateness of a life subject to the blind chances of the Classical Fatum, the point existence.
...
But blue & green — the Faustian, monotheistic colours — are those of loneliness, of care, of a present that is related to a past and a future, of destiny as the dispensation governing the universe from within.”
{Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit Order, by Peter Paul Rubens, c.1620-22. The white robe is completely overshadowed by the rich crimson-scarlet mantle embroidered lavishly in lustrous gold.}
What isn’t Mr. Spengler
This: yellow is the color of light – red is the color of fire.
Amongst many other things.
Look at his shrewd method of downplaying “Classical”, “Euclidean”, “point-based” man: he tries to make yellow & red look pedestrian, almost cheap.
Commonplace.
Mediocre.
Run-of-the-mill.
If you love red, you are a juvenile delinquent, or uncivilized, or a hobo.
Spengler is a man who loves power and those who love & exercise power – who know how to acquire it, keep it, control it, use it.
He looks contemptuously on the common run of mankind, praising the esoteric, recondite, aloof, above others, exclusive, distant.
Thus, red & yellow are puerile, folkish, of inferior intellect, yokel-like, even savage, beastly (!!)
This is not symbolism, this is not reality, this is nothing but pure sophistry – pure rationalization.
Let’s turn this around.
{Central panel of the Ghent Altarpiece depicting God the Father, by the Flemish genius Jan Van Eyck, from the 1420s to 1432, in an almost flaming red. Faustian or not?}
Yellow is the color of light – hence, of luminousness, of lambency, of illumination, of enlightenment, – of enlightening.
Spengler doesn’t care to give any abstract value to his colors: he talks about skies, clouds, mountains, forests, seas – not knowledge, vision, perception, cognition.
These latter would appropriately be signified by yellow, because all light {Sk. jyoti} is yellow, or golden, or orange, or reddish.
Red is a way more complex color, with multiple connotations.
Fire is the most fascinating & powerful of all perceptible elements.
Water, remember, doesn’t have a color; water is not blue: it takes the color of its container, its receptacle, of its environment, it reflects what envelopes or covers it.
Fire is of various types: the life-giving as well as destructive – accordingly red is both a positive & a negative color.
But it is above all the best symbol of the soul itself.
In the Upaniṣads, the whole universe is conceived of as Agni.
The universe as pure light – the universe as pure fire – these equal in their spiritual power, if not outweigh, the Spenglerian-Faustian vision of the universe as pure space.
But fire as pure consciousness, as pure intelligence, as the source of all vision & illumination – as the source of perception & knowledge – this is the highest, most abstract idea of Fire.
We read, in the 15th Chapter of the Vāyu Purāṇa:
Consciousness & Intelligence – even intellect – are more appropriately symbolized as Fire, and not by the “limitless Space” of the Faustian Man.
{The Prophet Elijah, very dark-skinned, possibly African looking, from Russia.
The icon on the left dates to the 15th century; the depiction on the right is a fresco dating to the late 14th century. Check out this link:
All the Biblical figures are dark-skinned, almost a coffee-brown color.
Swarthy Russians?
Many Biblical depictions from Russia show dark-skinned, almost African looking figures.}
Comparing the two contending worlds of the Gothic Christian Age, that of the Holy Virgin & the Tempter-Adversary, Spengler
“The Church Triumphant of angels and saints in their glory looks down from on high, and heavenly Grace is the warrior’s shield in the battle.
Mary is the protectress to whose bosom he can fly to be comforted, and the high lady who awards the prizes of valour.
Both worlds have their legends, their art, their scholasticism, and their mysticism — for the Devil, too, can work miracles.
Characteristic of this alone among the religious Springtimes is the symbolism of colour— to the Madonna belong white & blue, to the Devil black, sulphur-yellow, & red.”
Is this the reason why the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was depicted in deep, brilliant reds (with white), for centuries?
Is this why half the Christian figures in almost all Christian paintings in Europe, are all robed in red & yellow: red, for instance, in case of St. Jerome – and yellow, as in the case of Joseph & St. Peter?
Is this the most misleading analysis of color symbolism ever?
I don’t get it now.
Mr. Oswald Spengler has the highest praise for Jesuits – who are dressed in Black: the “Men in Black”.
He talks about the “splendid blacks & blues” of the Spaniards & Venetians.
The Benedictines of the Roman Catholic Church dress in Black.
And now we’re being told that Black was associated with the evil Satan.
All this is confusing.
But it isn’t confusing in itself, because the one causing the confusion is Mr. Oswald Spengler, who has to somehow make certain Western European choices look very profound – loftier & more intelligent than those of other cultures – whenever & wherever, and however it suits him.
He has considerable admiration for Chinese culture, and yet, yellow is considered the most prestigious & important of all cultures, in China.
There is some-thing that either he is unable to see, or isn’t seeing or saying.
{The Resurrection of Christ by Dierick Bouts, c.1455}
My objective is not to denigrate blue & black.
Far from it.
The quintessential Brahmanical God, Viṣṇu, is, or rather, his most important incarnations are – blue, or black, or blue-black {though not in the Spenglerian, “Faustian” sense}, as I’ve indicated in earlier posts.
My objective is to show that Spengler’s arguments are heavily sophistical & riddled with loopholes & fallacies – and they fall flat when you start analyzing western culture itself.
He is correct when he says, about the color blue: “It does not press in on us, it pulls us out into the remote”, and about blue & green: “They are essentially atmospheric & not substantial colours. They are cold, they disembody, and they evoke impressions of expanse & distance & boundlessness.”
Fantastic insight, though I wonder if green is a cold color.
Largely borrowed from Nietzsche, but nevertheless, very true, & very impressive.
And yet, these are precisely the reasons why they’re disturbing, as is Spengler’s fascination with them.
I will come to green sometime else, for now I’ll focus on blue.
Blue, following his logic, is a symbol of disappearance – of death – of the dead.
I seriously doubt if Christian artists had this is mind, when they selected it as the color of Mary’s outer mantle – for, inside, she most often wears red.
{Though I’m writing merely as an observing layman & not an expert, a scholar, or a historian – as far as I’ve seen, in the Eastern & Russian icons, Mary’s outer-mantle is invariably red, and the inner garment, blue.
Spengler’s almost distasteful views of Russians, is another topic altogether.
Though the word “Mary” has to be understood as deriving from “Miriam”, a Hebrew word, one can speculate if the Medieval European Church did not think of Her in terms of the Latin word “mere” or “mare” – i.e. the Sea, or Ocean – from which we derives words like “marine” or “mermaid”.
This has been commonly & perennially been seen as blue.
This Sea or Ocean may not be our terrestrial watery ocean, but the Waters of Space.
This would, infact, dovetail with Spengler’s views about the “Faustian” fascination with Space & Depth.
Space itself can be interpreted in more abstract, intellectual terms.
But abstract, philosophical terms need concrete symbols to be perceptible & comprehensible.
The Virgin Mary is called Stella Maris – the Star of the Sea – and She is associated with the Sea.
I seriously doubt if this has anything to do with mistranslations & mistranscriptions.
The original idea of “Miriyam” was consciously & deliberately changed.
The Church wanted its own unique identity, its own independent interpretation; it evidently strove to break away from the older Hebraic-Israelite matrix.
Ergo, Mary was more often associated with blue, very probably because She signified the Ocean, or the Waters of Space – in varying degrees of literalism – than because of anything that Spengler says.
The Ancient ideas of the Universe {implicitly, the Logos-Christ} evolving from the Primordial Waters, or “Undifferentiated Chaos”, symbolized by the Sea – might have been {tacitly} written into the new, developing idea of Mary.
Within the Catholic Church, She possesses the Apostleship of the Sea.
Yes, She might have been associated with the Sky, because She is explicitly adored with an epithet earlier granted to the ancient pagan goddess: The Queen of Heaven.
These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
The dominance of blue maybe true of European paintings before the 15th century: the 15th century onwards, there seems to be no overwhelming focus on this color – at least in 40% depictions that I know of, Mary is draped either in red, or in blue and red.
All said & done, I do not think the ideas that have been woven into the conception of Mary, over 1,400 years, are reducible to a few such abstractions.}
It is true that red, above all colors, “imposes” itself on the vision – yellow & orange will, if brilliant & richly done.
Blue expands – creates a sense of space {Spengler’s entire point} – whereas red contracts.
{Though contracts maybe an unnecessarily negative way of putting it.}
A room painted in a subtle hue of skiey blue will appear smaller when painted in a deep scarlet.
This kind of analysis, however, can be reinterpreted as follows: while blue & black, and according to Spengler, green, are colors of absence – red & associated colors of yellow & orange, are colors of presence.
A culture which treats the colors of absence as its highest value, and a culture which treats the colors of presence as its highest value, have to be radically different.
Being colors of presence, of illumination, of vision, of knowledge, of acquisition of insight, of dawn, or dawning – quite appropriately, red, yellow, orange, golden, pink etc. are all colors of manifestation, of coming forth, of arising, of coming into existence, hence of existence itself.
Epiphany & Revelation: all are subsumed under the colors red-yellow-orange.
Which is why, for long, the Resurrection of Christ was depicted with Jesus wrapped in a bright or deep red.
The Sun – associated with red, yellow & golden – rises every morning –resurrects every morning – in reddish-pink glory {the color aruṇa, in Sanskrit very often used in context of the Goddess, is precisely the red of dawn}, and at the summit of its ascension, is an incandescent whitish-yellow.
The Sun – the supreme luminary of the ancient world – is neither blue, nor green, nor black.
Spengler does not seem to remember this, though he does take it upon himself to castigate the Greeks for not worshipping celestial luminaries:
“And just as the Greeks and the Romans neither knew nor (with their fundamental abhorrence of the Chaldean astronomy) would admit as actual any cosmos but that of the foreground; just as at bottom their deities are house-gods, city-gods, field-gods but never star-gods, so also what they depicted was only foregrounds.
Never in Corinth or Athens or Sicyon do we find a landscape with mountain horizon and driving clouds and distant towns; every vase-painting has the same constituents, figures of Euclidean separateness and artistic self-sufficiency...”
and in a footnote to this passage:
“Helios is only a poetical figure; he had neither temples nor cult.
Even less was Selene a moon goddess.”
This is pretty astonishing.
One can only wonder what information Spengler chooses not to give.
As far as I know – all pagans could ultimately simplify their Gods to the Sun, and the Goddesses to the Moon – or as Heaven & Earth – but, as symbols.
Apollo-Phoebus, Dionysus, Hercules – all, in some form or the other – in some aspect or the other – signified the Sun.
{Annunciation, by Jan van Eyck, c.1434-1436
The blue of Mary is offset by the gorgeous carmine-red of Gabriel’s cascading robe & the plumpy cushion.
Note the Zodiac symbols on the floor/carpet (Leo, Sagittarius, etc.).
Gabriel has the stylized wings of a peacock, a bird not found in Europe.}
In Sanskrit, the element Fire is called tejas: which also means power, energy, effulgence.
Red – as the color of fire (& the Sun) – thus signifies power, energy, force, brilliance, radiance.
tejas also means: fiery energy, ardour, vital power, spirit, efficacy, essence; as also:
· spiritual or moral or magical power or influence,
· majesty,
· dignity,
· glory,
· authority.
All these come from the philosophical ideas pertaining to Fire & the Sun: knowledge, vision, force, energy.
The Roman Catholic priests chose their colors very intelligently, even if their own explicit reasoning was not so abstract {their reds allegedly signify the blood of the Christ which He shed for the salvation of humanity}.
You can see how Mr. Oswald Spengler’s arguments can be turned around, and used against himself.
The truth of the matter, as I’ve pointed out above, is that the Virgin Mary is mostly draped in both blue & red – very appropriately, in a sense an integration of opposites – as is Jesus Christ.
There is a consistent colour scheme adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, and on the very face of it, it belies the ingenious but rather imaginary schemes of Mr. Oswald Spengler.
It maybe emphasized that blue dominates the dress of Virgin Mary – especially until the 15th century CE.
Does that really amount to much?
From the 15th century onwards, I find it difficult to believe that white & blue dominate the dress-code of Virgin Mary.
She is very emphatically dressed in red and blue, and whenever she is dressed in pure blue, there is always a red in contrast – juxtaposed right beside her – whether in the figure of the Angel Gabriel, or Saint Michael, or John the Beloved, or Jesus Himself, sometimes Joseph.
Mary, Jesus, & John the Beloved Apostle are invariably robed in blue & red.
Joseph & St. Peter are invariably robed in yellow & blue/green {yes, green often interchanges with blue – as red does with pink}.
John the Baptist is invariably robed in red and/or animal skin.
St. Anne is mostly robed in red, or red & blue.
St. Jerome (in the wilderness) is invariably robed in pure red.
Indeed, God the Father is – from the images I’ve seen – more often draped in red (or more conspicuously so) than in blue.
I see no especial preference for blue in the depictions of Mary in Anthony Van Dyck, Titian, or Velazquez, let alone El Greco.
In the paintings of the Crucifixion, for example, if Mary is draped in blue, John the Beloved is dressed in red – and if Mary is wearing red, John is in blue.
If the figures are draped in two garments – i.e. Mary is robed in red within & blue on the outside – the color are reversed in the case of John: he will wear blue on the inside, and red, on the outside.
The contrasting colors – very far from each other in the color spectrum – are consistently associated, and/or juxtaposed by the side of each other, and I see no overt predilection for blue.
There is a very beautiful picture of the Annunciation, by Dieric Bouts, dated to about 1450-1455.
In this superlative work of art, the color-scheme is essentially – well, dreary.
One could call it solemn & sober.
In contemporary parlance, it’s overwhelmingly “neutral” and “muted”, with a very “neutral” brownish-grey background.
Mary is basically dressed in 3 layers {at least}: her outmost mantle is taupish-grey with a slight greenish-tinged lining; then comes her blue garment – but then, we see that her sleeve-ends are red.
Yes, you would think: just the merest touch of red.
Gabriel, somewhat unusually, is draped in all-white – his wings are white – and on the outer side are blue {with a few warm colors barely hinted at}.
Spenglerian all the way.
No rustic idiocy!
No primitive simplicity!
But then, lo and behold!, Dieric Bouts – a quintessential “Faustian” painter, from Netherlands – adds a magnificent red ensemble of a seating-arrangement {something like a 4-poster bed with curtains} right behind Mary.
Gabriel actually stands somewhat behind a curtain, and is drawing it slightly, to look at Mary.
It maybe said that the beautiful red fabric {the curtains, the covering of the settee, the cushion-cover – all are red} forms a strong contrast with the “neutrals”, the gentle whites & blues, and reticent taupes, of the background: yes, it does, and quells & overcomes the melancholy of the whites & greys & browns; throws the dreariness of the background out of the window; becomes the real, unmistakable, striking focal-frame of the limned figures.
The point?
Mr. Spengler makes too much of the color-scheme of just Mary’s clothing – and draws gigantic conclusions from it, quite unwarranted by facts.
If her clothing is not red, there are many other elements in European painting, and many other characters, which are depicted in various shades of red, pink, yellow, and orange.
Oswald Spengler’s analysis, thus, isn’t always convincing, though it isn’t altogether wrong.
His facts seem to be very selective facts, to me.
He tends to choose to name those artists which suit his theory.
A commentator on European culture & painting who never as much as mentions Caravaggio is immersed in prejudice.
He obviously does not consider Michelangelo to be purely “Faustian”: in the most powerful depiction of God ever, in Christendom, that of the Sistine Chapel, God is depicted in fleshly pink!
Everywhere!
A very feminine pink, reminiscent of our earthly flesh, and the motherly womb.
Spengler is very enthusiastic about the German painter Matthias Grünewald, but Grünewald’s most famous creation, the Isenheim Altarpiece, simply refuses to fit into Spengler’s color-scheme.
In the left-most panel (which comes first, chronologically) depicting the Annunciation, the “dogmatic” blue robe of Mary is juxtaposed against a veritable orgy of yellow & red.
The Angel Gabriel is draped in Spengler’s most derided colors: yellow & red!
Gabriel, properly defined, means the Power of God: odd choice to splash the colors of the stinking masses & savages on the embodiment of the Power of the One “Monotheistic” God!
But as I indicated in the context of India, it makes perfect sense: Red signifies Power, as does, to a slightly lesser extent, Yellow & Orange.
An ochre-orange curtain hangs right beside the regal, Germanic golden-haired Mary.
In the panel depicting the Virgin & the Child, again, pink-red dominates Mary’s attire – so also in the Stuppach Madonna {in which the proportion of blue is higher than in the Ishenheim panel}.
In the panel depicting the Resurrection, Jesus is almost bathed in yellow & red, his figure soaring triumphantly against an orange-yellow Sun-like halo.
No doubt, blues, greens & blacks dominate the background of these paintings: and that is an important point: but this does not mean there is something wrong, or inferior, or shameful, with red, yellow & orange, or that Catholic-Christian artists had some problem in using them.
Grünewald’s Heller Altarpiece abounds in reds, but Spengler simply doesn’t refer to these facts.
{The Resurrection from the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald (& Nikolaus of Haguenau) dated to 1512-16.}
Spengler’s analysis of the reasons of western culture’s choice of color etc. is probably correct {though I’m inclined to think that Christian iconography is based on a more specific, rather fixed – not too rigid – set of ideas correlated with images}: but his arguments against the choices of other cultures are wrong, and every argument he weaves can be supplemented with several others, of equal validity.
To confound matters further, with consummate sophistical genius he invents a fastidious distinction between gold & yellow.
This is not totally ludicrous, but it is fundamentally a twisting of simple, obvious facts: gold is a metallic, shiny yellow – possesses a shade & type of yellow – and has been traditionally associated with red.
Since Byzantines and Pre-Renaissance Gothic Europeans used gold background (& gold in general) generously, Spengler concocts all sorts of theories to praise it.
“The Faustian strove through all sensuous barriers towards infinity {and nobody else did?} — and it projected the centre of gravity of the pictorial idea into the distance by means of perspective.
The Magian felt all happening as an expression of mysterious powers that filled the world cavern with their spiritual substance — and it shut off the depicted scene with a gold background, that is, by something that stood beyond & outside all nature-colours.
{??!!???}
Gold is not a colour.
{???!!!??
Gold is a metal, a substance, a concrete thing.
Golden is a color, yes – though all this is merely verbal jugglery.}
As compared with simple yellow, it produces a complicated sense-impression, through the metallic, diffuse refulgence that is generated by its glowing surface.
Colours — whether coloured substance incorporated with the smoothed wall-face (fresco) or pigment applied with the brush — are natural.
But the metallic gleam, which is practically never found in natural conditions, is unearthly.
It recalls impressively the other symbols of the Culture, Alchemy and Kabbala, the Philosophers’ Stone, the Holy Scriptures, the Arabesque, the inner form of the tales of the “Thousand and One Nights.”
The gleaming gold takes away from the scene, the life and the body their substantial being.”
Hardly.
The objective was to create a dazzling, gorgeous, overwhelming, flamboyant, powerful, stately atmosphere, and a liberal use of gold helps realize that.
Gold, the most brilliant metal, also reflects candle & torch light with a power which normal colors don’t, and enhances the feeling of splendor & radiance.
{We seriously need to start thinking of ALL Ancient & Medieval life as being without electricity, the light-bulb, or any of the industrial lighting technology we know today.
It simply didn’t exist then.
All lighting came from lamps, candles, & torches.
One reason for the use of gold, or the golden color, was probably that it enhanced the brightness in rather dim interiors of vast edifices.}
Gold heightens the sense & feeling of light – of luminousness.
{In Sanskrit, the word “deva” – used for the gods – means “light” or “effulgence”.}
It not only enhances the sense of power & control of the priest & the noble, but also consolidates the sense of submission, of the mundane devotee.
Spengler isn’t articulating the politics of the situation: the desire to awe & stun the devotee, and to emphasize the overbearing power & “magisterium” of the priest {& all those who construct the edifice}.
The most beautiful paintings adorned with the gold background are aflush with figures limned in delicious, gorgeous colors {though technically yes, dull-colored figures, figures in pastels, or the hues of Watteau, would looked drained of their life & substance} – one has to merely check out the Byzantine & Russian icons to see that.
{Church of Agia Sotira (of the Transfiguration of the Savior) in Cyprus; I cannot determine how old these paintings (or frescoes) are, but they are in the typical Byzantine style.
The objective is to comprehend the sheer lustrousness & richness of effect, of using the gold-background.
Though the Church itself seems small, it also seems extremely opulent: and this is merely a prefiguration of what can be expanded into a major architectural-aesthetic-
First of all, gold – rather golden – is definitely a color.
If not a color, what is it?
It is the color of the metal gold.
An alternative answer, mind you, would be nothing but verbiage & manipulation of words & terms.
Just because gold is not just picked up from the soil like some random pebble, doesn’t mean it isn’t a naturally occurring substance.
In that case, neither are diamond & crystal {the color of crystal is used extensively in Hinduism} or for that matter, any precious stone.
Nor, the fact that it is obtained after human operation, makes it unnatural.
In that case, sapphires & topazes are also unnatural & unearthly.
And I wonder which metal is “found in natural conditions”, whatever Spengler means?
I thought every metal has to be extracted from its ore through a contrived human process.
I agree gold can be given metaphysical significance.
This has been perfectly recognized, and well-established, in Hindu literature.
Hindus love gold.
“gold is immortal life” – 5.1.5.28, 5.3.5.15, 5.4.1.12 Shatapatha Brāhmaṇa
“gold is light, and he (the sun) is the light;
gold is immortality, and he is immortality”
– 6.7.1.1 Shatapatha Brāhmaṇa
Spengler, however, revels in the fact that the gold background saps the life & substance of the figures depicted.
A problematic sentiment.
As if gold is more important than the life of an individual.
A problematic sentiment, especially given the fact that God the Father, Jesus, and Mary are themselves depicted in these paintings.
As if the gold background is more important than God Himself!
I certainly don’t intend to denigrate gold, or the symbolism woven into it.
I intend to question & cross-examine Spengler’s very specific attitude towards colors, this one included.
In India, Kṛṣṇa is blue/blue-black/black, and is dressed in yellow.
His yellow robes are often compared to gold.
{Tulidās does the same with Rāma, in the Rāma-carita-mānas}.
His elder brother, Balarāma – the incarnation & representative of the serpent Ananta Shesh – also called Saṃkarṣaṇa – is white-complexioned, and robed in blue.
Kṛṣṇa’s blue/black/green-yellow color-scheme is reminiscent of Jesus & Mary’s blue-red, and Joseph & St. Peter’s yellow-green.
The hero brothers Yudhiṣṭhira & Bhīma
This is said of Buddha, when he is born, in the 7th Chapter of the Lalita Vistāra:
“śakramapi ca brahmapālāpi cānyā ca yā devatā
tuṣṭamuditacittā pārśve sthitā nāmayanto bhujām
so ca puruṣasiṃha śuddhavrato (bhittva) kukṣinirdhāvito
kanakagirinikāśa śuddhavrato niṣkramī nāyakaḥ”
“Śakra, Brahmā, the guardians of the world, and other gods
Stand by, joyfully and happily, with folded hands.
The Lion-like Being, with disciplined conduct {śuddhavrata}, emerged from Māyādevī’s right side;
Like a golden mountain {kanaka-giri}, glowing with purity, the Guide {nāyaka} was born.”
In the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma, certain epithets of Viṣṇu describe him as golden-complexioned.
Entering into the symbolism of the Indian figures would be very complex & time-taking.
Point is, I don’t think Spengler is correct in thinking of gold as something unnatural & disintegrating – something which somehow goes against the spirit of life & being.
That is not the point.
Gold is simply a stunningly beautiful, enchantingly sumptuous color, which, when used in a religious matrix, excites admiration – awes, charms, & quells the mind – overpowers it.
“Positively” speaking, like yellow, it is also the color of the Sun, of Fire, of Light, of illumination & enlightenment, but above all, it is a type of immortality, because gold is a metal which loses its sheen with difficulty, and endures more than any other metal.
Gold has always been a type of immortality – hence, something heavenly & divine.
It is the most handsome, most coveted, the costliest metal, just as the diamond is the most brilliant, beautiful & expensive of all gems.
Last but not the least, if one were to draw one’s conclusions from reality, gold is, if anything, the most materalistic of all substances {other than precious stones}, because it is possessed only by the affluent.
It’s possession in abundance is by the most powerful people, those most embroiled in “sensuous” existence & incessant “sense-gratification”.
It is typically associated with incalculable opulence, luxury, lechery, irresponsible power, corruption, and rank decadence.
Nero & Louis XVI, Messalina & Taimur the Lame probably enjoyed the delights of gold way more than spiritual men striving towards the “infinite depth”, lost in the endlessness of unfathomable Space.
Kings & aristocrats deck themselves in gold – filthily rich women & courtesans – debauched princes & lords & their degenerate mistresses & harlots – not ascetics, saints, monks & cenobites, not those who “yearn for infinity”.
The man, who looks for God, for “infinity”, gives up these riches, has no desire or value for gold, almost despises them.
Those considerations (& the ones stated below) should also be taken into account, while formulating symbols.
From a pragmatic, sober point of view – abjuring all vague, infinitely malleable poetic symbolism – gold symbolizes materialism, profligacy, exploitation, loot, & idleness, more than anything else.
Following Spengler’s logic, it is not the color of fruitful, lush, fertile nature with its deep rhythm & poetry – alive, fragrant, trembling with a prolific inner joy – it is not found in fruits & flowers, in leaves & grass, in water or tree, in barley or rice, in bird or animal, in verdant gardens or beautiful woodlands.
There is nothing organic, life-giving, life-sustaining in it.
From a strictly rational point of view, it has no life, no prāṇa, no chi, no vitality.
It is not the color of the majestic lion or beautiful tiger – it is not the color of the wheeling, far-seeing eagle or splendid, dancing peacock – it is not the color of the rose or the lotus – it is not the color of the mango or apple – of the ripe pumpkin or shiny olive – it isn’t the color of the splendid swan serenely gliding on a sunlit lake or the gigantic bear lustily ravaging a beehive.
Why all the fuss over it?
Because it has always enhanced material & sensual pleasure & beauty!
As an object coveted, used & created, it has always been a political weapon, an instrument of ambition & greed, rather than of love, sacrifice, intellectual efflorescence, and spiritual striving.
{One may at best say that amber, honey & oil have a distinctly golden hue – maybe some wines.
These are again, not “naturally” obtainable – wine is not “naturally found”, just lying around in forests – but are generated, or obtained, after much human ingenuity & toil.
Of course, one may say that grain, especially wheat, is golden colored, though it is strictly speaking a brownish-yellow – golden is merely a shiny yellow.}
From a purely realistic point of view, not engaging in abstract, metaphysical subtleties & exuberant imagination, gold signifies wealth & power & authority – very, very material – real, concrete, tangible, ponderable, “sensuous” wealth & power & authority.
NOT divinity & transcendence – not the immaterial & the infinite.
It is always an object of the enjoyment of this “gross”, material, earthly life – and usually, its profligate pleasures.
Gold is not found floating around in the “infinite sky”.
If there is any substance other than alcohol which has been the bane of mankind, provoking the most insatiable greed & fueling the lowest passions, it is gold.
Gold symbolism is very, very tricky {every symbol is, in varying degrees}, and I think Hindus, with all their mania for gold, avoid it in the Spenglerian-(allegedly)-“
Indians used gold in a profoundly spiritual sense – associating it with light, the Sun, and Fire – with knowledge, intellect, & enlightenment – rather than seeing it as an unnatural substance “practically never found in natural conditions” (!!!!!)
And yes, it’s far more intelligent to see it as a shade & type of yellow, as Indians do, than fall into the pit dug by Mr. Oswald Spengler.
{Altarpiece depicting the Trinity, c.1250 CE.; German painting}
On a positive note, used in painting backgrounds, gold effectively eliminates any background content, and helps focus solely on the figures depicted – hence, it is a color which
· sharpens & enhances the individuality of the depicted figures, concentrating the focus of the devotee on the deity/saint/hero; in a sense, this kind of art focuses almost exclusively on the religious figures themselves & symbols associated with them, excluding all extraneous paraphernalia,
· surrounds it with a halo-like effulgence at once opulent, majestic & awe-inspiring, and
· does away with any distractions in the form of mountains, hills, clouds, rivers, trees & forests, which Spengler is {& European artists from the 15th century onwards are} so fond of.
The older religious art of Europe, mostly Byzantine influenced – with its stark golden backgrounds – was more purely religious in its sentiment, than the 15th & Post-15th art, which diminishes the importance of the sacred figures with prolonged & detailed vistas of landscapes & nature.
The use of gold has many very simple, pragmatic, & convincing reasons, rather than the fanciful ones which Spengler comes up with.
To wrap up this post.
Oswald Spengler is passionate about Western European Culture, the “Faustian” Culture, its way of looking at existence, its mode of life, its life, its passions & achievements.
He has brought forth very profound, thought-provoking, & intellectually complex arguments interpreting, validating, glorifying & explaining this culture, this racial-psychological type.
In this discussion, he gives considerable importance – and rightly so – to the presence, use & love of color, within a culture.
He spends considerable effort & space on delineating the significance of blue & green (& associated colors & hues, and an unrelated color: brown) to the Faustian soul.
{You may recollect, from my previous posts on skin-color, amongst Ancient Indian Āryas, the importance of the color śyāma – it may signify black, blue, green, or brown.}
The problem begins when this becomes a standpoint for contemning & scornfully rejecting the color-philosophy of other cultures.
This has always been the modus operandi of the established intellectual elite of the West, which has generated so much unnecessary, fruitless bitterness between the hemispheres.
It would have been wise on his part to explain, sympathetically, intelligently, with due attention to whatever resources & material are/is available, why other cultures & races chose what they did {say, the importance of yellow & jade, to the Chinese, rather than blue-green & gold}, from their unique standpoint, rather than denigrating their achievements from the point of view of his own (i.e. the Faustian viewpoint).
This is how many modern thinkers have laid the foundation of two centuries of hatred, mutual suspicion & conflict.
What I want to show is that the arguments of Spengler are all one-sided & narrow– that the same objects of speculation (here, the various colors) can be viewed & analyzed from very different perspectives – and his views emerge from a very definite but restricted point of view, and may not appeal to other cultures, or people.
If blue is a color of aloofness & distance, as Sp
She is the Mother to whom all sinning children run, in their affliction, for comfort & assurance – shouldn’t she radiate warmth & welcome?
She is the Great Compassionate Mediatrix, between weak & frightened humanity sobbing for mercy – and the towering, glowering Father who is a “consuming Fire” {Deuteronomy 4.24} – and the Son, with a set face & implacable determination – who separates the Saved from the Fallen – how does the color which disembodies & swallows u
And yet, as a symbolic representation of Water or the Ocean – or the Ocean of Space which encompasses all & everything – or the Sky – it is only too appropriate.
But then we have to wonder why is She so often draped in red?
Why do so many non-Catholic cultures depict her almost entirely in deep, dark reds?
One can examine any subject or idea from several different perspectives, and all sorts of anomalies & contradictions may arise.
It is high time we stop trying to prove ourselves superior to others, going out of our way to denigrate those who have lived differently (within a certain range of moral values, of course): even if we do not want to be like others, and want to retain our own identity, the least we can do is understand each other, and respect each others’ choices.
P.S. All the pictures embedded in this post have been taken, as far as I remember, from Wikimedia Commons. They have been collected by me over years, from the Internet. These images do not belong to me. It would take me an enormous amount of time to point out the precise web-location of each picture. If asked to do so, I shall do it. As I have said before, I am not making any money through this blog, nor is it sponsored or paid for, in any way. I can only hope there is no Copyright infringement in the use of these images. If there is, please contact me at somewheredeepintheocean@gmail.com, and let me know. The image will be removed, if the uploader wants me to. Needless to say, I am deeply thankful to all those ladies & gentlemen who have been gracious enough to upload so many high-resolution pictures of all these great works of art. I also hope it is clear that I intend to prove that European-Christian art uses red and other warm, fiery-solar & light-oriented colors abundantly, and thus, I am compelled to disagree with Spengler on many points, if not completely. I intend to write further on this topic, because of its complexity, and all necessary details cannot be provided in one post.
