Norwich Arts Center has announced the theme of its February gallery show. It will be the color of passion, heat, burgundy, roses, rubies, lips, love, and the seat of love, the target of Cupid’s bow, the heart.
Yes, the theme is red.
Red’s been expressing since prehistoric times. It was mankind’s first pigment. It’s the Paleolithic smears of red ochre clay on the walls of Lascaux in France, Serra da Capivara in Brazil, Pinnacle Point in South Africa, Zhoukoudian in China, and Leang Tedongnge in Indonesia.
Women of ancient Egypt used red ochre to put blush on their cheeks, flare in their hair, and passion on their lips.
Titian, Bruegel and Vermeer used the red root of the madder plant for brilliant vermilions. The Aztecs squished cochineal insects to make scarlet for headdresses. Ancient Greeks dried female Kermes to make a crimson dye. Brazil got named after a reddish wood that looked like “brasas” — embers — and which produced a reddish dye prized by European royalty.
Red: the icon of love and blood, blush and hot lips, passion and aggression, anger and war, communists and Republicans, Trump ties, stop signs and sunsets, sex and the devil and God’s wounds.
It’s more than a color. It’s a symbol.
Symbolic red goes beyond its end-of-the-rainbow wave. It means. You can roll out a red carpet without having an actual carpet. You can raise a red flag without a flag, be broke without red ink, cut red tape without scissors, paint a town red without paint, and catch someone red-handed in a red-light district on a red-letter day even if it’s dark.
In February, red means Valentine’s Day. It’s the color of the blood-flushed heart. It’s the cheek-pink of one suffering from idiopathic craniofacial erythema.
It’s the hue of the amethyst St. Valentine himself (one of several, actually, and no one knows which) supposedly wore in a ring engraved with an image of the putto Cupid.
Though the several St. Valentines were all known as nice guys — one of them surreptitiously officiated forbidden weddings for Roman soldiers — they weren’t associated with romance until 1382, when Chaucer wrote about parliamentary birds choosing mates on St. Valentine’s Day. For St. Valentine of Rome, that would be February 14.
A few centuries later, the date became an opportunity (or obligation) to express romantic love. In 1797, a British publisher issued “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer” for dudes desperate for a sentimental quip. It wasn’t until 1784 that a book of nursery rhymes established our most adaptable couplet, plus a little more:
The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love, and I am thine:
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou’d be you.
February 14 is an annual opportunity to get a certain something done. You know what it is. But do you know what works to make it happen?
Wine works. Chocolate works. A candle-lit dinner works. But nothing works like a work of art, the gift most likely to be consumed forever.
The NAC Gallery at 62 Broadway offers art aimed at the heart. Some of it goes for the price of chocolate. Some of it’s around the price of a meal at a fine restaurant that’s probably closed.
NAC isn’t closed on Saturdays in February, noon to four. Red isn’t the only color. There are others. They are all good, and they work.
Glenn Cheney lives in Hanover.
In the Galleries is a regular feature in The Times. To contribute, email times@theday.com.
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