Re: Quest for colours: what's basic then?

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:


> The heraldic colors BTW are not called 'colo(u)rs' in heraldry; rather we
> have:
> - two _metals_: or (yellow, i.e. 'gold'), argent (white, i.e. 'silver')
> - four commonly used _tinctures_: gules (red), azure (blue), sable (black)
> , vert (green), purpure (purple)
That's five ... Based on Swedish heraldry, dare I guess that purpure rather
belongs with the occasionals below?

> ('vert" BTW rhymes with 'shirt' - the French for 'vert' is "sinople" as
> both I & Philippe have said  :)
>
> In addition to these commonly used 'basic' metals & tinctures, three other
> tinctures are occasionally found:
> tenné - orange-brown
> murrey - dark purple ('color of mulberry')
> sanguine - dark red (i.e. blood-red)
It's forever and half an hour since I read anything about heraldry, but if
memory serves traditional heraldry up north recognizes two "metals" - _guld_ and
_silver_ -, four plus two "colours" - _röd_, _blå_, _grön_, and _svart_
(="black") plus _brun_ and _purpur_, and a pair of "furs" - _hermelin_ and
_gråverk_, one of them the white -with-black-dots you see on the inside of royal
robes and the like, the other something greyish.

> I mention the heraldic colors only because they possibly give a guide to
> what the medievals perceived as basic colors, which is what this thread is
> about.
Treating or and argent a s yellow and white, and assuming purpure doesn't belong
among the "basic" tinctures, the common core of the systems, to my complete lack
of surprise, amounts to white, black, red, green, blue, yellow; ye olde basic
basic colours again!

                                                               Andreas

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