Anam Cara

A YELLOW FIRE BURNS ETERNALLY, AWAY OUT IN THE INFINITE distance of the cosmos. All colour, light and earthly life depend on that yellow furnace. Without our knowing it, distance, as always, is one of our great protectors. Were we nearer to the yellow fire-source, it would scorch everything to cinders. Conversely, were this sun-fire to slip down into a crevice in the pattern that holds its face towards us, the earth would freeze over and all life would disappear. The colour yellow holds such warmth, brightness and attraction for us because it is the colour of the source that sustains us. A room that is yellow can throw a glad brightness back into the space it surrounds. Put some pinks, reds and burnt umber in there and it almost feels as though you are nestled within a honeycomb!

Goethe says: ‘Yellow brings with her the nature of brightness and has a delightful, encouraging, exciting and soft quality.’ We see this in spring with the daffodils. Wordsworth catches the surprise of their yellow apparition. But it is also a moment of beauty which remains ever present in his memory and makes solitude sweet:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude.

T

HE

F

IELDS OF

S

AFFRON

THE LIGHT IN CONAMARA IS ALWAYS COMPLEX. HOWEVER, LATE autumn, early winter brings a new colour surprise. From being pale and slightly forlorn, the bog grass begins to deepen into the richest saffron and is gilded with yellow and orange. Against the cold, black winter mountains these newly arrived fields stand out and when the rain ceases and sunlight returns, the saffron fields take flame. The landscapes illuminate as if lit from underneath and the mountains stand dark among fields of blazing saffron. It is as though the rain had cleansed and polished the grass in order for the sun to effect absolute illumination. This miracle of illumination is recognized in the local phrase: buíochas dhon Fhómhair – Thanks to the autumn.

Years ago almost every family home in Ireland had its altar of holy pictures. In these pictures the heads of the saints were rimmed with yellow haloes. Because they were saints, the invisible world was already brightening towards visibility around them. The haloes were not attached to the heads; some secret firmness in the air seemed to keep them in place. In the Christian religious tradition, the glory of God has always been imagined in terms of light and this glory is the name of ultimate divine beauty. All light is then a manifestation of divine beauty.

As we have seen, in terms of its physics, yellow has absorbed red and green and then reflects yellow back. Red is the colour of life, blood and fire; and green is the colour of growth and of hope. Little wonder that yellow has such a life-giving brightness.

A

N

A

UTUMN

F

IELD OF

C

ORN

THOUGH FARM WORK IS HARD, THERE ARE CERTAIN TIMES IN EACH season when the work becomes beautiful and the farmer becomes an artist who transforms the landscape. In autumn the corn is ripe and there is a special threshold when the pale yellow turns golden. Farmers watch for this turning; for this is the time to cut the corn. Cutting corn with a scythe is hard, but also beautifully rhythmic work. When your eye develops, you know exactly the measure of corn to choose, then in one clear curved swing of the scythe, you have an exact sheaf. It is the one kind of farm work where there is such an intricate strange combination: surface gold where the ripe ears of corn become enriched with light, but beneath the ears the Kafkaesque grid of endless linearity and then at the end, the fallen field of gold with its new surface of sharp, cut-off stems. Late at evening a field of stooks stands against the light and the golden stubble is apostrophized with the black crows and ravens who have watched and waited all day for the time of feasting to come.

The flame of a candle is a beautiful yellow. But it is a yellow that carries its own shadow and below both of them is the concealed red tip of the burning wick.

Lemons wear lovely yellow over their sour well of juice.

Children are fascinated by colour. A new gift with gorgeous colour can absolutely enthral a child’s mind. They will want to show everyone the beauty of their new gift. Their innocent wonder is eager to share its delight and seek confirmation, especially from an adult. The loneliest representation of such a moment I have seen was in a photograph in an exhibition of photographs from a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust. A young child, his face full of excitement, is pointing to his sweater to show his new yellow star to a Nazi soldier.

In 1215 Pope Innocent III had declared that male and female Jews should wear yellow badges.

W

ILD

D

ELIGHT IN

Y

ELLOW

I went and sat in front of Turner for hours and I realized

something profound – that the vanishing point in the work

does not vanish so that you have the feeling that love, truth and

beauty go on forever.