Snow falls, precipitates flurry

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.  Oscar Wilde

White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black.  God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.  Gilbert K. Chesterton

ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be.  It includes the gift of making any color appear white.  Ambrose Bierce

Color, especially white, is rumbling rather persistently through my mind the last few days.  It has come up in in so many contexts over the years...color theory...philosophy...film versus video...fabric...language...fragrance...I think about that paths white has used to enter my conscious...

...how I like white, because it allows you to easily contemplate contour and shadow...

...the color of the good guy's ten gallon hat...GALLON water has no color...WATER makes the snow...WATER AND TEN frozen water falling now is ten times the volume it would be if it were rain...RAIN on my parade, would be embarassing if I were wearing white...WHITE is not the color of my true love's hair, but is the color I should wear if we get married.  Well, that if, plus one more "if"...

...not to mention all the white that is falling across the U.S. these past few days.  49 of 'em with snow on the ground.  Right now, thoughts are accumulating in my head as if I were in the path of lake effect snow.

Is white the absence of color, or the presence of all colors?  Depends if you are adding or subtracting.  A confluence of different approaches to one result ("white") that at the moment is making me think how both "luxury" and "art" are applied to perfume.

It's all questions today, folks.

Though I think my additive white perfume would be Douce Amere, while the subtractive would be L'Eau d'Hiver.

Does color steer our thinking?  Or does it augment it?

More ellipses....

Images:
snowscape, icicle lights, china mold, all author's own
"Snow Clouds off Lake Michigan" NASA Earth Observatory

~Lovely blog on things grammatical, including ellipses (providing clear evidence I can identify wise advice without using them in the least)
~Olfacta mentions color in the form of carpet dye (though I believe the careful reader will note an allusion); note also photo helping illustrate the snow situation, even there in the Deep South
~A while back I pondered perfume from the angle of color vs black & white; interesting to note that January seems to elicit these musings

Can a fragrance be in black & white?

Classic topic among film folk: color vs. black & white.  (Discuss among yourselves.)

Today's New York Times discussed a new DVD release of two Michael Powell films, and I took special note of the discussion of "A Matter of Life and Death." Apparently, in the film "heaven is in black and white, while...bursting Technicolor is reserved for earthly delights."

I spent a fair amount of time with film at one point in my life, so it was easy to have a quick flood of associations,  Wim Wenders "Wings of Desire" being foremost among them.  I don't know why scholars and critics didn't point to the Powell movie when Wenders released his film, since clearly there are strong parallels between the two.*  That aside, I began ruminating on the effect of b&w versus color in film and if there was a way to connect this to fragrance.  Motion picture film, mind you, not still photography; scent exists through time, and frequently has a development, whereas a photograph is a frozen moment--even if motion is implicit--for the viewer to linger on, with, within, without.  That's what you learn when you make movies:  it's not just sound + vision, it's sound + vision + time.

Is there such a thing as a black and white fragrance?  I tried at first with the historical angle, but that just doesn't work.  It's like the notion that people dream in black and white, and color dreaming was an aberration; dreaming in black and white was more commonly reported in an era when films (and then television) were in black and white.  Color has been with us for the duration of our history; its obviously an option for a perfume from any era.

So black and white is more about...what?  Focusing on contrast?  Emphasizing moments over movement?  Filtering out extraneous information so that one examines a particular set of details?  

I don't know yet.  I'm pondering this.  I'll tell you this:  It's hard for me to conceive of a white floral that isn't a fragrance that is in "color," soliflore or not.  And I'm thinking that maybe Knize Ten is a black and white fragrance--so clearly about that sharp leather that one starts to see the nubbies in the hide.  But I'm not convinced.  

Maybe if I tried to triangulate it with music...but what is the musical equivalent of color versus black and white?

Sorry...all I'm doing here today is raising questions.  Clearly, I'm not done rumbling this around in my head.

*A male character falls to earth, one due to the mistake of an angel, the other an angel himself.  Both are in love with a woman on earth.  Both need to explain why they should stay on earth.  And, for both, earth is full of "information," i.e., in color.