Along the River Thames, the barge of the Lady of Shalott floats, trailing its heavy tapestries in the water. The river and the barge merge into thick, brown-green oily shapes. Her face vibrant and pale against the dark, her hair shining auburn and her dress of white and gold, the Lady Elaine sits, facing forward, her eyes and open mouth dark shadows, drifting down towards London and Lancelot forever in the painting by Waterhouse. The colors of the piece are subtle; pale, glowing tones emphasize the Lily Maid, and darker colors melt into each other to form the background.
There are four people staring up at her, today. One of them is an artist, one a social scientist, another a natural scientist, the fourth a major in the humanities. Conveniently enough, these four are representatives of the different areas of the liberal arts. Each of them is staring at the vibrant tones of the painting. Each of them notices the colors.
The artist, studying these colors, would be tempted to explain why the painter used the hues he did, how these colors created the feeling of the piece, and how they attributed to its whole. In the Fine Arts, color is a tool of expression. Perhaps the artist would explain the way in which Waterhouse used lighter, brighter tones to attract attention to the subject of the piece: the Lady of Shalott. The darker colors forming the environment around her provide contrast that serves to heighten the impact of her form. Perhaps also the artist would explain how the yellow base of the colors gives the scene a sense of summertime. Whatever else he says, though, eventually the artist would have to begin using emotions as he explains the color scheme. It would not be enough to say that the shadows of the eye sockets and the open mouth add contrast to the face, and therefore draw the eye to it. The artist would have to explain, also, that the dark shadows give the face a cadaverous look, a premonition of the Lady's death. From there, the artist would go on to describe how a viewer would react to the fey look of the lady: with sympathy, with horror, with longing, possibly with revulsion. The colors that Waterhouse used, the artist would say, he used to create a certain mood. The background seems to the viewer to be a warm summer's day because Waterhouse used yellow in it, a warm color which to the viewer conjures up sun. The lady is dressed in white, a virginal color, and she is pale. Waterhouse's choice of colors signify not only her purity, but her lack of health, and her loss. The striking contrast between the colors of the background and the lady emphasize her lonliness. Waterhouse, the artist would say, used these colors to conjure up certain feelings in the viewer. Through color, her expressed the emotions of the Lady of Shalott, and through color, he transmitted them to the viewer. Color was his tool, his method of communication.
A social scientist has been listening to the artist. She examines the painting after he has gone, and thinks about the significance of what he has said. It is not the brilliance of Waterhouse's vision that strikes her. She does not contemplate the warm pink of the bunting with which he has draped the barge and how it contrasts with the muddy colored reeds nearby. Rather, she thinks about why. Why is white a color of virginity? Why does yellow make one think of sun? Why does the paleness of the Lady of Shalott make the audience sympathise with her, and the drabness of the background signify a hostile world? What is it about these colors that creates a certain reaction in the audience? White is purity to the Western world, but why should this be so? The social scientist ponders why people react to colors the way that they do and why they use them. Perhaps this particular social scientist would look at the Lady Elaine's dress and wonder if it would signify something different in China from its color. Is a reaction to certain colors learned, or instinctive? To the social scientist, color is a phenomenon, a thing which people react to.
Next to her, a natural scientist has also been regarding the painting. For her, the words of the artist have a different meaning. He has been regarding the colors, and thinking about what the artist said about contrast. Why, he wonders, is this so? What makes white stand out to the eye more than darkness? Why does the human eye experience colors in this way? In another light, would the colors look differently? Perhaps this natural scientist would analyze the chemical reactions that people have to color, or the electrical impulses that travel to their brains when they see it. What is it that makes people see lightness, darkness and color? What makes up color, anyway? Is that zinc that creates that white, and if so, why does zinc, in particular, create it? The natural scientist sees color as a physical phenomenon, to be dissected and studied and a characteristic to be analyzed. Why did humans evolve to see color this way? Perhaps the social scientist shares this thought.
Perhaps, also, the major in humanities, sitting behind them, shares this question. Historically, this major is thinking, it was not until Victorian times that people started associating white with purity and virginity. Before that, brides wore their best clothes to their weddings, and the brighter the better! This painting has obviously been done in Victorian times or later. The major might then muse on the role of colors in the history of costume: purples for emperors, gold for the nobility. She might think about color as denoting social status, or special occasions, or perhaps even becoming symbols of identification through history, as in the American Civil War. Color, to her, would be mostly a symptom of a mindset or an identifying mark.
If they talked, the social scientist, the natural scientist, and the major in humanities might find that they had many questions in common. Why do people react to color the way they do? How did this happen? They would have different ways of answering these questions. Each of these three ask questions, and they view the world through a haze of enigmas to be answered and phenomena to be explained. These three are scholars, and they represent the scholarly, questing aspects of the liberal arts as they ask their questions. Maybe, watching them, the artist would smile a little, for the artist both asks and answers those questions by using color. He is not only a scholar, asking questions and answering them through his work, but he also creates those things that questions are asked about. As he smiles, above him, the Lily Maid floats on to London, unaware, in all her pale glory.
