The Colours of Darjeeling

Many posts and half a world away, (see here), it was pointed out that, contrary to staid classical expectations, the traditional art of the gothic cathedral, like that of the ancient Greeks, was bright and garish with an emphasis on primary colours. We might value the hewn beauty of gothic stone, but medieval man did not. He had no hesitation covering cathedrals and statues with bright colours in a garishly unsubtle array. The author is reminded of this once again because the good people of the Himalayan hills, where he is currently situated, display exactly the same love of bright colour. 

That previous post made reference to the shock of colours found in a typical Hindoo temple. This is certainly true, and there are many instances of it all about, but it extends further to the domestic and other architecture of these quite traditional people. Darjeeling, queen of the hill stations, is festooned with colour. The houses, doors, windows, lintels, panes – everything – is typically painted in bright enamels, a splash of copious colours against the sober green of the tea gardens and the forests of the region. Certain colours are favoured, certain shades of blue and green, but the over-all effect is of a patchwork. There is a festival of colours here, usually applied by amateur painters as required, with little thought for the surrounds. Certain combinations are favoured, and even what might loosely be called ‘colour schemes’, but it is clear that personal preference prevails along with, most probably, the demands of whatever paints might be available. 

The patchwork is part of the great charm of the hill station, but it is not by any means peculiar to Darjeeling. The simple fact is that traditional people like bright colours. They paint their houses bright, and if something is sacred – a temple, an idol – then they paint it even brighter. Here are some samples of the colours on domestic architecture, some of it the domestic architecture of very poor people, found around the sloping streets of the town.

A point worth noting, is that the people here – like traditional people everywhere, in fact – have no particular affinity for nature, as such. It is a total fallacy to suppose that these people – sturdy, poor hill dwellers – are “close to nature”. Not at all. They are not hippies who try to make their houses blend into the forest. Earthy as they are, they have no particular “earth consciousness”. If, out of necessity, they have to construct their homes of crude natural materials, they will quickly slap a coat of bright blue enamel paint over it, with glowing orange trims, as soon as they can. Their connection to the earth and “nature” is nothing like what romantic fantasies of Western ecologists imagine. If anything, they have a very traditional fear of nature, if we may describe it so, and want to distinguish their homes from the works of nature as much as they can. If a stone is sacred, they will not leave it “natural” – they will paint it blood red, as primal and as “unnatural” as possible. They have no respect for "natural". This is not New Age “biotecture” and is not related to it in any sense. 

The one important exception to this, let us admit, is found in Japan, for the Japanese do have a love of natural materials and will let the colours and textures of nature prevail. Western sophisticates have inherited this Nipponese aesthetic, but it is in fact part of modernity’s debt to Japan – the Japanese set out to be authors of modernity, and we see it in preferences for simplicity and naturalness in modern tastes. But it is not the norm elsewhere, neither in the traditional (medieval) West nor in the East today or yesterday. Primal man loves primal colours.

Below are some further samples of the many colours of Darjeeling:

Readers might be aware that the author maintains a photography website, Seance in Grey, with his photography being rigorously monochrome. Do not be deceived. The love of monochrome is a metaphysical yin and yang gesture more than anything - along with a hopelessly nostalgic worldview. But in fact the author loves colour as much as anyone, and in fact shares with these erstwhile "traditional" folk a love of primal colours. He has dabbled with painting a few times in his life. In part, his explorations of the multi-coloured orient are a preparation - a field-trip - for new painting ventures in the future. He is building up a palette.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black