Seeing "Red"

A Perfect Red (by Amy Butler Greenfield) is a book I think I first read about in Slate. Being interested in most things historical, especially when taken from a slightly different perspective than the norm, I was intrigued. On my book list(s) the title went and, when I happened to be in a bookstore, I would poke around to see if A Perfect Red was on the shelves. Never could I find it, much to my amazement and disappointment. And, since I prefer, when purchasing a book, for it to be physically in my hands after payment and not wait 2 weeks for it to show up in a brown box, my search persisted. Eventually, thanks to a wicked sweet B&N coupon and no trace of the book in Austin, I bought it online.

Unfortunately, it took me a few months to sort through enough books to make my stack down to "Red." And, it was worth the wait. While the history of cochineal, the bug used to make the world-changing red of the book, was not as tumultuous as I thought it would be, reading how colors and dyes were status symbols was interesting. Sure, lower class people could wear red, but since the dye was cheap, usually plant-based, it washed out and faded very quickly. Cochineal, however, produced vibrant, bright reds (think British Redcoats). Cortes and his merry band of marauders were one of the first groups from Europe to "discover" cochineal in what is now Mexico, but they did not fully appreciate the value of the bug (which you may have seen if you looked closely at a prickly pear cactus. Cochineal are the bugs under the white filmy stuff). Cortes preferred the gold and silver more than the insect.

So, what did red do for Europe? The color kept Spain paid since it had a monopoly on the dye. Cochineal could only be grown in Mexico, and Spain controlled the area, so Spain controlled red. It led to scientific advances in technology and research - the birth of the microscope gives its thanks to the small bug. There was such a raging debate about whether cochineal was a plant or a bug, it had theologians searching scripture, some people saying it was a plant, an insect, or something in between called a "wormberry." Eventually, a chemist named William Perkin figured out how to get a red color (mauve) from coal tar, leading to a revolution in dye chemistry. Although the demand for cochineal has subsided, it is still used in common items such as lipstick, food coloring, and candy.

It was amazing to see how one color, over centuries, could change and shape the world. Even things as simple as what different colors represented when one wore them. Red went from being a devilish color to meaning passion and desire to falling out of vogue to be improper and a sign of a "loose" person. I suppose, to an extent, we carry those same representations today, but to a lesser degree. I generally do not think twice about a person wearing red or purple or blue. However, and maybe this is a female thing, I do have days when I walk into my closet and think to myself, "Today is a red day."