Speaking of these mountains in a general way, they are bare masses whose
coloration trembles between misty blue and mauve according to distance,
light, and hour of day. As building-stone, the rock imparts a grey-blue
tint to the walls. The very flowers are blue; it is a peculiarity of
limestone formation, hitherto unexplained, to foster blooms of this
colour. Those olive-coloured slopes are of a glaucous tone.
Or wander through the streets of any town and examine the pottery
whether ancient or modern--sure index of national taste. Greens galore,
and blues and bilious yellows; seldom will you see warmer shades. And if
you do, it is probably Oriental or Siculo-Arabic work, or their
imitations.
One does not ask for wash-hand basins of sang-de-boeuf. One wonders,
merely, whether this avoidance of sanguine tints in the works of man be
an instinctive paraphrase of surrounding nature, or due to some cause
lying deep down in the roots of Italian temperament. I am aware that the
materials for producing crimson are not common in the peninsula. If they
liked the colour, the materials would be forthcoming.
The Spaniards, a different race, sombre and sensuous, are not averse to
red. Nor are the Greeks. Russians have a veritable cult of it; their
word for "beautiful" means red. It is therefore not a matter of climate.
In Italy, those rare splashes of scarlet--the flaming horse-cloths of
Florence, a ruddy sail that flecks the sea, some procession of
ruby-tinted priests--they come as a shock, a shock of delight.
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