{"id":122792,"date":"2018-03-19T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=122792"},"modified":"2018-04-03T11:32:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:32:44","slug":"incarnadine-the-bloody-red-of-fashionable-cosmetics-and-shakespearean-poetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/19\/incarnadine-the-bloody-red-of-fashionable-cosmetics-and-shakespearean-poetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Incarnadine, the Bloody Red of Fashionable Cosmetics and Shakespearean Poetics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Janelle Mon\u00e1e at the 2018 Vanity Fair<\/em> Oscar party. Photo: Mike Coppola\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

When looking up the word incarnadine<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Merriam Webster<\/em>\u00a0I found some truly discomforting writing. After a brief definition of the word (\u201chaving the pinkish color of flesh\u201d or \u201cblood red\u201d), there appears a drop-down box with an editor\u2019s note. \u201cCarn-<\/em> is the Latin root for \u2018flesh,\u2019 and incarnates<\/em>\u00a0is Latin for \u2018flesh-colored,\u2019 \u201d the entry begins, under the rather perky headline DID YOU KNOW?<\/small> Okay, so far so good. But then, following a quick timeline of the word in question (incarnadine<\/em> dates back to the late 1500s), the unnamed editor tells us this: \u201cSince then, the adjective has come to refer to the dark-red color of freshly cut, fleshy meat as well as to the pinkish color of the outer skin of some humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

I read that passage and felt a record scratch reverberate through my skull. It reads as though an AI wrote this passage, but only after being feed a steady diet of Thomas Harris. This is not how people talk about bodies or<\/em> color. This is how cannibalistic robots think about humans\u2014pink, fleshy, freshly cut, bodies in parts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

George Bellows, Stag at Sharkey\u2019s<\/em>, 1909.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Incarnadine is a beautiful color, a deep rich red that sits somewhere between the Falu red of cottages and barns and raspberry. It is less orangey than brick, darker than cherry, lighter than wine. It\u2019s made no less lovely by the fact that it\u2019s eerily familiar. As usual, Merriam Webster<\/em> is correct: incarnadine is the color of tongues, steak, and drying (but not yet dried) blood. It\u2019s the color of George Bellows\u2019s red-faced boxers<\/a> and Berlinde de Bruyckere\u2019s \u00a0abstract \u201cwounds.\u201d<\/a> Francis Bacon\u2019s disturbing masterpiece Figure with Meat<\/em><\/a> could have been titled A Study of Incarnadine<\/em> (and the same could be said for the image that inspired it, Vel\u00e1quez\u2019s Portrait of Pope Innocent X<\/em>). When put in this context, incarnadine is rather repellant. And yet, it\u2019s beautiful when painted on a bedroom wall, as shown by the high-end paint company\u00a0Farrow and Ball<\/a>. In large, generous swaths, incarnadine can be stunning and regal. It\u2019s significantly uglier when seen in bits and pieces\u2014like many murky hues, it looks best when flattened and standing on its own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Left: Diego Vel\u00e1zquez, Portrait of Pope Innocent X<\/em>, c. 1650; right: Francis Bacon, Figure with Meat<\/em>, 1954.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Few have wielded the word with as much skill as Shakespeare. Toward the end of Macbeth<\/em>, his paranoid antihero stands alone on the stage and wonders aloud:<\/p>\n

Whence is that knocking?
\nHow is\u2019t with me, when every noise appalls me?
\nWhat hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
\nWill all great Neptune\u2019s oceans wash this blood
\nClean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
\nthe multitudinous seas incarnadine
\nMaking the green one red.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His guilt is so great that no water could wash it away. Were he to try, he\u2019d only create a crimson wave. It\u2019s an arresting image, but I\u2019m more impressed by the construction of the line. The iambs slink up and down those polysyllabic words like beads on a thread.<\/p>\n

Incarnadine would have been a relatively new word at the time Shakespeare was writing. He employs it as a verb (to make red), a usage that he may have pioneered<\/a> and remains active<\/a> to this day. (Centuries later, the poet Mary Szybist similarly employed this pretty red word, titling her 2013 National Book Award winning collection Incarnadine<\/em>. Like Shakespeare, Szybist recognized the rhythm<\/a> of the letters and the potent symbolism of reddening<\/a>. To make a body red is to make it bloody, make it blush, make it aroused\u2014it marks a change of state, a heightening, tightening, and opening of flesh<\/a>.) The rise of the word incarnadine<\/em> coincides with the rise of pink as a concept\u2014before the sixteenth century, Europeans generally saw pink tones as simply a lighter variety of red. As trade increased with warmer climates and brazilwood became more plentiful (thus making pink-dyed gowns and doublets a more common sight at court), people began to distinguish between the two color families. For several centuries, incarnadine<\/em> bridged that gap; sometimes the noun was used to refer to a washed-out red or even peach, but just as often incarnadine<\/em> was used to describe a richer, deeper hue. But whether it was used to describe the pale pink of a healthy nail bed or the dark brown of a dried scab, incarnadine remained a color that pointed toward the human body, that source of continual mystery, fascination, and speculation.<\/p>\n

Early doctors put much stock in the colors of the human body, and their interest wasn\u2019t skin deep. For thousands of years, many Europeans believed that the human body and mind were influenced by four essential and naturally occurring liquids, known as the humors. This soupy group of bodily byproducts included yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. Each humor was produced in a different part of the body, and each one was linked to a season, an element, a temperament, and a stage of life. They were also associated with colors\u2014yellow, black, white (or clear), and red.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Thomas Woodruff, Landscape Variation, Sanguinic<\/em>, 2010\u20132011.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

While no one knows exactly how these early physicians chose these four substances to form the basis of their medical system, some historians believe<\/a> that the four humors were inspired by the four hues found in separated blood. When you leave a vial of blood to rest out in open air, it begins to form a series of distinct layers\u2014a dark blackish clot forms at the bottom, followed by a thin layer of red cells, then a pale green or whitish layer, with a clear yellow serum floating on the top. Perhaps Greek philosophers noticed how this vital fluid (seemingly a contiguous whole, like the human body itself) could be broken down into several components and extrapolated the concept from there. The red liquid was linked with the most positive traits, which is fitting since red was a highly prized color among the ancient Greeks. People who had sanguine dispositions<\/a> (i.e., they possessed more blood than bile or phlegm) were cheerful, optimistic, sociable, and youthful. These four character tropes cropped up in the arts as well as the sciences: Shakespeare threw them into his plays<\/a> and Albrecht D\u00fcrer hid them in the background of one of his etchings<\/a>. Contemporary artists have played with the idea of the four humors, too. The \u201cneo-fabulist\u201d painter Thomas Woodruff<\/a> created a series of temperament-inspired pieces<\/a>, including the incarnadine-heavy and symbolism-rich Landscape Variation, Sanguinic<\/em> (2010\u20132011).<\/p>\n

Although we no longer subscribe to that medicinal system, we still tend to think of bloodred as a healthy color. A reddened complexion could be a sign of alcohol abuse or an aversion to sunscreen, but a ruddy-faced person is typically understood to have high spirits and athletic interests, not gin blossoms and age spots. Practically speaking, you can be red in the face from anger, embarrassment, exertion, or sexual activity. Or you could just be wearing make-up to mimic the look. Thanks to a long-held association between fleshy red tones and libidinous encounters, there are few places where we see more incarnadine than in the cosmetics industry.<\/p>\n

In interior design and textile manufacturing, rich red cycles in and out of fashion. Some years, we see Marsala velvet sofas<\/a> and incarnadine walls.<\/a> Other years, we\u2019re all about millennial pink and Navajo white. Much to my delight, red seems to be on the rise right now. Following years of pastel dominance, we\u2019re starting to see a preference for vivid crimsons and shocking purples among the fashionable set\u2014one need look no further than Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s devastatingly good<\/a> Christian Siriano Oscar outfit or Dua Lipa\u2019s music video for \u201cIDGAF\u201d (which features both brilliant red and ultraviolet pant suits) to see how fresh the color can seem in the right hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Marilyn Minter, Scrumptious<\/em>, 2004.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

But unlike those timely and tailored red jackets, incarnadine lips are considered a classic. Chanel\u2019s beloved deep-red nail polish, Vamp, is one of the most iconic shades of the nineties<\/a>, and it still looks fresh today. Unlike interior designers, who can be a little wary of putting the fleshy associations of red front and center, make-up companies have no such qualms. Sure, there are plenty of lipsticks with names like Ruby Woo or Cherries in the Snow, but there are just as many called Bloodroses<\/a>\u00a0or Bad Blood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the phrase ruby-red lips<\/em>\u00a0has a slightly more pleasant cast to it than bloodred lips<\/em>, both are clich\u00e9s and both phrases seem equally likely to wind up somewhere in the bridge of a Taylor Swift track (depending on which persona\u2014femme fatale or gutsy good girl\u2014she\u2019s inhabiting at the time). Both also serve to single out a pair of lips as an object worth desiring, either by comparing them to precious stones or by highlighting the carnal nature of the human mouth. (Carnal<\/em>, of course, comes from the same Latin root as incarnadine<\/em>.) It\u2019s been widely theorized that red lipstick is appealing to heterosexual men because it creates a facial allegory for those other<\/em> lips, supposedly made red and engorged by ovulation. The famed sexologists William Masters and Virginia Johnson helped advance this concept, but while multiple studies have shown that men find women dressed in red or photographed against a red backdrop slightly more attractive, there is no reason to believe that straight men prefer cherry-red genitals. In fact, some studies have shown a slight bias against artificially reddened vulva<\/a>. But that hasn\u2019t stopped Nars from giving their matte incarnadine lipstick the highly suggestive color name Fire Down Below<\/a>. Though I find that name a bit off-putting, it\u2019s still not as bad as Kat Von D\u2019s yikes-inducing Underage Red<\/a>. I\u2019m under no delusions that Kat Von D will listen to me\u2014she\u2019s defended her tastelessly titled cosmetics before\u2014but wouldn\u2019t it be nice if she\u2019d scrap the Lolita references for something more classic? Incarnadine has the same number of syllables, yet not a single product on Sephora has it on the label. Thanks to Shakespeare\u2019s groundbreaking verbing, one could even say, I must incarnadine my lips, and it would be grammatically correct. Really, is there anything more arousing than that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Before her performance at the 2013 Super Bowl, Beyonc\u00e9 released a series of promo images featuring a red lip and a sexy referee costume.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether you find incarnadine stimulating or repulsive, there\u2019s something compelling about a flesh color that has nothing to do with skin color. The world is full of inaccurately labeled beige items that boast \u201cnude\u201d or \u201cflesh tone.\u201d When I discovered incarnadine, I felt a slight thrill. Finally, a human color that is less focused on melatonin and more accurately describes what lies beneath. Gruesome as it may be, incarnadine is, like puce, a universal hue. It\u2019s sexy, it\u2019s meaty, it\u2019s gross, and it\u2019s poetic, all at once. It reminds me of Byron Kim\u2019s portrait of his son. Emmett at Twelve Months, #3<\/a><\/em>, is made from a series of small panels, each painted a different color. The colors Kim found on his child\u2019s body range from light mauve to steely gray to inky black. There are dark panels and light panels and peach panels and white ones. Like this complex portrait of a person, incarnadine is a color that shifts when you look at it closely. Centuries ago, that word was understood to mean pinkish or the \u201couter skin of some humans.\u201d But over the years, incarnadine has deepened and darkened. Now, it\u2019s the color of blood, our shared liquid, the hue of our shared humanity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Katy Kelleher is a writer who lives in the woods of rural New England. She is the author of\u00a0<\/em>Handcrafted Maine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  When looking up the word incarnadine\u00a0in\u00a0Merriam Webster\u00a0I found some truly discomforting writing. After a brief definition of the word (\u201chaving the pinkish color of flesh\u201d or \u201cblood red\u201d), there appears a drop-down box with an editor\u2019s note. \u201cCarn- is the Latin root for \u2018flesh,\u2019 and incarnates\u00a0is Latin for \u2018flesh-colored,\u2019 \u201d the entry begins, under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32911],"tags":[25698,12887,16181,33356,22768,1745,27199,33354,25596,333,13343,8464,948,33355],"class_list":["post-122792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hues-hue","tag-albrecht-durer","tag-beyonce","tag-diego-velazquez","tag-dua-lipa","tag-flesh","tag-francis-bacon","tag-george-bellows","tag-incarnadine","tag-janelle-monae","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-mary-szybist","tag-merriam-webster","tag-shakespeare","tag-thomas-woodruff"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIncarnadine, the Bloody Red of Fashionable Cosmetics and Shakespearean Poetics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Incarnadine is the color of tongues, steak, and drying (but not yet dried) blood. 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