Perhaps at the cost of a life or even a soul.
Our broken hero can still limp through the fog and save the day. It’s important to remember that grey is not black or white.
The hero is having the life sucked from the world around and, by association, the soul itself. Here, grey is being used as a threatening mechanic. In the cover art for Dark Souls II we’re seeing a similar theme. This would, ostensibly, suck all of the happiness from the world. If you’re over 25 you may remember “Rainbow Brite.” Both an animated and a (super creepy) live action version of the show existed and the main villain’s plot was always to suck the color from the world. It’s as if the color itself is being sucked away by the scene before us. There is some color on and back, on the boot, and on the scabbard but the majority is in grey. Return to our hero in grey and look closely. Light makes color possible (another religious message in Rembrandt’s portrait, should you chose to see it that way) and taking away that light threatens the color. Instead of greyness sucking the soul from the piece we have light illuminating it. Physical ugliness juxtaposed with holy reverence is something that’s not so ambiguous here. Whistler’s Mother, conversely, doesn’t paint the idea of something we want to achieve. Holy light and the blood of her Lord make this old woman something we could conceivably want to be like. The red around her could be symbolic of blood. This hideous old woman is a champion of light in her own way, bathed in light from above. While this woman looks less dignified than Whistler’s Mother (frankly, she looks like an enemy from Dark Souls) the red shroud around her and the contrast in lighting give her a look that’s almost holy.
Take a look at Rembrandt’s An Old Woman at Prayer for another elderly woman. Old Woman Praying, Rembrandt von Rijn, 1630, oil on copper Think about how this would differ if just one item were red. It’s not exciting but lonely and subdued. The lack of hue contrast gives a unified feeling to the piece. Was grey paint cheaper so that’s the color they happened to paint that wall? All of these are possibilities, but so much can be said for a painting simply of a woman in a chair. Is the grey sucking the life from this poor old woman? Is it a mirror of her current drab, menial life? Perhaps it’s metaphoric of an old woman having nothing to look forward to other than the darkness and flowers of a coffin. In front of her is a hanging picture that looks perhaps like an industrial scene, and hanging across the left third of the painting is drapery that look floral in nature, but are also a darker grey. An old woman sitting solemnly against a grey wall dressed in black with a little white. James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 (colloquially known as Whistler’s Mother ) uses many shades of grey and a single subject much like the cover of Dark Souls II. Here we’ll see that same coldness personified in a setting as non-heroic as it gets. The cover art alone beautifully depicts this and even to the eye ignorant of From Software’s monster, Dark Souls II seems daunting, strange, and cold.Īrrangement in Grey and Black No.1, James McNeil Whistler, 1872, oil on canvasįor some historical reference let’s briefly study a painting more famous than its cre ator. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Dark/Demon’s Souls franchise knows that the action RPG is characterized by brutal difficulty and an esoteric style of direction. A bit of asymmetry in the sword-wielding hero and perhaps the hint of a forward hunch in the step suggests that this champion is worn, weathered, and might not have much time left. The back of a character, presumably the hero, faces the viewer as they trudge off, alone, into a foggy passage to a ruin. The soul of the color barely clings on waiting to be lopped off by the twitchy hands of the artist.įrom Software’s Dark Souls II has fantastically bold cover art that is comprised, mostly, of grey. The essence of the hue remains, although barely perceivable. Blue with 95% of the blue sucked out or red missing 98% of its redness. Thus, we can think of grey as an extremely desaturated color.
The truth is that, in practical use, grey retains color. When we think of grey we think of a mixture of black and white. A seeming paradox, as it is complex in its perceived simplicity. Grey is a visual tool that is more complex than it my appear.
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