Maggie's Farm

The reason for the colors is that all of them were designed to teach illiterate peasants, just as frescoes were. We look at lovely white carved sculptures now, and it's an aesthetic or spiritual experience. But in medieval churches and cathedrals, those pictures and sculptures were there to terrify the peasants into obeying the clergy, and their lords, with the threat of hellfire. Think of all those Italian frescoes of scary demons dragging people to perdition or gnawing on them. Also, there were the inspiring stories of saints and Bible stories designed to teach. Color would have been essential.

Most of us go into a medieval cathedral looking for a kind of otherworldly experience that lifts us out of our bodies, as if we were floating up with our prayers to mingle with the incense, carried to God along with beautiful music.

But with a largely illiterate congregation, and a service in Latin which nobody except the clergy and perhaps a few of the aristos understood, only the pictures and statues would have got the message across understandably. Also, think of all those garish Saint's Day parades we still have in parts of our cities, and that there are in Latin America and all over Europe, where people carry around dolls dressed up in bright colors and decorated in gold. People like bright things. Nowadays it's a conceit of education and privilege to prefer spare, minimalist lines and greater simplicity.