沒有色彩，世界別樣美麗

colorblindneSS openS Up A beAUtifUl World

At the time， Peter Milton was teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. And he’d had a show of some of his paintings.

Peter Milton： And it got reviewed and someone referred to how warm and， sort of， pinky the landscapes were. And I was horrified.

Pink was not what Milton thought he’d been laying down on the canvas. So he made an appointment at Johns Hopkins University. The 1）diagnosis： red-green colorblindness， or 2）deuteranopia. This on top of the nearsightedness that Milton had known about since he was a kid.

Michael Marmor （Professor， Stanford University）： We see color because we have three types of 3）cone cells or 4）receptors in the 5）retina： one of which is mainly blue sensitive， one is red sensitive and one is green sensitive. Some people are born with abnormal red or green sensors. If they’re somewhat abnormal， a person doesn’t quite 6）discriminate colors on the red-green end of the 7）spectrum as well. But they may see them if they’re bright.

Peter： The way you could see my green would be to take a neutral gray and put some yellow into it.

As for reds， Peter Milton says the color 8）maroon looks like mud. Now colorblindness isn’t that uncommon. About one in ten men has some form of it. But Milton was a painter. He studied art at Yale under 9）Josef Albers， who wrote the book on color.

Peter： I was told， at one point， maybe a couple of years later， that he thought very highly of my work. And this is very bizarre because I’m the colorblind person. He’s the color 10）guru.

Milton wasn’t going to abandon art. But he did feel he had to abandon color. And so he embraced black and white. In the four decades since， Milton has been making extraordinarily 11）intricate black and white prints. You almost need a magnifying glass to take them in. 12）Ballerinas and men on bicycles， and dogs and children float in and out of 13）ornate train stations and cafés. They are visual puzzles， and past and present seem to merge. But looking closely won’t yield an answer. Milton says it’s all about invoking a sense of mystery and a mood.

Peter： It’s really an examination of not having color any more， of using 14）tonal and texture as your medium. Black and white’s almost more elegant.

15）Claude Monet had 16）cataracts， and he eventually lost his ability to tell colors apart. And the 19th-century artist， Charles Meryon， who was famous for his 17）etchings of Paris， was colorblind. Michael Marmor says that， like Peter Milton， most artists who found out they were colorblind just switched to printmaking or sculpture. And Milton says his diagnosis kind of took a weight off his shoulders.

Peter： No， I don’t miss color. I mean， it helps to have a disability. I， I use that word. Uh， it’s a strong word， but it helps to have a disability， because when you can do anything， which of all the things you can do are you going to choose？ So something has to help you make the choice.

Or， as 18）Edgar Degas put it， “I’m convinced that these differences in vision are of no importance. One sees as one wishes to see. It’s 1， and it is that 19）falsity that constitutes art.”

當時，彼得·米爾頓正在位于美國巴爾的摩的馬里蘭藝術學院教書。他展出了一些自己的畫作。

彼得·米爾頓：當時人們寫了畫評，有人說，這是帶了點粉色的風景畫，非常溫暖，我嚇壞了。

粉紅色并不是米爾頓原本想涂在畫布上的顏色，于是他去約翰霍普金斯大學掛了個號。診斷結果：紅綠色盲，亦即綠色盲。米爾頓從小就知道自己患有近視，這是另一種眼疾。

邁克爾·馬默（斯坦福大學教授）：我們會看見色彩，是因為我們的視網膜上有三種視錐細胞，也可以說是感受器：其中一種主要對藍色敏感，另一種對紅色敏感，還有一種對綠色敏感。有些人的紅色或綠色感受器天生異常。如果一個人的感受器出了毛病，他就無法明確區分出光譜上位于紅綠兩端的顏色，但如果顏色發亮的話，他也許就能看見了。

彼得：要想看到我的綠色，找一個中性的灰色，加入一點黃色，你就知道我眼中的效果了。

至于紅色系，彼得·米爾頓說，栗色在他看來就像泥漿一樣。色盲并不是特別罕見的病征，大約每十人當中就有一人患有一定程度的色盲。但米爾頓是名畫家。他當年在耶魯大學師從約瑟夫·亞伯斯——后者還出版過色彩方面的著作。

彼得：有一次，大概幾年后吧，有人告訴我，老師對我的作品評價相當高。這真是太奇妙了，因為我是個色盲患者，而他是位色彩大師。

米爾頓并不打算因此放棄藝術，但他確實覺得自己必須放棄色彩，于是他投身到黑與白的世界。……