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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twelve: Using color to express ideas > An Irish Tragedy, Cobh, Ireland, 2004
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26-AUG-2004

An Irish Tragedy, Cobh, Ireland, 2004

Cobh was the last port the ill-fated Titanic would ever see. In this yellow building, now home to a bistro, passengers checked in and then walked out the back door to a pier, where they boarded a tender which took them to the Titanic anchored off shore. For many of them, this place was the last land they would ever walk upon. This image would make little sense to anyone without the context I have just provided. It would just be a picture of an Irish pub capitalizing on the name of a doomed ship. Yet with such context, this image that carries profound implications. In 1912 this building was the Cobh (then known as Queenstown) office of White Star Lines. It might have been preserved as memorial museum, but instead has become a place of revelry. Its present owners have painted the building bright yellow, a primary color often associated with beauty, lightheartedness and pleasure, no doubt to attract more patrons. Brightly colored flowers are placed along its walls and over its door. Colors can be seen as symbols, and here we have a symbolic incongruity. Bright, flamboyant colors are used to mask a building with a grim past, one that trades on tragedy. I stress the incongruous sign out front as well. For days after the tragedy, newsboys, looking very much like this one, hawked papers on the streets of London and New York. Their papers told of massive deaths. Today, this “newspaper boy” tell us the Titanic has become a bistro.

Leica Digilux 2
1/125s f/3.4 at 16.0mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis18-Aug-2007 20:02
Thanks, Cyndy, for letting me know how you found my galleries. There is a lot here for your study -- enjoy, and learn. Thanks for appreciating what my galleries are all about.
Guest 18-Aug-2007 18:36
Phil, I clicked on your link when I searched the word "color" and discovered the pic of the metallic building bathed in pastel hues. I am enjoying your gallery and especially you comments and philosophies. You are a writer as well as an artist. Your words enrich your images with depth and color. Very nice. Glad I stopped by.
Phil Douglis17-Apr-2006 06:35
Well said, Daniel. This image is one of my "sleepers" -- not many have noticed it, but those who have done so so far (you and Ramma) both did so because of the significance and symbolism of the color here.
Daniel Swan 25-Mar-2006 02:46
I like the color association, for those who dwell on the negative aspect of the titanic is all too run of the mill,i see the titanic as tragedy and a blessing, without that tragedy we would still have the idea that we could beat physics and make a ship "unsinkable". i also see the titanic as a leap in the history of industry, and it lead to the safety precautions that are now implicated on todays passenger liners. Yellow is the color of life and also the color of rebirth, ie the sun every morning we see the sun we all have a feeling that this day could bring a new tide for our lives instead of us dwelling upon unsought mediocrity.
Phil Douglis10-Mar-2006 22:02
Thank you for picking up on the message of color here, Ramma, and for being the very first to comment on this picture. I made it for exactly the reason you give. Yellow is a color of life. "Titanic" is synonymous with death. The match is incongruous. So is the sign.
Ramma 10-Mar-2006 18:24
This picture is an amazing example of how a colour may be used to change the meaning or mood of a particular mood or incident. For many the word Titanic is anything but pleasant, even then the owner of this Bistro makes us forget what the word Titanic is assosciated with, and adds a new dimension to it
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