Ruby Slippers: A Journey with Colour in the Land of Oz

We're Not in Kansas Anymore : Colour for a New World

With a few exceptions, I've chosen to focus almost exclusively on the themes in L. Frank Baum's originalchildren's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), instead of the more widely known 1939 film, TheWizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland. The main reason for this is the way the two versions deal withfictionality as a concept. In the book, Oz is a real place- as real as Dorothy's Kansas anyway- but exists inan ambiguous location that can only be accessed by outsiders from the air (think hot air balloons andtornadoes) because of the deadly desert that surrounds the Land of Oz. The film version of Oz, however,only exists in Dorothy's dream. Because of this, the Oz of the novel has its own reality consisting of distinctcharacters, mythologies, rules, and architecture, whereas the Oz dreamworld exists as representations ofexperiences from Dorothy's waking life. Book Dorothy is dealing with the problems of existing in a foreignland, while Film Dorothy's subconscious is working through the problems she deals with at home- mainlyher irritating Toto-hating neighbor who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West in her mind. The introductionto the Land of Oz and the treatment of colour in both mediums furthers this comparison. Both versions ofthe story start in the grey, dusty land of Kansas which, in the novel, while the only colour term used in thedescription is grey, the effect it gives is one of dullness and a certain poverty of life:

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but thegreat gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flatcountry that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowedland into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green,for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray colour tobe seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint andthe rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.1

The conditions in which she lives strip the colour and the life out of her world. After the tornado setsDorothy and her house down in the new land, we are gradually introduced to colours, first the green grass,then the blue clothing of the Munchkins and the Good Witch's white dress and hair. Kansas and itsinhabitants in the film are rendered in pure sepia tones until the spectacular moment when Dorothy opensthe front door onto the hyper-saturated world of Oz. There is a breathtaking moment when we are stillstanding inside the doorway and the sepia house but see the fantastical, colourful world beyond the door.

Still from The Wizard of Oz (1939) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

The discovery of colour in a previously desaturated existence is a common metaphor for the loss ofinnocence and the discovery of knowledge. Other great examples of this are when the child protagonist inThe Giver sees the red apple for the first time2 after receiving memories from the society and in the movie

1 L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), 122 Lois Lowry, The Giver (1993). Apples, of course, are another common metaphorical device for the loss of

innocence with a rich history- Eve, Kafka, et al.

Pleasantville when characters experience a moment of self-discovery. 3 Despite the dynamic Technicolourentrance, the lesson inherent in the movie, understood once again through colour, falls depressingly shortof the book, and this is the other reason I will focus on the novel's narrative and characters from here onout. Our protagonist in the book is brave and resourceful and longs for Kansas because she is worriedabout her family and their financial situation, but the movie version of Dorothy wants to return because sheis scared and unhappy. When she wakes up in her desaturated world surrounded by her family and friends,Dorothy is adamant that she will never leave home again, metaphorically rejecting knowledge andexperience and instead choosing a life of subservient ignorance. The message of the movie is that theoutside world is dangerous for a young girl, as is an active imagination. A girl's place is at home. Despitethe tempting vividness of the Land of Oz, the moral of the movie is that Grey is Good.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow : Colour and the Identity of Place

Colour plays an enormously important role in the novel marking the location of the characters within theLand of Oz. Each of the five regions has its own distinct colour: Munchkin Country in the East is blue;Winkie Country to the West is yellow; Quadling Country to the South is red; and the Emerald City and itssurrounding area is green. Gillikin Country lies in the North and favors purple, but we only learn about thename of this region and its attributes in the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz.4 The inhabitants ofeach region wear only their signature colour and paint their houses to match. In the first edition of the book,the illustrations made use of the region's colour in both monochromatic pages and full-colour plates to helporient the reader to the location of the travelers.5

The story starts in Kansas, which is described only in shades of grey, and so the pages of the book duringthis part in the tale are grey.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Kansas, pages 10, 11, 13

The cyclone sets Dorothy, Toto, and their house down in Munchkin Country, the land of blue. The travelersare greeted by a group of Munchkin men, all wearing head-to-toe blue, and the Witch of the North, dressedin pure white. After the Witch gives directions to the City of Emeralds and leaves, Dorothy goes back intoher house to prepare for the journey. She changes into a gingham dress checked with blue and whitesquares and trades her old leather shoes for the silver shoes left behind when the Witch of the East driedup underneath Dorothy's house. As our protagonists walk along the yellow brick road toward the City, theypass by houses and fences painted the same shade of blue as the clothing worn by the Munchkin menearlier. They meet a rich Munchkin landowner, Boq, and spend the night in his house, which is decoratedwith blue linens and rugs.

3 Pleasantville (1998) New Line Cinema4 L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Wizard of Oz (1904)5 All of the images of pages used are from the Library of Congress's Rare Book and Special Collections

Division Digital Collection. I have fixed some minor imperfections on the scanned images and cropped when necessary, but otherwise the colours have not been altered from the original publication. All of the illustrationsare drawn by W. W. Denslow

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Munchkin Country, pages 21, 30, 42

Over supper that night, Boq tells Dorothy that he assumed she is a sorceress because of her dress. Whenshe asks him why, he explains:

'Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch. Besides, you have whitein your frock, and only witches and sorceresses wear white.' 'My dress is blue and white checked,' said Dorothy, smoothing out the wrinkles in it. 'It is kind of you to wear that,' said Boq. 'Blue us the colour of the Munchkins, and white isthe witch colour. So we know you are a friendly witch.'6

As the journey continues, Dorothy and Toto add the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion to theirclan. Even though they are still technically in Munchkin Country (and the middle of a chapter) when theyfirst experience danger as a group, the colour scheme of the pages changes from blue to red. Their fightwith the Kalidah beasts, turbulent crossing of the river, and trek through the poisonous poppy field all takeplace in the wilder and less civilized territory between Munchkin Country and the rural region of Ozsurrounding the Emerald City.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) wild territory, pages 82, 86, 88

The pages change to green before the problem of the poisonous poppies is solved, but this change lets thereaders know that the group is almost safe and will be back on their journey shortly. We are now in theregion of Oz, where houses are painted green and the Emerald City sits at the center. Once inside thewalls of the City, Dorothy and her friends are led to individual rooms to rest and freshen up. Dorothychooses a new green silk dress for herself and a ribbon to put around Toto's neck. When they leave theCity and remove the green spectacles that everyone must wear inside the walls, Dorothy notices that herdress and the ribbon have become pure white.

6 Baum (1900), 35

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Oz, pages 117, 120, 124

The Wizard of Oz sends the group of friends to Winkie Country in the West, the land of yellow, to defeat theWicked Witch of the West who rules there. Their arrival in her territory is marked once again by a change inpage colour, but this time the region isn't actually described in colour terms until after the Witch has beendefeated.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Winkie Country, pages 146, 155, 168

They return to the Emerald City to collect their rewards from the Wizard.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Oz, pages 178, 179, 217

After discovering that the Wizard is actually just a humbug, the Scarecrow is given the brains he sought,the Tin Woodman receives a heart, and the Cowardly Lion is rewarded with courage. The Wizard offers tobring Dorothy back to Kansas in his balloon but it rips away from its tethers before she can make it to the

basket with Toto. At the suggestion of the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, the friends travel south toQuadling Country, the land of red, to meet with the Witch Glinda and ask her for help in returning Dorothyhome. In between Oz and the Land of the South, our protagonists must pass through another area ofwilderness and unrest, this time distinguished by pages of brown. This part of the world is described as"disagreeable", using imagery of mud, bogs, and gloom.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) wilderness, pages 236, 231, 233

They pass out of the forest and into Quadling Country where red is the favorite colour. Strangely, thesepages are coloured with the same red as the territory of poppy fields and other dangers, even thoughGlinda's land is highly civilized and ultimately where Dorothy finally receives the help she has beensearching for all along.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) Quadling Country, pages 242, 249, 250

Rather than returning to a grey colour scheme when Dorothy finally makes it back to Kansas, the finalpages retain the red of the poppy fields and Glinda's castle, suggesting, in direct contrast to the movieversion, that Dorothy has brought a piece of Oz back home with her, that it will forever be a part of her lifeand that she has embraced her new knowledge of the outside world.

John Portman's Westin Bonadventure Hotel is one of the most fictional of built worlds. Fredric Jameson, inhis canonical essay says that it "aspires to being a total space, a complete world, a kind of miniature city."7

It is a new territory existing apart from the fabric of surrounding Los Angeles. Like the Land of Oz, a travelermust fall through the air from her room to reach this new world, this time by means of a glass elevator. Afterthe completion of the building, the interior space was too confusing for visitors and the spaces weretherefore colour-coded to give some semblance of directionality and allow its inhabitants to orientthemselves within the foreign world. Jameson posits that this was necessary because the public was still

7 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), 42

trying to view a Postmodern space through the lens of Modern perception.8 Coincidentally, the coloursadopted by the four cores of the building are blue, yellow, red, and green.

The colours of Oz have most certainly become a part of the collective unconscious and the clearestexamples revolve around the yellow brick road. The simplest way to call out the act of moving along a pathas a performance is to colour the route yellow, like the escalators in OMA's Seattle Public Library or Christoand Jeanne-Claude's Wrapped Walk Ways project in Kansas City (1977).

OMA: Seattle Public Library, 2004 (The Seattle Times Company)Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Wrapped Walk Ways, 1977-78 (Wolfgang Volz)

Green is the most influential colour in the Oz, marking not only the center and capital of the Land butsymbolizing both places of safety and, as we will see, trickery. The first colour other than grey we see afterDorothy's house touches down in the Land of Oz, a country of marvelous beauty, is green. The house hasstopped spinning, the storm has passed and Dorothy looks outside to see "lovely patches of greensward"covering the idyllic countryside.9 Throughout the journey to the Emerald City, the appearance of greenlandscape is a recurring theme that marks a place of safety and the end of a trial. On her first dayjourneying alone along the yellow brick road, just as Dorothy starts to worry about finding food and shelterfor the night we come a green lawn in front of a large house and it is here that she is offered a hearty mealand a bed. After meeting the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion, Dorothy and her new clantravel deeper into the forest as the atmosphere continues to darker. They narrowly escape the fearsomebeasts called the Kalidah only to come to a river that is too wide for the Lion to leap across. They stand inthe gloom at the edge of the dangerous wood staring across the river at the green meadows on theopposite bank, which we know now signifies a place of respite. When the friends finally make it past thedangerous current, they step out of the river onto the pretty green grass. As they continue forward, we seethe green grass being slowly replaced by scarlet poppies and therefore know they are entering dangerousterritory, and it is when they are completely surrounded by a field of red that the poison from the flowersstarts to take effect. Once back in the beautiful country and on the yellow brick road, they come uponfences and houses that are painted green and people dressed in emerald green. Because of this, theyknow they are officially in the Land of Oz and will be coming to the Emerald City soon. In the distance, theysee a beautiful green glow in the sky and know that it is their destination. We have been taught up to thispoint by the narrative that an area marked by green means an end to danger and a chance to rest andrecover, but because the colour within the walls of the City of Emeralds is in actuality just an illusion, theinnocent reading of colour in the text becomes, if not problematic, at least much more complex.

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain : Colour, Perception, and the Architectural Humbug

The Emerald City is surrounded by an enormous bright green-painted wall, tall enough to block the view ofthe city behind. Our travelers pass through a gigantic entrance gate, sparkling with emeralds into ananteroom that is also crusted with the gemstones. Here, they meet the Guardian of the Gate who instructs

8 Jameson, 449 L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, (1900), 20

them on the proper entrance procedure and shows them a box of spectacles with green lenses10, saying:

'But first you must put on the spectacles... Because if you do not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them.'11

Whereas in the other territories outside of the City walls everything was painted, cladded, or clothed in thesignature colour of the area, within the high walls of the City of Emeralds, every single thing is green-green roads, green clothes, green skin, green lemonade. When Dorothy looks up, she notices that even"the rays of the sun were green."12 This is, of course, because of the spectacles, but even though thecharacters know that the glasses have tinted lenses, they are still overwhelmed by the effect. They buy intoit completely and embrace the new reality of a total world of green. After the Wizard is discovered to onlybe a clever manipulator rather than one possessing magical powers, he explains the beginning of the Cityand the spectacles to the group of friends:

'Just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, I ordered them to build this City, andmy Palace; and they did it all willingly and well. Then I thought, as the country was so greenand beautiful, I would call it the Emerald City; and to make the name fit better I put greenspectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green.' 'But isn't everything here green?' asked Dorothy.'No more than in any other city,' replied Oz, 'but when you wear green spectacles, why ofcourse everything you see looks green to you. The Emerald City was built a great manyyears ago, for I was a young man when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very oldman now. But my people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of themthink it really is an Emerald City, and it certainly is a beautiful place, abounding in jewelsand precious metals, and every good thing that is needed to make one happy...'13

When one wears the Wizard's spectacles, everything in view is green and therefore everything is of theCity. Just as when Dorothy looked up at the sky and saw that it was green, the limits of the City arebounded only by the limits of site. The City of Emeralds exists as an extension of perception, a new realitydefined by colour. The inhabitants are given new eyes with which to view the modern City and this viewbecomes one of collective subjectivity. The spectacles erase the traditional differences between exteriorand interior, nature and the city, and the special and the mundane. While aiming to reproduce the forces ofnature in a completely artificial way, the spectacles produce a world of complete virtual excess. What isespecially interesting about this new treatment of perception is that the City now requires an audience forits existence.

The Wizard is the only character within the City walls never seen wearing the green spectacles, whichsuggests that the privileged view in the Land of Oz is the one free from illusion. Without the illusion,however, one does not get to experience the spectacle. Even though the Wizard's identity is contingent onhis ability to manipulate others through clever tricks- humbugs- the view he chooses is the natural one.

10 The ancient Egyptians crushed malachite, a deep-green mineral, into powder and wore it around their eyes toprotect them from the sun's harsh glare. In a way, they are responsible for the first sunglasses. According to modern gem-lore, malachite is said to protect travelers who wear the stone.

11 Baum, 11712 Baum, 12113 Baum, 188

Atelier FCJZ: Vertical Glass House, 2013 (fcjz.com)

The architectural twin of the Wizard's spectacles is Atelier FCJZ's Vertical Glass House. Windowlessconcrete walls enclose the domestic spaces within and this rejection of the exterior allows for the creationof a new interior reality. While there are no views to the exterior, the floors/ceilings are made of emeraldgreen glass which become layers of windows. The green glass orchestrates all of the views within the newreality. The house itself is both a window onto domesticity and a window onto fiction, the green layersconstituting a new worldview of extreme voyeurism, framed artificiality, and a new set of possibilities. Withinthis green existence, all perception comes into question.

Dorothy first showed up in our culture over a century ago, but the impact her journey with her strange bandof friends had was immense. The themes of identity and perception in L. Frank Baum's world are stillpertinent to our contemporary understanding of the City and questions of how to use our own sets ofspectacles to produce new realities.