Contrary to Gladstone's view that the ancients having an undeveloped, infantile colour sense, this could be seen as quite sophisticated sensory perception, according to Bradley. 'In fact ancient colour was very subtle, very sophisticated, very versatile but it functioned along different parameters from how we think colour works.'
It's an interesting example of the difficulties involved in trying to understand another culture. Bradley says that Gladstone's model was extended in the 1960s by the sociologists Berlin and Kay. 'They looked at cultures ancient and modern around the world, and counted the number of basic colours they had and therefore plotted them out in a sort of evolutionary scale.'