The following is excerpted  from the gallery guide for "what color is divine light," an art installation currently on exhibit at George Washington University's Textile Museum by artist Anne Lindberg:

what color is divine light?

Across many religions, light is used as a symbol of divine presence on Earth and can be tied to ancient spiritual practices stemming from sun worship. In 1971, art historian Patrick Reuterswärd wrote an essay entitled "What Colour Is Divine Light?" exploring how artists have attempted to represent light and divinity in their work. "Divine Light, if describable at all," he stated, "should be something similar to, yet far more brilliant and resplendent than, physical light." Depicting this type of light is impossible, and artists have turned to color to illustrate the divine instead.

Inspired by Reuterswärd's essay, Anne Lindberg created "what color is divine light?" as both her response to an unanswerable question and an echoing prompt to the audience. For Lindberg, divinity exists within intangible moments and beyond the visible spectrum of light. 

Between complementary hues exist optically invisible colors known as “impossible colors." Not readily perceivable to the brain or eye, when viewable at all they appear fleetingly as white. Set against lavender walls, "what color is divine light?" contains thousands of complementary yellow and blue threads optically vibrating together, forming a cloud of color that aspires to become like light itself.

"It’s the unnamed space between," states Lindberg. "Although our eyes can't perceive the colors, we feel them, sense them. The divine, likewise is unnamable, untouchable, intangible." 

-- Anne Lindberg

what color is divine light?