My guide tells me that the color of Fes is blue, but I say its grey. The color of Fes is grey like the clay used to make Fasi pottery and tiles; the grey of pollution and plaster work; it is the grey of the crumbling medina walls. It is a particular shade of grey that is more a complex taupe than a simple mixture of black and white. The color of Fes is the color of creative inspiration. With 50,000 artisans and 15% of the population working in the craft trade, Fes is a specialized source of human creative energy. It is amazing what can be made with Fasi grey.

The grey of Fes is transformed into tiles, which will
be colored and used for zillij, geometric mosaics.

There is no shortage of color in Fes. Colorful geometric mosaics, bright silk textiles, and glimmering metal work delight the eye. But there is no shared understanding of the symbolism of color use in Morocco. Whereas textile artisans may agree on the proper way of processing vegetable silk threads, the meaning of the colors used in their work escapes common definition.

The earliest examples of zillij, geometric mosaics common to Morocco, use a limited color palettes, usually two (black and white) to five (black, white, ochre, green – these four are most traditional – and eventually blue) colors. As a wider range of colors were made available, artisans quickly introduced a multitude of colors into their work. For this reason, I am not convinced that the limited color palette of early zillij and pottery had a particular symbolic value, but was a matter of availability.

However, my guide points to a zillij spider pattern on the wall at Medersa Bou Inaniya, which was built in the mid-fourteenth century, and explains: “The blue is for the sky, which is meant to inspire viewers to think of heaven. The yellow is for gold, which represents spiritual wealth, not monetary wealth. Green is the color of Islam. White is purity. Black the depth of life.”

Later, we stop by an embroidery shop in the medina. Two women work diligently on the table cloth designs. The man has his assistant show me some napkins soaking in bleach. “You cannot bleach the color out of these threads” he explains to me. This fact alone motivates me to buy. When showing me samples to chose from, he states “Blue is the best; it is the color of Fes.” When I ask why, my guide repeats that it represents the sky and heaven. The shop-keeper offers another interpretation: the blue represents water. Indeed, the location of Fes is at the edge of the Middle Atlas Mountains and the rivers that result from the flow of water from nearby mountain tops. The natural bounty of the location certainly must have been a motivating factor to its founders, who established Fes in the ninth century. The stunning public water fountains found in the medina speak of the cultural importance of water. Water and flowing steams are the necessary components of life and are part of the Islamic vision of Paradise. (In Rabat, during a tour of Oudaiya the guide told me the blue used to paint the walls was representative of the ocean and that it also functioned as a mosquito repellant since “mosquitos only like yellow.”)

I offer another interpretation. I read in a guidebook that the city of Chefchaouen, famous for the blue-painted walls of its medina, was green, the color of Islam, until the Jews arrived with a supply of and preference for blue pigment. Couldn’t it be the case with Fes, which boasted a large and often politically-connected population of Jews, that the blue color was inspired by the Jewish community? The men hum to themselves and acknowledge the possibility.

What do I know about color symbolism in Judaic culture? Exactly nothing. I believe it takes us back to the begining; back to the sky. And so it is with studying symbolism in Morocco. Not only is everything open to interpretation, but there exists such strong and diverse cultural traditions that you can quickly find yourself researching Judaic culture or the art history of Mesopotamia for the answer to a question that seemed to be a local one.

But I can appreciate Moroccan art without fully being able to pin-down its meaning, the origins of which is locked in pre-history. I purchased a round table cloth and six napkins decorated to with blue embroidery common to the Fasi style. Yes, it is amazing what comes from Fasi grey.