My Love for Green
I started this post as a tribute to the color Green.
I wrote about how attracted I seem to be to it. How it’s the first hue I order when I discover a new tapestry yarn. How when I look at photographs I’ve taken, there is usually a dominance of green images, how I love moss, how I think my ultimate tapestry goal might be to weave moss some day…
But I fall down rabbit holes too easily.
In writing this post, I started reading about green, which led me to opening two books on my shelf:
The first, one I’ve been picking up from time to time and never getting far enough into is The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair. You’ve probably heard of it. I’ve seen it mentioned in various places over the years and bought it a few years ago after reading a glowing review of it online which likened it to a work of art!
It truly is beautifully presented and I’ve opened it from time to time but never sat down to read it cover to cover. I still haven’t, but I did read the section on Green just this morning - and oh, my- that led me to…
Do you follow footnotes in books? I do.
This infatuation with Green could never end.
This book is highly researched. It has two entire pages of footnotes (also beautifully arranged I might add) solely on green.
And… just look at those color coded pages!
The green chapters include Verdigris, Absinthe, Emerald, Kelly green, Scheele’s green - especially fascinating, Terre verde, Avocado (hello, ’70’s) and Celadon, which I found especially interesting, too.
Just a few tidbits from the book in my brief foray into research this morning…
Loaded with historical references to many times and cultures, I first learned of the impermanence of the pigment green in art. Prior to the Renaissance, there was an aversion to mixing colors which made green unattainable.
But from early Renaissance onward, greens were attempted - although it was a struggle to produce a stable green. She goes on to draw a symbolic connection then between the difficulties of attaining this color to the color’s link with “capriciousness, poison, and even evil.”
That reference to poison and evil continued throughout most of the following chapters. In Absinthe, I learned of deaths believed to be associated with the green drink (but later debunked for a theory of alcoholism and the high content of alcohol in absinthe instead of the plants it was made from, notably wormwood).
I learned where the phrase “green-eyed envy” came from in Emerald (hint: Shakespeare). And that St Patrick was first associated with the color blue, not green, in Kelly green.
Scheele’s green- as noted especially fascinating in the accounts of Napoleon’s death and how the color became high fashion leading to poisonous death.
“By 1858 it was estimated that there were around 100 square miles of wallpaper dyed with copper arsenate greens in British homes, hotels, hospitals, and railway waling rooms.”-
And … an article from the British Medical Journal in 1871 noted that “a six-inch-square sample of such a paper was found to contain enough arsenic to poison two adults.” - pg 225.
Terre verde was apparently not a treasured pigment among the greens. This chapter even goes so far as to say even cave painter’s chose not to use it where red, yellow, brown, black and white dominate - when it “was both widely available, easy to process and use.” St Clair refers to it as a “rather mongrel collection of naturally occurring pigmented earths of varying hues and mineral makeups.”
Hmmm, must be what draws me to it!
Later Terre Verde is given a little more credit by artists discovering its attributes. They would apply an under layer of the color to shade the ”pale pinky-red of European skin.”
On to Avocado… borne out of the 70’s and a response to an important time in environmental history leading to the Clean Air, Clean Water, and National Environmental Policy Acts in our country. Avocado green was seen everywhere in homes. I know I rented more than one apartment with an avocado green kitchen!
After finishing the last chapter on Celadon, which I loved, I picked up the other book on my shelf I referred to earlier, Color, A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay. I was amazed to find the beginning of the Green chapter was all about the elusive Celadon! I then read a totally engrossing story of the color Celadon and more history, this time Chinese.
I would never describe myself as a history buff, but all of this was truly fascinating to learn.
Still… when I think of green, I think of nature. When I think of nature, I feel a calmness.
I guess, for me, it might be all wrapped up in feeling. Emotion.
Green has been said to evoke a feeling of harmony, balance, and security. Other words associated with green are hope, peace, gentleness, modesty, tranquility, good luck, and health.
Need I go on?
Ok… how about abundance, renewal, growth, forgiveness, compassion, understanding, transformation, warmth, sincerity, and devotion.
I simply love green in all it’s splendor…
and maybe with a little splash of red!
Cardinal Flower