November 09, 2014

Getting into the Color Green

A review of Green: The History of a Color notes of the color, 
Its ascendance is a remarkable transformation in color ideology, one that is particularly astonishing given the relative marginality of the color within political and aesthetic movements during the bulk of the 20th century and before. As [Michel Pastoureau] remarks, green occurred only rarely in the color schemes favored by the mass producers of consumer goods, and, at least in theory, the artists of the heroic era of early modernist abstraction abjured it as well. Mondrian called it a"useless color." Kandinsky described it as tiresome and compared it to "a fat cow, full of good health, lying down, rooted, capable only of ruminating and contemplating the world through its stupid, inexpressive eyes"
But then, "Verde que te quiero verde  . . ."  —  I wonder if this French author deals with Lorca.

2 comments:

mdmnm said...

A child of the Southwest, I find the sort of green you see in say, the Virginia summertime, becomes oppressive. Tans and browns seem more normal, subtle, and soothing. Stuff might poke you, but it won't try to grow on you. Like summer monsoon rains, green is a phase and spice.

Chas S. Clifton said...

I figured some of my Southwestern readers might hear the echo of a book title in the blog post title :)