You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘chartreuse’ tag.
One of my favorite colors is disgusting–even its name is gross. Yet, as with most aesthetically ugly things, there is something otherworldly, compelling and…beautiful (?) about it too. I am speaking of acid green, a goblin-ish haunted color somewhere between bright yellow and brownish green (although, lately, contemporary car manufacturers are trying to present fluorescent neon green as acid green).
The real acid green is a sort of dirty, unwholesome chartreuse. Although this color was big in the sixties, its name does not come from Lysergic acid diethylamide, but rather from stomach acid (which, uh, isn’t really green–the real name for this color should be bile green).
Acid green somehow does not look like a natural green anyway, but like something that came out of an industrial vat or was summoned into being by a necromancer. It is this ersatz anti-green feeling which makes the color appealing. Grandma Connie liked to refer to things as acid green or include it in her stories. Come to think of it, Grandma had a real fondness for that color too (or near variants through the years like avocado (70s), chiffon (50s), green apple (80s) and so forth). Because she was so elegant and good at using colors, I always thought of it as an elegant color. Maybe I inherited the affection for the color from Grandma. I wish I had asked her where she first started to like this yellow green. Maybe it is an affinity stretching over the generations. Do you have colors that male you think of people too?
Drop everything: Pantone has just announced the color of the year for 2017! Although the “color of the year” is nakedly a publicity ploy by Pantone (a New Jersey branding corporation), it is also relevant since large groups of industries work together to put the color everywhere in clothing and consumer goods. Additionally the color of the year really does represent the zeitgeist of an era (if not through mystical aesthetic convergence, at least through talking and writing about it). I had some reservations about the color of the year last year (the only year with a dual winner: cool pink and gray blue), yet the contrasting/complimenting nature of the shades ended up representing the divisive political, gender, and class battles of 2016 perfectly while still evoking the lost conformity of the 1950s. Maybe it is better not to speak of the bleeding liver color of 2015, which was suited only for haruspices and die-hard Charles Bronson enthusiasts.
Marsala (Color of the Year 2015)
This year’s color is back to being a single shade—a mid-tone cabbage green named “greenery”. Yellowish greens are among my favorite colors (or maybe they are my favorite colors) so I love greenery. I think it is magnificent, and any devoted readers who want to express their affection for Ferrebeekeeper should feel free to send me shirts, cement mixers, or three-wheel mini cars of the verdant pastel hue.
The Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute (snicker) writes “Greenery bursts forth in 2017 to provide us with the reassurance we yearn for amid a tumultuous social and political environment. Satisfying our growing desire to rejuvenate and revitalize, Greenery symbolizes the reconnection we seek with nature, one another and a larger purpose.”
I personally do not feel especially optimistic for 2017: I believe the nation is headed off in a profoundly wrong direction, and, additionally, nothing particularly good is happening in my personal life. But how do we learn other than through terrible mistakes? (well…aside from, you know reading and thinking, and nobody in America is likely to do those things). Plus you never know, maybe popular culture will seize on flounders or eclectic zoology/history/aesthetic blogs as the flavor of the year for 2017. We need to keep an open mind and be ready to seize on opportunities.
Populists and fascists generally push policies which create a “sugar rush” of short term economic euphoria and froth crony capitalism (before state intervention, protectionism, and price fixing set in and create economic death spirals). Perhaps greenery–which, now that I look at it, is also the color of money—will represent this short lived false dawn. When the real slump arrives and recession and scandals shake the nation, Pantone can choose some different colors. Spray-tan orange, blood red, concrete gray, or gold and black .
In the meantime let’s enjoy Greenery: a color which I really do uncritically love. I think this shade would be perfect for room painting and some craft projects. Maybe I will make some yellow-green flounder drawings too. Above all I plan to see lots of Greenery in the garden (which I also plan to write about more). Also, the color of the year announcement kicks off the end-of-the-year holiday season, so I will put up some festive posts while we enjoy eggnog and ornaments and remember the tulip bulbs in the ground, waiting to burst forth come spring.
Color transcends history. The wavelengths of light…the chemical compositions of the pigments…these things are part of the physical universe. Yet how we apprehend color is a part of our eyes, and our minds, and our upbringings (and involves some quirks unique to human physiology—as demonstrated by the colors magenta and stygian blue). Most of the colors I write about were first mentioned in the 18th or 19th century. Some colors are vastly older—like Han purple (which I like more all the time, by the way). However today I am writing about a color first mentioned in the distant year of…2009. This color found a name after the rise and fall of Britney Spears. The great recession had already set in by the time this color made the scene. I am talking, of course about “Arctic Lime” which was invented by Crayola’s for its “eXtreme” line of ultra-bright colored pencils.
At first gasp, Arctic lime seems like a sad effort by a marketer who was not at the top of his game. Chartreuse and the Arctic do not initially go together in the popular imagination (nor do tropical limes belong in the frozen tundra). Yet the more one looks at this hue, the more it makes sense. It is not the color of ice, but it is the color of the aurora as it sweeps past inhuman vistas of alien frozen waste. Also, Arctic lime may not have a beautiful name, but it is a beautiful color (in its own unnatural and eXtreme way). Perhaps people of the far future will think of this color the way we think of Han Purple and they will imagine us going about our lives in Arctic Lime leisure clothes and neckties. Come to think of it, the color is pretty similar to the high-visability fluorescent green of my bike helmet. Maybe the imaginary people of the future are imagining us more accurately than we imagine ourselves!
Peridot Tiara
Peridot is the birthstone of fiery August so I thought it would be fitting to feature a crown made from the yellow-green stones. Unfortunately chartreuse does not seem to be the go-to color for royal headwear, but with some searching I found the splendid tiara pictured above. The piece was apparently made for Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg by Kochert, the court jeweler to the Habsburg family, sometime in the 1820s. It is most associated with Princess Isabella of Croÿ (1856-1931), who married Archduke Friedrich, grandson of Henrietta.
Peridot Parure Set
The tiara is a transformer—it has a matching peridot necklace which can be disassembled and attached to little crown as standing pendants. There is also a large peridot brooch for anyone bold enough to wear it. This sort of matching morphing jewelry set is known as a parure and was especially popular in the nineteenth century. Of course times change and tastes shift. In 1937, the peridot parure was sold to another noble, Count Johannes Coudenhove-Kalergi (1893-1965). The counts daughter chose to live in the United States and dispense with the trappings of nobility—so the tiara set in a safety deposit box until her death in 2000, when a Hollywood jeweler purchased it from her estate. They loaned it to celebrities until they could find a private buyer. Here is a picture of Joan Rivers wearing the peridot necklace at the 2004 Golden Globes ceremony… 
Good grief!
Paphiopedilum King's Forest 'Kate's Peridot' (Photo by Ken Jacobsen)
Pigments, hues, colors! The way light bounces off objects and shines into our primate brains is rife with emotional and moral meaning. Each color has historical dimensions and conveys allusions to different times and places. Colors evoke feelings and thoughts in a way that almost nothing else can.
In continuing celebration of Holi, the festival of colors, I’m writing about some of my favorite colors starting today with chartreuse. Half way between green and yellow, chartreuse plays tricks on the brain–sometimes looking like one or the other. It is a quintessential color of spring, appearing in the first buds of willow and the tip of the crocus as it pokes up from the ground. However a summer field glowing in the sunlight is also chartreuse as are aspen leaves when they begin to change in fall.
Weeping Willow in Spring
The historical roots of the word are as colorful as it is. Chartreuse is named after a delightful herbal liquor made by Carthusian Monks. Wikipedia tells the story as follows:
According to tradition, a marshal of artillery to French king Henry IV, François Hannibal d’Estrées, presented the Carthusian monks at Vauvert, near Paris, with an alchemical manuscript that contained a recipe for an “elixir of long life” in 1605. The recipe eventually reached the religious order’s headquarters at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, in Voiron, near Grenoble. It has since then been used to produce the “Elixir Végétal de la Grande Chartreuse”. The formula is said to call for 130 herbs, flowers, and secret ingredients combined in a wine alcohol base. The monks intended their liqueur to be used as medicine. The recipe was further enhanced in 1737 by Brother Gérome Maubec.
Just why the artillery marshal had a magical longevity elixir is unclear. Twice the monks have been evicted from their monasteries and deprived of their properties (in 1793 because of the revolution and in 1903, thanks to an anti-monastic law). But even in exile, they kept the secret recipe and they have always come back to distilling stronger than ever. Because it is so well known around the world, their delightful (and extremely alcoholic) concoction has loaned its pretty name to the lovely color.
Perhaps it is appropriate that chartreuse bears the name of a spirit. Despite the fact that it is a color frequently seen in the natural world there is also something otherworldly about it. Think of how many ghosts, aliens, and mystery substances are colored a crazy yellow-green and you will immediately see what I mean.
Beings beyond human comprehension....
You can probably tell that Chartreuse and similar yellow greens are among my favorite colors. Nothing combines the feeling of vibrant, thriving life with a hint of mystery and ineffability like chartreuse. That’s enough writing I am going to go out and revel in a world of golden-green shoots!
The Garden of Earthly Delights (Hieronymus Bosch, ca 1510)
ferrebeekeeper 