Peacock feathers, mother-of-pearl,
flickering auroras, the phosphorescent shimmer of sea creatures, beetles, and bugs. Side-by-side on rainbow bands, captured in both copper's iridescence and in the feathers of a teal, blue and green have been celebrated throughout time and around the world. From a glazed blue hippo conceived by the Nile to the garden murals and green chariots of early Rome, from Mexico's jade skulls as repositories of ancient passions to the swirling lines drawn by Gaelic monks in the Book of Kells; the Chinese created both blue-on-white porcelain and the pale green of celadon, while calligraphy graces Middle Eastern ceilings and walls with green as the Prophet's chosen color—symbol of Islam. From a giant blue wave cresting over a miniature Mount Fuji to Europe's brilliant blue stained glass—the pride of Chartres and Saint Denis; precious lapis lazuli was used to paint both the Buddha and the Virgin Mary, and worshippers in Byzantine churches were dazzled by distant mosaic figures arrayed in robes of scattered tesserae of green and blue mixed with gold. Dufy painted racetracks in blazes of blues and greens: a life of gaiety and bright dresses, horses running on spring turf, on canvases garlanded with masses of fresh flowers. His Nice is a scant half-circle of white washed over by deep blue water and sky and Amphitrite waits, a shell pressed to her ear, encircled by a woven cerulean sea. Lorca divined a green ocean in a snail. Green has many guises—new life and renewal but a sign also of envy and bile, the color once of monsters and devils. Blue ranges from sustainer of life to shorthand for a life without hope: Picasso's blue period, Plath's blue saints adrift in a blue void-- colors as catalysts or mirrors of human feeling? Stretching from Fred Williams' Australian shores to the Indian maharajas' royal hunting grounds, from Van Gogh's gardens to the Duc de Berry's Book of Hours-- the passing seasons and the pleasures taken there-- these defining colors of our planet are now jeopardized and under siege, colors of sustenance and consequence-- life depends on our legacy of blue and green. Nancy Christiansen
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AuthorI am a Northwest artist making collages from mulberry papers stamped by hand from original images that I have carved. Archives
April 2024
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