Thoughtful Thursday: Green with Envy
“Beauty, strength, and youth are flowers but fading; Duty, faith, and love are roots and ever green.” – George Peele
As February flees, March teases us with sunshine, brisk winds and promises of spring. The crocus and daffodil push through frozen earth to awaken nature’s process to restore and renew. Budding leaves speckle grey branches and grass slowly transforms in color and texture. If March were a color, it would be green.
Green is nature’s best concoction: yellow from the sun mixing with the sky’s blue, showering all earth’s vegetation. Green offers a palette full of shades, tints and hues from emerald to citrine, teal to olive, green is a multi-dimensional color with a lineage in both cool and warm tones.
Colors have the ability to deeply influence our frame of mind, prompting memories and stirring emotions. “The color green relates to balance and harmony. From a color psychology perspective, it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart. From a meaning of colors perspective, green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth. Green is an emotionally positive color, giving us the ability to love and nurture ourselves and others unconditionally. Green strongly influences the heart and helps alleviate tension. Positive qualities associated with green are generosity, humility, and cooperation.” (Tae Yun Kim) It is said the color green has healing power and is understood to be the most restful and relaxing color for the human eye to view.
Green cards, green lights signify safety while the color green frequently symbolizes money and/or greed and green is the color story of Ireland. Green metaphors pepper our colloquialisms: green-eyed monster and green with envy suggest feelings of jealousy and envy, having a green thumb means that you are good with plants and gardening. The expression greener pastures and grass is greener references something newer or better. Green around the gills describes one who appears sickly or pale. The term “greenback” refers to the United States dollar bill. (adapted from Jennifer Bourne)
Artists may use this color for symbolic gestures as demonstrated in the works of great Masters. Plein Air artists employ green moreover because it is the workhorse of all colors in the natural world. When the sun is shrouded by grey skies, snows blanket the ground or creeks and streams freeze, nature’s promise is the dark green fir. To receive both physical and spiritual benefits of the color green, visit our gallery in Chestertown or online at www.LesPoissonsGallery.com
