United Colours of Art Explores Green's Ambiguous Role in Art History

Key facts

• The article is the fourth in a seven-part series on the colors of the rainbow, published by Artspecialday.
• Paleolithic paintings are completely devoid of green despite nature's abundance.
• In ancient Greek, green was not easily defined until the Hellenistic period (3rd-2nd century BC), when prasinos emerged.
• Latin had viridis, defined by Varro in the 1st century BC as 'what has vigor.'
• In imperial Rome, green was used for women's clothing and in painting, architecture, and sculpture.
• Dyeing green was difficult: plant-based greens were light-reactive, artificial greens (verdigris) toxic, called Giftgrun in German.
• In 7th-century Middle East, green became associated with Muhammad's green turban and later with Islam.
• Cardinal Lotario di Segni (later Pope Innocent III) wrote that green should be used for feasts when white, red, or black are unsuitable.
• In the Middle Ages, green was ambivalent: positive (liturgy, courtly love, spring, Eden) and negative (Devil, sirens, traitors like Judas).
• Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait shows green for pregnant women.
• The Protestant Reformation restricted green in church and liturgy.
• Isaac Newton's 1666 discovery of the color spectrum revealed green as intermediate between blue and yellow.
• Giorgione and Veronese were famous for their greens.
• In the 18th century, green was mocked in favor of blue; in the 19th century it became the color of fairy tales.
• Goethe associated green with the bourgeoisie and merchants.
• The Bauhaus and De Stijl discredited green; Kandinsky called absolute green the calmest color, without joy, sadness, or passion.