The colour revolution

Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili

- Michael Prodger

ALTHOUGH in the opening lines of the Book of Genesis God separates the sky and the sea, the first colour to be called by name in the Bible is not blue, but green. Man cannot live on air and salt water, so the Almighty sent a colour clue: ‘To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat.’ Green signified life.

The Greeks understood this and charmingly called pure green prasinos, ‘the colour of leeks’. The Egyptians saw it as a sacred hue, denoting rebirth and fertility. For the Roman encyclopaedist Varro in the 1st century BC, ‘green is that which has strength’. Pliny hailed the benefits of emeralds on strengthening vision and babies were often wrapped in green fabric to ensure a long life. This ancient association with health lives on in today’s pharmacy signs, which are often green. Meanwhile, in Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad favoured a green turban.

There was a problem with the colour, however, which perhaps accounts for the fact that Palaeolithic cave paintings feature animals and men depicted in ochres, blacks and reds, but nothing verdant: the oldest depiction of a tree, in a cave in the Serra da Capivara National depictions, the German goddess of the heart, Frau Minne, is always shown in green.