Following on from my post yesterday - your replies were so interesting. Derek Jarman's book 'Chroma' is fascinating. It takes me back to the days of my first marriage. My first husband, Malcolm, (who died in 1991 of kidney cancer at the age of 66) was a painter, a watercolourist, a painter in oils and he also worked in pastel. He was fascinated by colour and spoke about it in a way which I could really never fully understand. The same is true of Derek Jarman in his book. It was written when he already knew he was dying of Aids (' the HIV virus is a blue frost') and when he had already created his garden in Dungeness.
It is making me look at colour in ways I have never looked before. It is not a book to read from Page one to the end. At least not for me. It is a book to be dipped into, to read the quotes from good writers down the ages (e,g, Leonardo 'white may be said to represent light without which no colour can be seen'), and then to sit and mull over in one's mind. Do add it to your Christmas list if you think it is for your eyes (it is a paperback and hopefully still in print).
Malcolm dreamt a lot. Sometimes dreams about his long time on The Death Railway but more often, luckily, about the beautiful countryside where we live - about walks there, about everyday things like playing music with friends there. But always in colour which he used to rave about. How wonderful the colours were he used to say.
I wish I could dream in colour - can you? I wonder perhaps do we all dream in colour but forget in waking? Because usually one can't recall a dream in pictures, rather in remembering the happenings.
Interesting that most of your replies told me your favourite colour was green. I suppose it is hardly surprising because living as we do in a temperate climates we are literally surrounded by green everyday of our lives. Just as, I suppose, if we lived in the desert perhaps our favourite colour would be a sandy one. Certainly when we see pictures of the markets and the towns surrounding the area white and brown seem to be the most predominant colours.
Interestingly quite a lot of green plants are poisonous. A good example is Helleborus viridis. (Green lily or Fellon grass). It flowers in the middle of Winter and its seeds are eaten by snails and then the seeds get spread in snail slime! In times long ago it was the remedy for worms. But as Gilbert White in his Natural History of Selborne says - it certainly killed the worms but worst of all it sometimes killed the patient too!!
And most horrible little goblins and little men from Mars were always depicted as green. And did you know that arsenic was used to colour wallpaper and Napoleon died from arsenic poisoning when the green wallpaper on his prison cell on St Helena went rotten on the damp walls?
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21 comments:
As much as I love greenery on trees, moss, foliage, parsley and other herbs, as little I do when it comes to clothes. It's a horrible colour and few can carry it off. Plus, I do remember, dimly, the saying that only ladies of a certain age wear green. Mind you, and if you haven't watch it yet do try and catch it, there are also "Ladies of Lavender" (Judy Dench and Maggie Smith - what a great combo). Not to the mention the Pope (purple).
One also may remember, as you hint, that green is not only the colour of poison but that of envy and jealousy. Not to forget bile. And seasickness. The more I think about it the sorrier I feel for frogs. It's not as if they can get up in the morning and put on a tuxedo to attract a princess.
Other than that: Give me a bunch of sun flowers and I am a happy woman. A daisy will do.
As always, Pat,your thoughts so very stimulating.
Sunshine greetings,
U
PS And yes, I do dream in colour
I also dream in colour-at least sometimes. Once I dreamt about myself as a student nurse and I was wearing the bright green uniform we used to wear. It always made me look a bit sickly I think. Much better when I qualified and went into 'hospital' (royal) blue.
Love your discussions the past two days. While I appreciate both white and black to set off color, to frame it, and make them shine I must have color in my life and my day. Green sort of does the same for me. It is nature’s neutral in all its iterations to act as host for color and complements all of them. I’ve always felt that I dream in color because I’ve had a couple of odd instances where I have awakened and felt very unsatisfied because I have the impression that my vision was in black and white. Not my world at all. I have different favorites depending on whether they are to wear or to appreciate as backdrops for living. And, my favorites change with my mood and weather. Color cheers me. Thanks for the thoughtful discussion and now I’m off to check on the book.
How interesting, Weaver. I dream in color, at least the one I remember are in color. I am not happy in pastel, cool- color surroundings. Give me bright and vibrant hues around me!
I rarely dream and when I do, I only remember snippets of a dream often wondering about the larger story. My snippets are not in color.
I dream of the countryside, so plenty of green in my dreams. There was also the two green children of Woolpit in Suffolk who appeared mysteriously, though I expect there could have been a reason for their colour.
My husband was also a painter and when I first met him I asked him what kind of things did he paint. He laughed and said houses, hospitals, factories anything that needs painting. He once painted a church steeple. I had assumed watercolours, oil etc. I loved to watch him mix colours in the days before machines did it. He could match anything you wanted. Part of his apprenticeship involved going to art school at night. The last thing he painted in the house was the hall. When I went downtown shopping it was white and when I got home three hours later it was a lovely sea green that was perfect with our funky furniture and the vinyl flooring in the hall. Now that he is gone, I will never change it. He hated my all white house when he came to live here and it looks so nice now that it is colourful.
Hi Weaver, I really enjoy your blog and the community associated with it. I’m a long time reader and first time commenter.
I certainly always dream in vivid colour and can barely image dreams being any other way. I am aware that I am a very ‘visual’ person, and I too am a trained visual artist. Colour, views, architecture, the aesthetics of my decor and clothing matter greatly to me. Another aspect I am aware of connected with being very ‘visually’ oriented (which can be positive or negative) is that I ‘see’ what people verbally describe, for example if someone described a beautiful holiday setting I would ‘see’ it in my mind and in a way be able to appreciate and enjoy it with them, but conversely if a person described a gruesome injury they had suffered my mind would conjure a visual image of it, which I wouldn’t be able to delete or forget it easily.
We know what we live and it’s so interesting to explore how other people experience life differently. Thank you for raising this interesting topic.
Fi in Western Australia
I am not aware of any colour in my dreams, and seldom remember what I have dreamt after a while, unless it has been particularly peculiar! I love all shades of green in the countryside but seldom wear it myself. Nature wears it better than I ever could.
I don't know Derek Jarman's work but love his garden. So clever to think of making a garden in that limiting environment.
I dream in colour and think in colour. My favourite colour(s) are the blues and purples of sweet peas. You have given me an idea for a Christmas gift for my artist husband.
I relate well to Fi's post above.
Also my daughter and I are very psychic, but can't do this 'on command'.
Instead all information is relayed to us in colourful dreams, and she started as a young child relaying information which astounded my husband with its accuracy.
I dreamt of someone once with a military haircut and was suprised to meet this stranger days later but he had long hair. You can't say to a strange man 'I dreamed of you last night', especially as a married woman! Turns out he joined the airforce months later, and lo and behold!- the exact same haircut as the dream.
My daughter and I are always comparing notes particularly with dreams about the departed. The place where pets go after death appeared to me as the most picturesque, peaceful and happy place as I explored and found a pet- lots of contended grazing animals too. It remains my most beautiful 'experience'.
There are places in my dreaming of the most intense vivid colour - blues like the morning glory flower is the closest way to describe it, but even that doesn't touch it.- Pam, Aust.
Henri Matisse once said, 'A certain blue enters your soul.' -P.
I can't reconstruct the color of my dreams, if any. My sister always told me she reams in vivid technicolor, full screen.
I don´t remember any colours from my dreams, actually I forget them very quickly when I get up. My favourite colour is and has always been blue. Green comes second, especially now as I am surrounded by all kinds of green in the garden after three weeks of rain. We don´t have much sun in our garden, so not many colourful flowers, but all the different leaves are wonderful.
Arsenic was not only used for wallpaper, but for fabric, too. And green was a very popular colour for dresses at that time. Interestingly, the German word for a very bright green is still "giftgrün" (poison green).
Have waited overnight to answer: yes I have coloured dreams. Yesterday I was gardening, and dreaming about that the flowers were coloured, but now reds - only yellows and blues.
My dreams have colours, too. And sometimes I dream in different languages, either the entire dream or just single sentences someone in the dream says are in a different language.
I guess Malcolm, like many artists, had synesthesia. I am by no means an artist, but I have a mild form of it, too, same as my Mum.
Great blog
Please read my post
The green children in Woolpit were likely to have been children of the Flemish Weavers and green from the dye. The gibberish they were said to speak was Flemish. But people like to a fairy story. As for dreaming I dream vivid dreams of lots of activity and emotion and people I know who have never met in real life meet in my dreams which I always think is odd. I have never thought about whether they are colour or black and white, they are just mixed up, emotional and usually entertaining, like an extension of life.
Gosh - so many replies and so very interesting - just too many to reply to individually but be aware that I have read - and digested - every single one! Thank you all for taking the time to think about things and to pen a reply (or rather the computer equivalent of 'pen'.
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