What does green mean to you?
- Green is a colour found between yellow and blue on the visual spectrum with a wavelength of 495 to 570 nanometres (nm), and it has the hex code #00FF00 and RGB code (0,255,0).
- Along with red and blue, green is among the three primary colours of light in the RGB colour model, and it is made by yellow and blue pigments in the RYB colour wheel.
- ‘Green’ derives from the word ‘grene’ of Old English and ‘groene’ of Northumbrian origin, from the Germanic word ‘gronja’, and these words were used in reference to the nature or colour of living things like plants and grass.
- Common shades of green include olive, apple, lime, jade, emerald, aqua, avocado and turquoise, and it is the colour with the most individual shades.
- Green pigment was not commonly used in ancient cave paintings or the dyeing of clothes, as good sources were not readily available from plants or minerals, although malachite was used for painting murals by Ancient Egyptians, while clothes were dyed with mixture of yellow and blue plant dyes to obtain the colour required.
- Green has been used to represent life, growth, youth, jealousy, rebirth, fertility, luck, plants, poison, love and safety.
- Green is one of the most appealing colours to look at, second to blue, as it is less harsh to human eyes.
- Limes, ferns, avocados, olives, leaves, lawns and moss are typically coloured green, while some birds, frogs, reptiles and insects are also primarily this colour.
- The Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai languages have all had, or still have, an identical word for ‘green’ and ‘blue’.
- Flavin, hemanovadin, chlorophyll, porphyrin and turacoverdin are all examples of chemicals that naturally make objects appear green, particularly in animals and vegetation.
Bibliography:
Green, 2015, Color Matters, http://www.colormatters.com/the-meanings-of-colors/green
Green, 2015, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green
