Speaking of Chartreuse

Charlene, Charlene, I don't mean to be mean, 

But you're the gaudiest thing that I've ever seen! 

Chartreuse, chartreuse, since I've turned ya loose,

 You stick out more than a red caboose!

Now that my pond pearl piece is sporting a new pearl of electric chartreuse, I contemplate this extreme and (to me) distasteful color. When I weave rainbows, this color is a real stumbling block to a nice smooth color transition from yellow to green. Chartreuse really stands out. No wonder we use it for safety signs and reflective gear.

  

One problem is that this color reflects so much light that it outshines the light green on one side and even yellow on the other side. Chartreuse is the color of your glow-in-the-dark cardboard Halloween skeleton, and of ghosts. It looks slightly radioactive.

Chartreuse lichen is the only color the bare trees around here wear all winter, but it is also the first color of spring. Soon it matures into a deeper summer green, of course, unlike reflective safety gear.

 

 Chartreuse stands in the center of the rainbow, the brightness midpoint of the spectrum of visible light we can see. We are calibrated by evolutionary design to navigate in the light of our yellow green sun. Chartreuse stands as the absolute zero point between warm colors and cool colors. Everything to the right of chartreuse is cool, everything to its left, warm.

 

Chartreuse is pure mentation, devoid of feeling, an almost overpowering binary or alternating current of dry information. If pure mind is like the clear light, chartreuse is like pure data.

You can learn a lot about a thing by considering its opposite, or complementary color in this case. Deep blue-indigo-violet holds this pole, ranging off toward the deepest most mysterious vanishing point. This indigo-ness pursues an infinitely receding but ultimately nonexistent concept of black. 

 

The lightest color balances the darkest one. Indigo goes until no light can be seen, while chartreuse goes on until there is no dark left, competing even with white.

I wonder if anyone ever feels warm and fuzzy cuddling up to chartreuse.

 

"Spring quickly growing

alive in the water

the weeks of rain infusing

all the land with color

the softness of the new leaves

the buds unfurling

chartreuse greening

into deeper hues

the spectrum expanding

the forest still alive, open

sharing hidden treasure"

- Chartreuse Greening by Raymond A. Foss