Green light

“ As the time passed, they faded steadily, as steadily as the light of the green dawn increased.
Looking down into the valley, he saw that the light had crept far down its rocky sides, and that the profound blackness of the abyss was now broken by a minute green glow, like the light of a glowworm. And almost immediately the limb of a huge heavenly body of blazing green rose over the basaltic undulations of the distant hills, and the monstrous hill-masses about him came out gaunt and desolate, in green light and deep, ruddy black shadows. ”

“ In England, where the sun is cooler, and a perpetual verdure reigns, infusing blue latently into the landscape, the sky is warmer and nearer to neutrality, partaking of a diversity of greys, which beautifully melodize with blue as their key, and harmonize with the light and landscape. Therefore the colour of the sky is always a contrast to the direct and reflected light of the scene: if this light were of a rose colour, the neutral of the sky would be converted into green, or if purple, the sky would become yellow. ”

“ The rose light from the west that shone upon the hillsides of green seemed to mingle its hues with that of its own, and it sifted through the transparent leaves and spread itself in a mellow glow upon the ground beneath. Never did light seem so impressive as that which streamed through the forest and lit up the hills with "strange golden glory." ”

“ She got from him that handling out of which the colour flows joyous and bright as well-water, the handling that was necessary for the realisation of that dream of hers, a light world afloat in an irradiation—light trembling upon the shallows of artificial water, where swans and aquatic birds are plunging, and light skiffs are moored; light turning the summer trees to blue; light sleeping a soft and lucid sleep in the underwoods; light illumining the green summer of leaves where the diamond rain is still dripping; light transforming into jewellery the happy flight of bees and butterflies. ”

“ White light, as Dubrianfant says, seems to split up under the influence of living beings into two complementary groups, a green group and an orange group, which exhibit in Nature antagonistic properties. It is quite certain that green light is a very lively and healthful stimulant for our functions, and that, for that reason, spring is the favored and enchanted season. ”

“ We all know that a plant becomes pale and sickly if it has not sunlight, and the reason is, that without these light-waves it cannot get food out of the air, nor make the sap and juices which it needs. When you look at plants and trees growing in the beautiful meadows; at the fields of corn, and at the lovely landscape, you are looking on the work of the tiny waves of light, which never rest all through the day in helping to give life to every green thing that grows. ”

“ In the autumn, nearly all leaves show brilliant patches of colour.
In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth our ideas, we have become possessors of a mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we can speak of life, light, cheer and vitality. Red tells of fire, heat, blood, excitement and passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and restraint. In choosing green for its most universal colour, Nature harmonizes life and restraint, warmth and coolness, as represented by the component blue and yellow. ”

“ The earth is black; and in the early spring the trunks and branches of the trees look black too, and moist; but no sooner are these dark surfaces warmed by the rays of the sun than they send forth green grass and leaves. Vegetation requires light and warmth; but the amount must not be excessive. The reason why all that is green is so grateful to the eye, is that it seems like the union of warmth and cool moisture; it arouses sensations of calm contentment and health, but not those of passion, or what the world calls happiness. ”

“ When the sun shone, they were open-hearted and brave, but in the evening, as soon as the sun had disappeared, they became silent; and the night, which seemed to them much greater and more powerful than the day, made them anxious and helpless. Now the green light, which slanted in between the rushes and coloured the water with brown and dark-green streaked with gold, affected their mood until they were ready for any miracle. Every outlook was shut off. Sometimes the reeds rocked in an imperceptible wind, their stalks rustled, and the long, ribbon-like leaves fluttered against their faces. ”

“ An age, it seemed, and there came a glow, that told of the coming light. It grew, tardily. Then—with a loom of unearthly glory—the first ray from the Green Star, struck over the edge of the dark sun, and lit the world. It fell upon a great, ruined structure, some two hundred yards away. ”

“ Its cheerful light green makes it a perfect complement to the red of the currant when flowering; and by not looking at all like an evergreen, which it really is, bewilders the beholder, who sees it growing luxuriantly all along the river-banks, as to the time of year. ”

“ Nature, that greatest of all architects, also sees to it that plants get the utmost necessary sunlight, but for a much more important reason than the mere attractiveness of sunshine, be that ever so beautiful. For light, the life-giver of all green things, is so absolutely essential to plants that experiments to grow them in the dark have always failed, and many gardeners now use electric light in greenhouses in order to prolong the short daylight of winter. ”

“ We have here probably the foundations of a natural theory of harmonious colouring, derived from the order in which our colour-sensations have arisen and the nature of the emotions with which the several tints have been always associated. The agreeable and soothing influence of green light may be in part due to the green rays having little heating power ”

“ Far off they first looked a very pale gray; now, as the light increases, they change hue a little,—showing misty greens and smoky blues. They rise very sharply from the sea to great heights,—the highest point always with a cloud upon it;—they thrust out singular long spurs, push up mountain shapes that have an odd scooped-out look. Some, extremely far away, seem, as they catch the sun, to be made of gold vapor; others have a madderish tone: these are colors of cloud. The closer we approach them, the more do tints of green make themselves visible. ”

“ There are writers of great distinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green, rather than with any other colour, as being such a right mixture of light and shade, that it comforts and strengthens the eye instead of weakening or grieving it. ”

“ That radiant energy which is wholly of a wave-length of maximum visibility, or, in other words, excites the sensation of yellow-green, is the most efficient in producing luminous sensation. Of course, no illuminants are available which approach this theoretical ideal and it is not likely that this would be a practical ideal. Under monochromatic yellow-green light the magical drapery of color would disappear and the surroundings would be a monochrome of shades of this hue. Having no colors with which to contrast this color, the world would be colorless. ”

“ All tendency to green is kept in subordination by the pearly tints of those parts which are in shadow. The atmosphere is rendered more dense at the same time that it is coloured by the light of the sun; but the light parts of the objects seen through it are rendered, by the same cause, so much more brilliant, that the density of the medium is partially compensated; while its full effect is apparent upon the shadows seen through it, over which a bright haze diffuses a beautiful blue tint, slightly warmed by the golden colour of the illuminating power. ”

“ For every little rose of it has a green darkness in the centre—not even a pretty green, but a faded, yellowish, glutinous, unaccomplished green; and round that, all over the surface of the blossom, whose shell-like petals are themselves deep sunk, with grey shadows in the hollows of them—all above this already subdued brightness, are strewn the dark points of the dead stamens—manifest more and more, the longer one looks, as a kind of grey sand, sprinkled without sparing over what looked at first unspotted light. ”

“ At night in a dark room it radiates a pale green light which shows a blue tone to the exclusion of any other light. The more gas or lamp light there is present, the more apparent becomes the yellowish green hue, which in clear daylight changes to an almost pure very light yellow with a very slight mixture of green. ”

“ A similar process in the case of hard green leaves extinguishes the red, and sends green light from the body of the leaves to the eye.
All bodies, even the most transparent, are more or less absorbent of light. Take the case of water. A glass cell of clear water interposed in the track of our beam does not perceptibly change any one of the colours of the spectrum. ”

“ Cool grass, gay with wild flowers, spreads itself in the place of golden streets and marble pavements. But, all the time, the same holy light is over it all, like the light before a summer sunset among green hills. ”

“ We all admire the beautiful green of the spring leaves, and the freshness of the colours of the trees and grass. But if we pluck up a plant its root is not green. Why then is the cleaned root not as green as the upper portion?—Because of the absence of light. ”

“ Is grass green? First let us inquire what green is,—what color is. Light is now understood to be an undulation of the interstellar ether, that inconceivably rare, elastic expanse of matter which occupies all space,—an undulation communicated by the incandescent envelope of suns. It moves with such wondrous rapidity as to traverse hundreds of thousands of miles in a second. ”

“ We may notice, with regard to this, that certain rays of the solar beam affect animals like darkness; among others, the orange light, which, according to Bert, hurts the development of batrachians. Now, if this light is injurious to animals, it is not so to plants, as we have seen. In exchange, green light, which is hurtful to vegetables, is extremely favorable to animals. ”

“ When the light has become a little stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable. You have the intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by; you see it paling shade by shade in front of you; upon the next projecting cape, a mile off or more, the tint has lightened to the tender young green of spring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthest one, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim vapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. ”

“ Under the direct yellow light of a descending sun, for instance, pure white and pure blue are both impossible; because the purest whites and blues that nature could produce would be turned in some degree into gold or green by it; and when the sun is within half a degree of the horizon, if the sky be clear, a rose light supersedes the golden one, still more overwhelming in its effect on local color. ”

“ In quiet uninteresting calm the days pass by, but at night nature rallies her forces and gives us some glorious sunsets, filling the pale skies with cloud islands of golden light, while white and crimson feathery plumes, like spectral palms, float hither and thither across the sea-green sky. ”

“ Grown in the dark, the green substance contained in the plant and its leaves becomes white, and no longer possesses the property of absorbing red light, and reflecting green. A green leaf placed in red light becomes almost black, from its power of absorbing light of that colour ”

“ Although light seems to have such influence on the production of color in plants, we find many plants deeply green or gaudily colored, that grow where there is little or no light. Sea weeds of intense green, or painted as gayly as parrots, come from depths under water where the light must have been very dim. ”

“ Red is favored by women, with blue a close second, but the reverse is true for men. It is also thoroughly established that red, orange, and yellow exert an exciting influence; yellow-green, green, and blue-green, a tranquilizing influence, and blue and violet a subduing influence upon mankind. All these results were obtained with colors divorced from surroundings and actual usage. In the use of light and color the laws of harmony and esthetics must be obeyed, but the sensibility of the lighting artist is a satisfactory guide. ”

“ The green colour of plants is likewise found to depend on the sun’s light being allowed to shine on them; for without the influence of the solar light, they are always of a white colour. It is found by experiment that, if a plant which has 32 been reared in darkness be exposed to the light of day, in two or three days it will acquire a green colour perceptibly similar to that of plants which have grown in open day-light. ”

“ For the same reason grass is GREEN. The green waves of white light are thrown upon our eyes.”
“When we paint our houses, we do not apply color to them,” he said at another time. “What we do is to apply certain substances that have the property of absorbing from white light all the colors except those that we would have our houses appear. When a substance reflects all the colors to the eye, it seems to us white. When it absorbs all the colors, it is black. ”

“ The white light of the sun enters all substances to a certain depth, and is partly ejected by internal reflection; each distinct substance absorbing and reflecting the light, in accordance with the laws of its own molecular constitution. Thus the solar light is sifted by the landscape, which appears in such colours and variations of colour as, after the sifting process, reach the observer's eye. Thus the bright green of grass, or the darker colour of the pine, never comes to us alone, but is always mingled with an amounts of light derived from superficial reflection. ”