Blue
When a name for a color is absent from a language, it is usually blue. When a name for a color is indefinite, it is usually green. Ancient Hebrew, Welsh, Vietnamese, and until recently, Japanese, lack a word for blue. To name the color blue the Assyrians turned uknu, the noun for lapis lazuli, into an adjective. The Icelandic word for blue and black is he same, one word that fits sea, lava, and raven. Goethe’s blue is the color of “enchanting nothingness.” (Meloy, 2003, p.11-12)
Comparing this beach with the one in Italy, with another in East Hampton, with the one I had dreamed of finding that day a few years ago when I strolled into MoMA and, looking at Matisse, allowed my mind to drift to Alexandria, thinking to myself that, now that I was in Alexandria, perhaps the time had indeed come for me to ask, however diffidently, a question that always humbles me and always comes for me to ask, however diffidently, a question that always humbles me and always comes back to me: What do you do with so much blue once you’ve seen it?
André Aciman. False Papers (Kindle Locations p. 454-458). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition. |
"I used to wonder why the sea was blue at a distance and green close up and colorless for that matter in your hands. A lot of like it like that. A lot of like is just a matter of learning to like blue."
by Miriam Pollard “The Listening God” |