“Just a little green,” Joni Mitchell sang. Actually, make that a lot of green. Green, and here I want to stress all the many, many shades of green, is my favorite color. And I love seeing the greens of Italy, as in Umbria, Il Cuore Verde d'Italia, the Green Heart of Italy. Look closely at the above shot of the Umbrian Valley, taken by me on a hike up Mount Subasio starting from the town of Spello. A riot of greens.
Try listing the words in Italian for varieties of green and you’ll fast lose track. Related to vegetation, there’s pine green, cypress green, cactus green and let’s not leave out the fern green of the Italian tricolor flag. Verde pino, verde cipresso, verde cactus and verde felce if you’d prefer to hear it that way, as I do.
Related to food, oh boy: there are terms in the category of green for olives, peas, spinach, pistachios, mint, thyme, rosemary, basil…That’s verde oliva, verde pisello, verde spinacio, verde pistacchio, verde menta, verde timo, verde rosmarino, verde basilico…And there’s even a verde pesto, darker than a mere verde basilico.
Let’s also work in Verde Veronese, named after the creation of this shade of green by the 16th century Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese. He used a technique apparently borrowed from Titian. Here’s the shade. Yes, there’s some definite blue mixed in.
I know that I’m up against red, in a big way. Many, many Italian terms for shades of red, quite possibly even more than for green. And I have nothing against red. But I’m sticking with green. And I’m including, from the area where I live in the States, the greens of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. OK, this shot of mine isn’t only of greens, but you get the picture.
Why does green do it for me? This maybe sounds dopey, but in the right conditions of sunlight, a contrast in the greens of nature I behold can produce a momentary feeling that I can only describe as, well, ecstasy. High on Green! A deep quiet other than maybe a bird call also can help to produce this feeling. It never lasts long, and I can’t account for it, other than to say that it has nothing to do with a drug. Nothing in my tank besides morning caffeine when this moment hits. I suppose I could consult neuroscience but I don’t want to. Happy to settle for the mystery of it all.
I’ll close with another shot of greens from Il Cuore Verde d’Italia—a grove of olive trees on Mount Subasio. Viva Verde!
