Trying to describe the beautiful rich tones of the flowers that are positively glowing in the blazing sun at present reminded me of the magical names of colours that were marked on the wax crayons and watercolour paints I used as a child. These sounded so sophisticated and somehow remote - foreign lands of colour and mystery that could suddenly be explored in their own right, in addition to offering escape into some secret world via some childish creation or other. You could tumble down a tunnel of colour and creativity into another realm of Wonder, rather like Alice. Indeed, her Tiger Lilies, as drawn by John Tenniel to illustrate Carol's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland do look a little like the flowers I saw...
Even today, I automatically use these names to greater or lesser degree of accuracy, depending on the colour in question, of course. Why settle for plain 'red' when you could use
Cadmium,
Carmine,
Cardinal,
Vermillion or
Magenta to describe its hue? Modest 'blue' sounds far more intriguing preceded by
Cerulean,
Cobalt,
Prussian, or
Ultramarine.
The magic of descriptive colour names cast such a spell over me in childhood that I automatically look out for these on nail varnish, lipstick etc today from pure curiosity even if the enchantment is generally broken by the rather more down-to-earth albeit witty labels employed. So I would rather stay with the classic names as I gaze at green, that is
Celadon,
Chartreuse,
Malachite,
Viridian,
Verdigris and so much more...
And then of course there is the mesmerizing quality of the flowers themselves, drawing us in to look ever-closer...
Some things never change!
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