The Equatorial Jungle by Henri Rousseau
Have you ever realized that one single color can quietly occupy almost every corner of your life — and mostly in a gentle, reassuring way?
We eat green to feel lighter, put our feet on green to ground ourselves, rest our eyes on green to soften our vision, and even speak of “earning green” when we talk about surviving, sustaining, continuing.
It is December now, when red dominates the visual world with its urgency and celebration, green remains its silent companion — calmer, steadier, and somehow more enduring.
I have always perceived green as a color that does not demand attention but earns it. It exists before interpretation, before symbolism, before we even needed a word to name it. Only later did language catch up: the word green derives from Old English grene, rooted in the Proto-Germanic grōni- and ultimately connected to the idea of growth — living, expanding, becoming. The color of growing plants was not defined first by sight, but by movement and vitality.
Across mythologies and cultures, green has consistently been linked to life. In Greek mythology, it symbolized fertility and love; in Norse mythology, the evergreen tree represented cosmic order and eternal life. Folk traditions associated it with freshness, permanence, knowledge, liberty. Of course, green also carries less comforting connotations – unripe fruit, mold, decay, decomposition. Yet even these are not contradictions. They are warnings, transitions, signs that one phase is ending so another can begin.
Perhaps this is why I experience green almost instinctively as a positive presence. An unripe fruit promises ripeness ahead, decay signals caution and awareness. Green does not deny discomfort — it integrates it into a broader cycle. It reminds me that life does not move in clean lines, but in layered processes.
The color of life, of sources, of quiet hope – green announces itself without noise. You can sense it by stepping onto grass, by breathing near seaweed along a coast, by letting your eyes rest on forms shaped in green.
And in art, green does something similar: it slows me down, steadies my perception, and invites me to feel rather than rush to understand.
I began to recognize this feeling most clearly when green appeared not in nature, but in art – carried onto the canvas by gifted minds, through pigments synthetic in matter yet organic in awareness.
Just look at the green moonlight in Ralph Albert Blakelock’s Moonlight. Do not analyze it too quickly – look and let yourself feel the harmony first. This is not a light that exposes; it is a light that settles. The green hue spreads softly across the landscape, not illuminating every detail, but allowing enough visibility to feel safe within the darkness.
I imagine sitting under this quiet miracle: the green light resting on my skin, a gentle breeze brushing through my hair or catching the edge of my jacket. The night does not feel cold here; it feels attentive. And strangely, I find myself almost smelling the color green – damp earth, leaves holding onto moisture, air that has learned patience. Blakelock’s green is not decorative; it is immersive. It does not ask to be observed from a distance, but to be inhabited.
In this moonlight, green becomes a mediator between shadow and reassurance. It does not promise clarity, but it offers presence – the kind that calms the mind without demanding explanation.
Blakelock’s night feels inward. It asks for depth – the kind that requires honesty. It evokes a night in which you recognize the need for transformation, stop resisting it, and allow yourself to question who you are without defense or urgency.
The green in his moonlight is not comforting; it is clarifying, it is empowering.
The color green pats you on the back – encouraging, without insisting.
I move on to The Pond at Benten Shrine in Shiba by Hasui Kawase:
Serenity at its finest. Where Blakelock turns me inward, Hasui opens the scene outward. His green belongs to the day: calmer, steadier, almost ordinary – not because it lacks meaning, but because meaning has already settled. It is the moment when things fall into place, when you pause and realize where you are and how far you have come. No resistance, no transformation demanded, only presence.
And Litzlberg on the Attersee by Gustav Klimt:
Green feels like the clearest sign of a complete and secure life. A quiet certainty: I can live here. I can exist here. I can breathe deeply here.
In Klimt’s landscape, I feel surrounded by green nature – hugged by trees, greeted by mountains. And the water, with its gentle reflections, gives us a kind of family portrait of the green we already possess.
My reflections may not align with academic interpretations of these works, and my reading of green may remain incomplete. But perhaps art has always been about perception – about noticing, attributing meaning, and finding even the smallest space where we are allowed to speak.
💌hello@betweeneverywhereandnowhere.com
Between Everywhere and Nowhere 
Leave a comment