Reflections


































































by William Carlos Williams
I lie here thinking of you:—
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—
you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!

- BLUES
- Scotch Blue, is Berlin blue, mixed with a considerable portion of velvet black, a very little grey, and a slight tinge of carmine red.
- Prussian Blue, is Berlin blue, with a considerable portion of velvet black, and a small quantity of indigo blue.
- Indigo Blue, is composed of Berlin blue, a little black, and a small portion of apple green.
- China Blue, is azure blue, with a little Prussian blue in it.
- Azure Blue, is Berlin blue, mixed with a little carmine red : it is a burning colour.
- Ultramarine Blue, is a mixture of equal parts of Berlin and azure blue.
- Flax-Flower Blue, is Berlin blue, with a slight tinge of ultramarine blue.
- Berlin Blue, is the pure, or characteristic colour of Werner.
- Verditter Blue, is Berlin blue, with a small portion of verdigris green.
- Greenish Blue, the sky blue of Werner, is composed of Berlin blue, white, and a little emerald green.
- Greyish Blue, the small blue of Werner, is composed of Berlin blue, with white, a small quantity of grey, and a hardly perceptible portion of red.

“The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls a man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally for the supernatural. The brighter it becomes , the more it loses it’s sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.”
Vasily Kandinsky: a quote found in Victoria Finlay’s The brilliant History of Color in Art.
Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still…
Iris, blue each spring
—Bashō
The green park in winter.
The snow fell lightly as the footsteps of children. The snow lay masking the trim pathways, shrouding the trodden grass, the snow as far as one could see, on the housetops, on the trees. The sky was low, heavy with the cruel cold, and the light was grey and dim. In a long line gleamed the round lamps, and entangled with the leafless trees was a violet mist, and it trailed along the ground like a train of the winter night. The piercing cold had killed the colors, but the mist was violet, exquisitely soft, but cold, cold so the weary heart could scarcely endure its anguish. The houses of Carlton House Terrace were dark menacing masses against the whiteness of the snow. The day dwindled into ghostly silence and there was no glimpse even of the setting sun. Gray sky grew darker and the lights gleamed more brightly, surrounded each one by a pale aureole.
From: the year 1900 in A Writers Notebook, M. Somerset Maugham