Colour Names Can Be So Poetic

May is the season of fresh greens.  A stroll through the woods at this time of year is bliss! You can bathe in the greenish sunlight that filters through the tender young leaves. (We have a special word for this in Japanese: 木洩れ日, Komorebi).

If you look closely at the trees, you’ll notice that the green colours come in all different shades.

But do you have words to describe all these different greens?
Clues may be found in the following dictionary:

『配色事典　応用編』
“A Dictionary of Color Combination”

compiled from Sanzo Wada’s HAISHOKU SOKAN （配色総鑑 /和田三造 編）, published by SEIGENSHA 青幻舎

I came across this booklet in a museum in Germany! It shows us the historical colour combinations for each season. Nostalgic shades in the early Showa Era (1930s) have a charm all of their own.

Let me quote an example of a combination of greens for the month of May.
青朽葉 Aokuchiba (Citrine)
淡青朽葉 Awa Aokuchiba (Pyrite Yellow)
淡黄檗 Awa Kihada (Naples Yellow)
藍海松茶 Aimirucha (Blackish Olive)
千草鼠 Chigusa Nezumi (Artemisia Green)
 
These colour designations are full of literary charm.
E.g. the first term Aokuchiba means the colour of “trees’ leaves in the early stage of turning pale in autumn” whereas the last one consists of two words – “weeds” and “mouse”.
 
Of course, all shades can also be defined using modern colour schemes, e.g. R:173 G:162 B:80 or C:0.0 M:6.4 Y:53.8 K:32.2 for Aokuchiba.
 
But historical designations are much more poetic, don’t you think?

#translation #HistoricalExpressions #CulturalUnderstanding