Upon a Crop of Calamine…
Our take
In "Upon a Crop of Calamine," Sam Dolbear explores the whimsical world of paint nomenclature at the indispensable Public Domain Review. Venture into your local DIY store, and you'll encounter enchanting names like Tawny Day Lily and Marshmallow Bunny that beckon with their poetic charm. As Daniel Harris notes in Cabinet magazine, these names have evolved into a unique form of artistry, reflecting more than mere color — they encapsulate emotions, memories, and dreams.
In the vibrant world of DIY home improvement, the colors we choose to envelop our spaces are more than mere aesthetics; they are an exploration of language and emotion, a poetic reflection of our environments. Sam Dolbear’s exploration in “Upon a Crop of Calamine…” at the Public Domain Review takes us on a delightful journey through the whimsical naming conventions of paint, where titles like Tawny Day Lily and Marshmallow Bunny evoke not just hues but entire atmospheres and sentiments. This reflective piece aligns beautifully with the spirit of creativity captured in other explorations, such as the stories in the Bible retold through film in What Happened to Jesus’ Twelve Disciples After the Bible—It Wasn’t Pretty or the linguistic curiosities found in Just curious, what tools do you actually use to read/listen to content in your target language before you're fluent?. Each piece hints at the profound ways in which language shapes our understanding of the world.
The artistic naming of paint colors, as Dolbear highlights, is akin to a certain tradition of lyric poetry where nature and mood intertwine. This approach to naming colors has historical roots, notably in *Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour*, a groundbreaking work that sought to classify colors through natural references. The significance here extends beyond mere categorization; it invites us to consider how language influences perception. When we select a color called Meadow Mist, it’s not just about finding the right shade for our living room; it’s about evoking the tranquility of a foggy morning in a field. This is where the razor clam of our conversation lies—how paint names create an emotional connection, turning a simple choice into a reflective act.
The article also nudges us to ponder the evolution of language itself. As we navigate through an era that leans heavily on digital communication, the rich and poetic nomenclature found in paint names reminds us of the beauty that can arise from thoughtful expression. In a world where we often abbreviate and oversimplify, the vibrant descriptions of colors serve as a gentle nudge to embrace the fullness of language. This is especially relevant as we engage with varied forms of media, from the intricate discussions in Interstitium, Apoplast to the nuanced challenges of language immersion. Each piece reinforces the idea that our interactions with language can be both functional and deeply resonant.
As we consider the implications of Dolbear's musings, it poses a fascinating question: how can we reclaim the poetic potential of language in our everyday lives? In the realm of paint, we see a microcosm of a broader dialogue about the words we choose and the meanings they convey. Whether it's through the colors we select for our homes or the conversations we engage in, there exists an opportunity to elevate our language from the mundane to the extraordinary. The names we use, much like the colors we apply, can enrich our surroundings and our interactions.
So, what will you paint your world with? Will it be a bold statement or a quiet whisper? As we continue to explore the intersections of language and emotion, let’s remain attentive to the vibrant hues of meaning that lie just beneath the surface of our everyday choices. Stay spooty, dear reader, as you navigate this colorful tapestry of existence.
Sam Dolbear writes at the indispensable Public Domain Review:
Go to your local DIY store and the paints will no doubt carry strange names: Tawny Day Lily, Meadow Mist, Candied Yam, Marshmallow Bunny, to name but a few. As Daniel Harris points out in Cabinet magazine, paint names developed their own poetic style and, like a certain tradition of lyric poetry they make reference to nature to express mood or atmosphere. Likewise, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (first published in 1814) constructs a system or taxonomy for the classification of colour with reference to things in the natural world, (rather than to objects of everyday artifice, as with the work of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel). And though the goal is to primarily enable a scientific structure of identification, rather than evoke mood, the end product can’t help but veer to the poetic.
The book is based on the work of the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner who, in his 1774 book Treatise on the External Characters of Fossils (translated into English in 1805), developed a nomenclature of colours so as to offer a standard with which to describe the visual characteristics of minerals. Clearly taken by the idea, some three decades later the Scottish painter of flowers Patrick Syme amended and extended Werner’s system. In addition to the mineral referent, for each of Werner’s colours Syme added an example from the animal and vegetable kingdom, as well as providing an actual patch of colour on the page to accompany the words. While Werner found a suite of 79 tints enough for his geological purpose, now opened up to other realms of nature, Syme added 31 extra colours to bring the total to 110.
With Syme’s new reference categories there’s born a whole new world of relationships between disparate aspects of nature, encounters dictated solely by colour. For example, for “skimmed-milk white” we have the white of the human eyeballs (animal), the back of the petals of blue hepatica (vegetable), and common opal (mineral); for “lavender purple” we have “the light parts of spots of on the under wings of Peacock Butterfly” (animal), “dried lavender flowers” (vegetable), and “porcelain jasper” (mineral). Wonderfully odd monochrome tableaux are conjured: upon a crop of calamine a bed of straw in which sits a polar bear; or the style of an Orange Lily encrusted with Brazilian topaz and the eyes of the largest flesh fly.
Syme’s confidence in obscure references to the natural world came from an obsession with taxonomies at the time, a line developed from Carl Linnaeus to Charles Darwin (who made use of Werner’s Nomenclature on the Beagle). Such people often relied on a network of collectors and explorers, those obsessed with ordering and categorizing, pinning down butterflies and stuffing birds. In an age of mass digital reproduction, the pinning down of colour is perhaps as difficult as ever. It might be easier to turn to Pantone though, rather than Abraham Gottlob Werner.
The link was sent me by the indispensable Trevor Joyce; thanks, Trevor! (Speaking of whom, check out his new project, Possession, which begins “well here goes nothing and it’s not funny at all” and continues with a series of six-line stanzas that capture our present moment as well as anything I’ve seen.)
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