Complementary friends

Here’s my first attempt at converting a photograph into a swatch palette, using a photo of some friends. Boots and bag, hair and mittens, jacket and T-shirt, shoes and lichen—I didn’t realize at the time how many complementary combinations of different chromas of red and green were going on that day.

Is it true what they say about the green ones?

My candy-coated chocolate research led me here:

http://www.mms.com/us/coloroflove/

Why have they chosen green as the “colour of love?” Because it is the most unlikely colour to be associated with it? Green: nature, the environment, health—the colour of hospital walls and spinach. Of course, spinach made Popeye a pretty sexy dude.

This website asks and answers, “What’s the mystique of green?”—”It’s been a rumored love potion since the beginning of time.” Is that so? Wikipedia will tell us the truth:

Culturally, green has broad and sometimes contradictory meanings. In some cultures, green symbolizes hope and growth, while in others, it is associated with death, sickness, or the devil. The most common associations, however, are found in its ties to nature. Green is associated with regeneration, fertility and rebirth. Recent political groups have taken on the color as symbol of environmental protection and social justice, and consider themselves part of the green movement, some naming themselves green parties. This has led to similar campaigns in advertising, as companies have sold green, or environmentally friendly, products.

. . . further reading brings us to this one sentence here, under the ‘Western’ heading amidst several contradictory associations: “Stories of the medieval period further portray it as representing love and the base, natural desires of man.” [Goldhurst, William. "The Green and the Gold: The Major Theme of Gawain and the Green Knight." College English. 20.2 (Nov 1958) pp. 61-65 doi:10.2307/372161]

So there is a grain of truth embedded in the M&Ms mythology. But I think what we really have here is a great marketing gimmick, especially on Valentines Day, that will set M&Ms apart from all the other candies and chocolates. By using the colour green, the opposite—the complementary colour of the traditional heart-coloured hue, M&Ms are unconventional, daring and unique. If complementary colours make each other “pop,” then marketing green as love puts M&Ms centre-stage, offset by the holiday’s sea of red wrappers, gift cards and roses.

Other interesting Wikipedia notes on green:

• In high schools in the United States during the 1960s, it was widely believed that if someone wore green on Thursdays, it meant that they were homosexual.^[35]
• Many Asian languages have no word distinguishing blue from green, though recently published dictionaries do make the distinction.^[38]
• The Libyan flag is completely green, in honor of Islam’s veneration of the color.
• In the Celtic tradition, green was avoided in clothing for its superstitious association with misfortune and death.^[31][32]
• Green is thought to be an unlucky color in British and British-derived cultures,^[33] where green cars, wedding dresses, and theater costumes are all the objects of superstition.^[34]

This girl would disagree with the last point: