The Color Without A Name

It's the secret agent of colors: complex, discreet and completely ambiguous. You've seen it many times but may have never quite registered it because it defies categorizing. It's not gray or blue or green, but a strange and mystifying combination of all three. It changes color depending on the light and the hues which surround it. It can appear slightly sulky, calm and relaxing, or intensely introspective.

Note: It's not greige. Greige is grey meets beige and this color is much more layered than that. And it's not eau de nil or chalk or grey threadbare velvet (although that's getting closer). But I know it when I see it. I am always searching, searching for it and when I find an example, I collect it carefully into a special folder titled "Color X."

Here it is, atmospheric and ethereal, in this ocean on a cloudy day.

(T. F. Simon, "Windy Beach on Normandy", 1924)

Here, Otto Dix painted himself in a suit of it. Understated and subtle, it nevertheless calls attention to itself in an elegant way.

("To Beauty", 1922)

It makes a beautiful counterpoint against warm, pink skin, as seen in this interior.

(Pierre Bonnard, "La Sieste", c. 1899)

At other times, it gives off an air of unapproachable sangfroid.

(George Grosz, "Remember Uncle August", 1919)

Here, Christopher Baily of Burberry covered a favorite chair in a floral pattern that incorporates bits of it. The peachy background really makes it sing.

(via T Magazine)

John Singer Sargent painted circular patterns of it onto that lush rug. It sets off red beautifully -- look at how alive that screen in the corner is.

(John Singer Sargent, "Daughters of E. D. Bolt", 1882)

The Neue Galerie shop uses a chair covered in it to make some Madeline Weinrib pillows really pop.

(via here)

My eyes hunt for it constantly. Once you have it in your brain, it's remarkable how often you can find it. Can you spot it here, in this photo of the Queen meeting Sir David Bailey? (It's on the strip of flocked wallpaper between them.)

(via here)

Most paint companies have their own version of it. Here are a smattering of them:

Benjamin Moore 1635 Water's Edge

Benjamin Moore AC-17 Sea Pine

Benjamin Moore 1633 Brittany Blue

Behr 730F-4 Flint Smoke

Ace 190-C Dusty Jeans

Sears Shadow Cloud

Farrow and Ball Light Blue

California Paints Standish Blue

So what color is X?

The color of antique milk glass?

Of a Norse legend?

Of an oxidized copper roof by moonlight?

Of a 1920's silk faille tea gown?

Of a nor'easterly wind?

What would you call it?

(Editors Note: The answers in so far are lovely..."English Channel", "Being and Nothingness", "November", "Ether", "D Day Landing Sky", "Dust", "Undertow"....You're poets, all of you.)

Friends I never met, Part One

I carry around a collection of women in my head.  They died long before I was born, but they continue to make quite an impression.  

One of them is Quappi, the second wife of artist Max Beckmann.  

("Portrait of Quappi in Pink Sweater", Max Beckmann, 1935)

Chic and pretty, she poses confidently in front of her husband, biding her time until they leave to meet friends for dinner.  Twenty years his junior, Quappi provided a welcome distraction to Beckmann's often-times tormented life.  By all accounts she adored him.  She loved to laugh and to have a good time.  I love her turban and her elegant style, not to mention the gorgeous navy tufted chair and the wall treatment in the background.  I only wish I could have seen the rest of the apartment.

Here's another lady I know I would have liked, journalist Sylvia von Harden. 

("Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden", Otto Dix, 1926)

Can you believe this was painted in 1926?  Except for the dangling cigarette, she could be sitting at Pastis, waiting to interview John Malkovich.  Although not a typical beauty, it's obvious she was completely at ease with her looks.  Unafraid, opinionated, she looks totally modern, the love child of Anna Wintour and Isabella Blow.  It would have been daunting to meet her, probably, but I bet if you could make her laugh, she'd be a fierce and loyal friend.  And you just know she was Grand Mistress of the clever retort.  I'd definitely want to sit next to her at a dinner party. 

Last but not least, I have a tender spot for this woman, whom I found on the internet without any credits (Aesthete, can you enlighten me?).  

(?)

In my fabricated version of her life, she was married at 17 to a much older man, bore him six children in rapid succession and lost her identity in the process.  It was not a happy marriage. Now widowed a year at the time of this sitting, she is starting to find her way back to the world of the living.  Time has erased any link to the pre-Raphaelite sylph she once was. Intertwined in her arms is a shawl her youngest (and favorite) daughter just sent her from Jaipur. She always longed to travel abroad, but her husband abhorred foreigners, preferring to stay home and tend to his dahlias.  A small smile plays across her lips. Her eyes flicker with the faintest gaze of hope.  Act Two of her life is about to begin.

Or something like that.