Previous parts of this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
When it came to the color green, Medieval artists and crafters had a rough time. Unlike the warm colors – reds, oranges, yellows – long-lasting green pigments were not so easily available from nature. Mostly, these artists resorted to verdigris.
Verdigris is a general name for the green to blueish green patina that develops on copper and copper alloys – copper, bronze, brass — over time, the greenish hue of The Statue of Liberty being the most familiar example. Verdigris is a copper salt of acetic acid, which is as poisonous as it sounds. Though not as deadly as the arsenic contained in Scheele’s Green, it can cause nausea, anemia and even death if ingested in large doses. In my Narnia fanfic story Misogyny and Verdigris, I used it as a deadly element of the Underworld, a pigment that gradually poisoned everything it touched.
Yet, outside of rare minerals like malachite, it was the only pigment available. Ancient Romans used it for their villas, Renaissance painters for their portraits. Preparation was extremely tricky. One way was to bury strips of copper glued to wood in a pile of dung. After a few weeks the block was dug up and the verdigris scraped off. Perhaps Lewis knew of this method and applied it to the foulness of the Green Witch?
Another way was to stack copper plates in clay pots which were then filled with wine, the acid of the wine causing the plates to develop crystals which formed verdigris, which were scraped off and sold. This method was popular in France and quite profitable. Interestingly, this business was controlled in the main by women, which creates another resonance with Lewis’s Lady of the Green Kirtle. It also makes me think of the Radium Girls, hapless female employees who ingested radium by licking paintbrushes containing luminous paint intended for watches.
Depending on the way it was prepared, verdigris yielded a variety of green shades, some stable, some not so stable. The odd, off-color appearance of many old paintings is, in fact, due to the deterioration of verdigris pigment, which can turn darker or browner if not sealed correctly. It gave the best greens in oil paint.
And where does that pretty name come from? Old French: Verte Grez, which can mean either “green of gray” or “green of vinegar (d’aigre)”.
AI art – Midjourney
Above, The Lady of the Green Kirtle in her aspect as a Copper Witch.
