Green Earth

(Caledonite, Glauconite, Terra Verde of Verona, Ciprus Green)

Origin, History and Characteristics

The name green earth  is applied to several different minerals, but most importantly in medieval painting is the light, cold green of celadonite, found chiefly in small deposits in rock in the area of Verona, Italy. Today the color is chiefly a durable mixture of chromium oxide, black, white and ochre, since the natural product is scarcely obtainable.

The mass tone of green earth a rather dull green. Mixed with oil it is transparent and soapy in texture, like a clay. The color varies according to its origin, ranging from a light bluish grey with a greenish cast to a dark, brownish olive.

Medieval painters used green earth pigment as a preparatory underpainting for the representation of flesh tones. A uniform unmodulated paint in the areas was laid in where the flesh was to be represented which neutralized the effect of the pinks and reds of the subsequent flesh tints. In order to to achieve a clean and smooth surface on which to paint, painters prepared  wood panels with layers of gesso (a mixture chalk and glue), which was usually white. If the pinks of flesh were directly painted onto the white gesso, a "sunburn" effect in the flesh is produced. The green earth which now dominates many of the paintings of the period may be the result of the lighter flesh tones which have faded.

Green Earth in Vermeer's Painting

In Vermeer's painting green earth was  found mixed with white-lead and a little lead-tin yellow in the lighter tones of the trompe d'oile curtain of Vermeer's early Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window.

a detail of Vermeer's
Lady Standing at the Virginals

Curiously, green earth was used by Vermeer to depict the shadowed areas of  flesh tones in some of his late paintings such as the Girl with a Red Hat, The Guitar Player, A Lady Standing at a Virginal, A Lady Seated at a Virginal, and  The Allegory of Faith. The effect of green earth in these pictures is not always readily visible in reproductions but when seen directly it is quite evident and to most viewers, a bit unsettling. The aesthetic effect is more decorative than it is naturalistic. The effect of green earth can clearly be seen in the painting of the neck of the Guitar Player to the right.

Although green earth had been employed in a analogous way by some mannerists schools in  Europe, after the 15th c. umbers and other brownish earth pigments were used in the deeper shadows of the flesh. These tones have a warmer tone and create a far more natural effect than green earth. In the Netherlands, some artists of the Utrecht school were known to have used green earth in flesh tones. Since more than one scholar believes that the young Vermeer may have completed his apprenticeship in Utrecht, it is possible that the young artist became aware of the technique in those years. Just why Vermeer used the technique in his later paintings remains an open question.