The pursuit of colour leads to unexpected places. What began
as an attempt to recreate Oswald's colour circle evolved into a deeper
appreciation for the rare and magical moments when nature reveals colours that
exist at the very edge of human perception. From the laboratory discovery of
Olo to the legendary green flash at sunset, these experiences remind us that
the world of colour extends far beyond our everyday experience.
The Laboratory Meets the Beach
The connection between scientific colour discovery and
natural observation became strikingly clear during my artworks at Venus Bay. The
sea-green illuminated waves I sketched, created by late afternoon sunlight
penetrating the surf, bore an uncanny resemblance to the Olo colour described in
laboratory conditions, which matches Ostwald's Sea Green. Reminding me that the best artistic subjects often combine practical purpose with natural beauty.
This wasn't mere coincidence. Both phenomena involve precise
conditions—specific angles, particular wavelengths, and the right environmental
factors. The laboratory uses laser precision to activate cone cells in
extraordinary ways, while nature uses the angle of the sun, the clarity of
water, and the movement of waves to create equally extraordinary visual
experiences.
The Elusive Green Flash
Nature exhibits other amazing colour phenomena such as the mysterious green flash—a brief burst of vivid green light that appears just as the sun
disappears below the ocean horizon. At Venus Bay, with its north-south running
beach and western ocean view, conditions are theoretically perfect for
observing this rare event.
I've witnessed it once: a fleeting moment of intense green
above the setting sun, gone almost before the eye could register it. The
experience was so brief that I didn't have the opportunity to photograph it, yet the memory
remains vivid. This phenomenon has been famously observed in Hawaii and
Cornwall, locations that share Venus Bay's advantage of an unobstructed western
horizon over open water.
The green flash occurs due to atmospheric refraction—the
same physics that creates rainbows and mirages. As the sun sets, Earth's
atmosphere acts like a prism, separating sunlight into its component colours.
The green wavelength, being shorter than red but longer than blue, becomes
visible for a split second as the sun's red light is blocked by the horizon
while the blue light scatters into the atmosphere above.
The Science of Rare Colours
These phenomena—whether laboratory-created Olo or naturally
occurring green flashes—share common characteristics. They exist at the
boundaries of normal perception, require specific conditions to manifest, and
challenge our understanding of how colour works.
The Olo discovery reveals that our eyes are capable of
perceiving colours we never normally see. The specialised equipment required to
create this experience highlights how much of the visible spectrum remains
unexplored in terms of human perception.
Similarly, the green flash demonstrates how atmospheric
conditions can reveal colours that exist in sunlight but are normally invisible
to us.
The emergence of AI-generated content about the Olo
discovery represents another layer of this colour story.
What strikes me most about this entire journey—from filling
a Wilcox palette to witnessing the green flash—is how it demonstrates the
persistence of wonder in an age of technological explanation. Despite our
sophisticated understanding of wavelengths, cone cells, and atmospheric optics,
these colour phenomena retain their magic.
The sea-green waves at Venus Bay still take my breath away,
regardless of my understanding of light refraction and wavelength. The green
flash remains mysterious and beautiful, even when I comprehend the atmospheric
physics involved. The Olo discovery fascinates not because it's inexplicable,
but because it reveals new possibilities within our existing understanding.
Rob Candy's gift of the Wilcox palette initiated a journey I
never anticipated. What seemed like a simple project to match colours became an
exploration spanning historical colour theory, contemporary vision science,
natural phenomena, and artificial intelligence.
The palette sits by my easel now, filled with pigments that
approximate Oswald's 24-color circle. But its real value lies not in the colours
themselves, but in the journey they inspired. From mixing stubborn phthalo
pigments to capture elusive sea-green, to witnessing laboratory breakthroughs
that reveal new dimensions of human vision, to standing on a beach waiting for
that fleeting green flash—each experience deepened my understanding of colour's
complexity and beauty.
In this age of digital reproduction and artificial
intelligence, the rarest colours still require us to show up—whether in the
laboratory or on the beach—and witness them with our own eyes. Some things, it
seems, cannot be replicated or explained away, only experienced and celebrated.
