Green Sky, Blue Grass

Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary investigation into how colors vary in the eyes and minds of people across cultures worldwide The title of this volume and its accompanying exhibition at the Museum of World Cultures in Frankfurt alludes to ancient Japanese poetry in which the sky is sometimes described as green and the grass as blue. The world is full of color no matter where one looks, but not every culture interprets the spectrum of shades in the same way, nor do individual people always see the same colors despite our physiological similarities. This publication highlights pieces from the museum's collection, ranging in origin from the Amazon to Tibet, as anthropological case studies in the exploration of color and the meanings ascribed to different hues. In concert with essays from the fields of philosophy, linguistics and physics, Green Sky, Blue Grassuncovers the complexity of human perception across the globe.