An Artist's Memory of Iceland’s Colors
Our visit to Iceland in the first week of October was a wonderful experience.
Since we have returned, I’ve been thinking about subtle colors I witnessed on overcast days, enhanced by occasional sunshine reflecting off wet green moss and snow-capped mountains.
There was a striking color contrast between the lime-green moss growing over the blackened lava fields. White steam rose out of the ground from distant geothermal pools, which have a milky-blue hue when nearby (or in them).
The smell of sulfur is noticeable near the Geysir (Geyser) areas. Sulfur produced subtle shades of ochre surrounding the hot, boiling pools and geysers, reminding me of movie scenes from when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Mineral deposits offer a muted landscape of colors and close-up sights as you walk along paths surrounded by rocks. Even the backdrop of the North Atlantic blues provides a striking contrast against the blackened cliffs.
Shades of reds and browns from iron sources, yellow and orange from sulfur, and ciladonite create copper greens. Then there are hues of blue-black in cooled lava fields that have changed color from their fiery, orange molten flows. Since we were visiting in October, sparse yellow birch dotted the landscape, but what caught my eye was a scarf of burgundy shrubs wrapped around sections of fields and hill slopes.
While there, I paid attention to the buildings' colors. Since they use corrugated metal siding on most of their homes, I recognized similar colors of the earth I described — ochre-yellow, (iron) oxide-red, charcoal blues, and verdigris (green-copper patina) —repeated in homes and shops, especially on older dwellings.
At the harbor, those same hues reflected in the water off small fishing boats and historical wooden boats docked near the maritime museum. The steel-gray coast guard ships flew the Icelandic flag in red, white, and blue. I learned that the symbolism of these colors has meaning for Iceland’s natural environment. Red represents fire for the volcanoes, White symbolizes glaciers and snow, and Blue represents the North Atlantic Ocean surrounding the island. The cross on the flag signifies their Norse heritage.
While visiting Gullfoss Falls, there was a fabulous palette of colors, varying in hue as the sun peeked through grey clouds, interspersed with patches of bright blue sky. The sun’s rays created shadows against the walls of rock, cradling the fall of white foamed water, full of energy, rushing somewhere else into the river below. Much to our surprise, the sunlight reflecting off the mist, produced by water hitting the rocks, created the colors like a rainbow —not arched as one imagines, but more like a prism hovering over the cascading water.
Through rainy days, sunshine, and ocean mist, Iceland's colors are embedded in my mind to explore in my studio this fall. At the end of our visit, we received the best gift of all —a perfect rainbow with the vivid colors of ROYGBIV, against a slate sky, as if painted by a child—sending us off with an Icelandic good-bye.
When you travel, do you notice colors that inspire you or leave an impression? Please feel free to comment below.
