Green easily brought spring, forests, and laurel wreaths made of bay leaves to mind.
Before arsenic was discovered as a means of making green dye, people had to blend several colors to produce it.
Doctor Paolo Veronese spent most of his time creating works in Venice. Like Titian, he was a skilled, quick-witted colorist, renowned for using stubborn pigments to create bright green.
Yet even he made mistakes. Perhaps it was precisely craftsmen's helplessness before this pigment that caused the color to become associated with fickleness, poison, and even evil.
Since the twelfth century, green had been visually associated with devils and evil creatures. In Shakespeare's time, green costumes were considered an ill omen on stage, and even into the nineteenth century, actresses refused to wear the long green dresses authors had assigned to their characters.
This might also have been related to a prevailing social value at the time: different substances were not supposed to be mixed. In many countries, clothing guilds even passed laws stating that if cloth was dipped in woad and then placed in yellow bedstraw to be dyed green, one could face enormous fines or exile.
Even though some plants, such as foxglove, could produce green dye without mixing, their saturation and brightness could not meet the demands of discerning customers.
Paris Green and Saint Helena Green had originally been the same green. However, copper arsenite, the main compound in Paris Green, reacted oxidatively with sulfides and gradually darkened. The color became less translucent and bright than Paris Green, instead resembling spoiled peas or matcha powder.
Saint Helena was a volcanic island. Though it did not erupt as frequently as certain volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, its dormant volcanoes still emitted a great deal of sulfur-containing gas, causing emerald-green wallpaper to discolor.
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