VIOLET-CROWNED LONDON
SIGN-LIGHTING AND NIGHT SKIES. The colours of cities may be a study no less fascniating than the colours of Nature, notes Mr Ivon Brown, writing in the “London Observer.” The Athenian poets spoke of their dear city as “violet-crowned,” and scholars have wondered what exactly this meant. Recent night-skies over London, following the mellow miracle of March days without precedent, brought the old Greek epithet to my mind. One of the more recent changes in the urban scene has been the enormous extension of shop and sign-lighting by Neon tubes, the favoured colour being of a ruddy, orange-like kind. On clear evenings the upward drive of this tint, unattractive in itself, mingles with the blue of an unclouded dusk, and creates some strange and lovely effects for those who lift their eyes above the streets. The re'd glare shades off into the purple patch; sunset paints with a rich variety of harmony of blues. The Greeks who sang of “Athens violet-crowned” may have intended something quite different from this. But we have our violets, too.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1938, Page 2
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177VIOLET-CROWNED LONDON Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1938, Page 2
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