One People, One Planet, HON!

Purple/Green/Yellow


1980, watercolor, 34” x 46”

In the mid 1970s and 80s Hieronimus became fascinated with working in watercolors, and the dichotomy they presented as one of the most difficult mediums for a painter. Requiring a very steady hand and intense focus, watercolor paints do not allow for the slip of the hand. One cannot paint over a mistake as one can with oils. And yet the outcome creates some of the most ethereal and soothing images possible with any paint. Watercolors allow the depiction of a reality beyond the physical with their ability to give image to transparency. If all things are vibrations, as taught in the ancient traditions, then the physical world is an illusion (Maya), and the space between all physical matter is just as important as the atoms composing it. From this perspective there is nothing solid and all is transparent.

The Hieronimus watercolor series of Colorscapes can be understood as a dimension of vibratory reality that is not physical, and can be interpreted using color as consciousness. What is color? Isaac Newton’s color theory described color as the result of splitting white light into its component parts. Goethe’s color theory described color arising from the interaction of light and dark. He believed color is the speech of the soul of nature and therefore has meaning and power.

In this colorscape, yellow dominates the lower layers demonstrating a mental foundation of the solar/mercurial energy. From this foundation grows the Venusian green (blue+yellow). Green is the harmonious energy of all nature and indicates fruitfulness, growth, emotion or desire. The green gives birth to just one strip of blue-violet, which on one level is the physical condensation of matter and tied to karma. The traces of violet in this color indicate truth, spiritual power and universal understanding. The symbolic message here is that it takes an immense amount of yellow vibration (mental energy) to create only a single layer of blue-violet (universal understanding through spiritual power).