Calm Pallas Lagoon

Latin calma, heat of the day — paradoxically drifted in Italian to mean stillness. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as untroubled. Calm blue, calm gray: moderate saturation combined with optical quiet. Sits at the crisp-bucket near quiet and steady.

Greek Παλλάς, epithet-of-Athena. As a color modifier, pallas implies an asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden quality, the visual register of Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior hand-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-and-Olbers-discovery pallas-and-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden surfaces under Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-and-Olbers-discovery asteroid-belt-and-Athenian-Acropolis warrior-goddess-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to ceres and vesta in usage.

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.