(A first in a series about colors)
Blue is a primary color in painting, with the secondary color orange as its complement. It is in the visible spectrum at wavelengths in the range of 440–490 nm.
Renoir’s paint box and palette, Musee d’Orsay
"Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Oh, this would be so much easier if I wasn't color-blind!" - Donkey in Shrek
I begin this series with blue because it is considered the overwhelming favorite color for most Americans and Europeans and the most gender-neutral color (liked by both men and women). Artists, until the 18th century used blue primarily to depict religious figures and secular rulers mostly because obtaining the color was arduous and expensive. It was not until later that blue was more accessible and available in a variety of different shades making it easier to use.
Ancient Egypt
The Egyptians began serious color manufacturing from about 4000 BC. They introduced the washing of pigments to increase pigments’ strength and purity. They also produced new materials, the most famous of which was Egyptian blue-first made around 3000 BC which they used along with lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli has been mined for centuries from a location still in use today in the mountain valley of Kokcha, Afghanistan. First mined 6,000 years ago, the rock was transported to Egypt and later to Europe where it was used in jewelry and paint pigment.
The blue mineral Lapis Lazuli possessed purportedly life-giving powers. The Book of the Dead describes Horus, the hawk-like son of the God Osiris : "his torso is made of blue stone".
Egyptian Blue (blue frit) was used in conjunction with lapis lazuli for painting eyes, hair and crowns of the pharaohs’ statues and sarcophagi. Nile, the most important river of ancient Egypt, is rendered in blue color on grave paintings. Blue colored hippopotamuses produced by artisans were popular as symbols for the life-giving river. Nude female figures coated with blue glaze found in Egyptian graves might have represented life and Creation.
A blue god appears in this copy of Pharaoh and a Temple Chantress present offerings to Amon, by Ernst Weidenbach, 1845.
The skin of the Egyptian god Amon was rendered blue. Originally, he was the deification of the concept of air, one of the four fundamental concepts of the primordial universe. Amon means “the hidden one,” as the air and the wind cannot be seen by the eyes. He was originally depicted as a frog-headed god and his invisibility was represented by the color blue - the color of the sky.
Blue is also the background color of the paintings depicting the royal graves in the Valley of the Kings. Head kerchiefs of the Kings and their insignia are painted in blue and gold. Jewelry of Tutankhamen was made of gold and lapis lazuli. (The first color consciously perceived by Man in Stone Age was, however, not blue but red. It is conceivable that the ability to discern blue and green from other colors was not developed until much later stages of the human history.)
The ancient Greeks scorned blue as ugly and barbaric and in ancient Rome, blue was worn by the public servants, thus marking the beginning of the idea for today's police uniforms.
Medieval, Renaissance Art and Baroque
During the Middle Ages, the recipe for Egyptian blue was lost, so azurite and expensive ultramarine from Afghanistan were the only sources of blue available. Blue thus was reborn as a royal color in the twelfth century and functioned as a formidable political and military force. In the 15th century, smalt, a finely ground blue glass, came into use for painting.
During the Renaissance, the color blue was associated with purity, and ultramarine (Europeans called the expensive powdered pigment of azurite ultramarine, which literally means over the sea) was used to striking effect in paintings of the Virgin Mary, where she was almost invariably depicted wearing ultramarine blue garments. The high price of ultramarine also meant that its use was appropriate for the mother of Christ and royalty. Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo used ultramarine as well to symbolize spirituality. In religious symbolism, blue signifies truth and is associated with the creative power of God.
Charlemagne, missal, circa 15th century.
In early medieval Europe, blue was a royal and aristocratic color, as blue dyes were rare and expensive. Due to the rarity of blue dyes made from woad, and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europeans’ idea of royal color shifted from Tyrian purple towards blue.
Blue was commonly used in art depicting the Virgin Mary. This is an anonymous panel painting of the Annunciation, in egg tempera, from 1490. The blue color in Mary’s mantle links heaven and earth, the divine and the mundane, and also symbolizes purity.
Azurite appears frequently in Rembrandt’s early work. Verditer, a synthetic azurite was available in the 17th century and has been found in some of Rembrandt’s paintings as well. In the later pictures, Rembrandt also used smalt for blues. Its manufacture became a specialty of the Dutch and Flemish in the 17th century.
Hans Hollbein theYounger, Sir William Butts, 1540-1543,
National Portrait Gallery, London.
On of the earliest documented use of smalt.
Modern and Contemporary
The first pigment produced due to the advancement of modern chemistry was a blue: Prussian blue, which was soon followed by cobalt blue and cerulean blue. Since the 19th century, ultramarine has also been manufactured artificially.
John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 1816, National Gallery of Art, Washington (D.C) (using Prussian blue)
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. The Umbrellas (Les Parapluies)1881-85
More contemporary artists can choose from a variety of sources for their blue palette. Some, such as Yves Klein even created his own blue.
Yves Klein, Blue Monochrome 1961,Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection
Blue in Other Cultures
In Chinese culture colors corresponded with the five primary elements, the directions and the four seasons. Blue was associated with spring, wood and the East.
Blue, blue-green, and green are sacred colors in Iran where they symbolize paradise.
In India, paintings of the god Krishna often depict him as having blue skin.
In the United States post office mailboxes are typically blue.
In Greece the color blue is believed to ward off "the evil eye". Those who believe in this Greek superstition often wear a blue charm necklace or blue bracelet for protection.
Blue is also the symbol of fidelity. Blue flowers, such as forget-me-nots and violets, symbolize faithfulness. According to an old English custom, a bride wears blue ribbons on her wedding gown and a blue sapphire in her wedding ring. Tiny flowers of blue speedwell are part of the wedding bouquet. The expression "true blue" for constancy and fidelity perhaps originated with mariners, who associated the blue sky with freedom from storms.
In the English language, blue sometimes refers to sadness. The phrase "feeling blue" is linked to a custom amongst old sailing ships. If a ship loses her captain, she would fly blue flags when returning to home port.
To the Navajo, the southern mountains are blue and have created the dawn.
"Something blue" in the wedding jingle comes from the early Israelites, to whom blue symbolized love, fidelity, and purity.
In German, to be "blue" (blau sein) is to be drunk. This derives from the ancient use of urine (which is produced copiously by the human body after drinking alcohol) in dyeing cloth blue with woad or indigo. However, the color blue also had other associations in Germany. The Blue Flower was the symbol of German 19th century Romanticism.
Psychology of Blue
"If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue." --Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903
- Peaceful, tranquil blue causes the body to produce calming chemicals, so it is often used in bedrooms.
- Blue can also be cold and depressing : Some shades or the overuse of blue may come across as cold or uncaring
- Electric or brilliant blues become dynamic and dramatic, an engaging color that expresses exhilaration.
Indigo turns the blue inward, to increase personal thought, profound insights, and instant understandings.
- Over the past decade, scientists have reported the successful use of blue light in the treatment of a wide variety of psychological problems, including addictions, eating disorders, impotence and depression.
- People are more productive in blue rooms. Studies show weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights in blue gyms
Trivia
- Blue is the favored color choice for toothbrushes.
- Fashion consultants recommend wearing blue to job interviews because it symbolizes loyalty.
- An old superstition says that when lights burn blue there are ghosts about.
For more information:
Color Psychology — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html#ixzz11897VWXz
http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/blues.html
Blue: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau
