Pigments through the Ages - Intro to the blues

A blue god appears in this copy of a painting in Gebel Barkal by Ernst Weidenbach, 1845. Pharaoh and a Temple Chantress present offerings to Amon. The skin of the Egyptian god Amon was rendered blue. Originally, he was the deification of the concept of air, and one of the four fundamental concepts of the primordial universe. Amon means “the hidden one,” as the air and the wind is not seen. His original depiction was a frog-headed god and his invisibility was represented by the color blue, the color of the sky.

Blue is the color of sky and water. From the time of the ancient Egyptians, the blue of water - the color of depth - personified the female principle. The blue of skies was associated with the male principle. It is the color of all heavenly gods and stands for distance, for the divine, and for the spiritual (voiced particularly by W. Kandinsky).

Blue is also the symbol of fidelity, as it can be proven only from distance, where the opportunity for unfaithfulness awaits. Blue flowers, such as forget-me-nots and violets, symbolize faithfulness. According to an old English custom, the 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.

In the English language, blue sometimes refers to sadness. The phrase "feeling blue" is linked to a custom among old sailing ships. If the ship lost her captain, she would fly blue flags when returning to home port.

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 Blue Flower was the symbol of German 19th century Romanticism, thanks to the novel fragment Heinrich von Ofterdingen, by the German poet Novalis (1772-1801):

“He found himself on a wide lawn adjacent to a well …Dark blue rock faces with colorful streaks rose in the distance; the suffusing light was brighter and milder than usual, the sky was blackish blue and totally pure. But what attracted him most powerfully was a tall, light blue flower … He saw nothing but the blue flower and for a long time contemplated it with indescribable tenderness.”

In paintings...

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. The first blue pigment was azurite, a natural mineral. Soon thereafter, Egyptians manufactured Egyptian blue, which quickly spread throughout the ancient world. During the Middle Ages, the recipe for Egyptian blue was lost; azurite and expensive ultramarine from Afghanistan were the only sources of blue available. In the 15th century, smalt, a finely ground blue glass, came into use for painting. The first pigment produced thanks to the advancement of modern chemistry was a blue, Prussian blue, followed soon by cobalt blue and cerulean blue.

Munsell chips of hue 5PB at eight levels of lightness and six levels of chroma

Timeline of blue pigments.

Charlemagne, missal, circa 15th century. In early medieval Europe, blue was a royal and aristocratic color, as blue dyes were rare and expensive. The working class wore mainly green and brown. Because blue dyes were rare and 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, as well as a symbol of purity.

Blue has a calming effect. The Nivea skin cream cover features synthetic ultramarine. Indeed, blue is often associated with cleanliness and freshness in household products, and blue labels on drinks with coolness and lightness. Blue invokes dreamlike states and has a calming effect. Blue is the color of the heart and has a positive connotation. Several companies have blue logos, including ARAL, Deutsche Bank, Levi’s, and Nivea.

A perfect blue. Yves Klein (1928-1962), Blue Monochrome, 1961, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. Klein likened monochrome painting to an "open window to freedom as the possibility of being immersed in the immeasurable existence of color." He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, it is called International Klein Blue. Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness of his utopian vision of the world. A student of Eastern religions, Klein entertained esoteric and spiritual ideas in which blue played a vital role as the color of infinity.