7 minute read
TRUE BLUE
BRIDGEMAN IMAGES Blue Dancers, c.1899 (pastel), by Edgar Degas
T R U E B L U E
Indigo, woad, cerulean… Blue was once considered the hue of degenerates and barbarians, but today it’s the world’s most popular colour. Now there is a new blue. Arts Society Lecturer Alexandra Epps explores its discovery and our long association with this, the colour that comes with contradictions
Blue was on Picasso’s last paint order; the Egyptians used it in depictions of their god Amun-Ra; and 12th-century French monarchs demanded the hue on their coat of arms. From its earliest use, the colour represents an exploration into sensory areas for artists, past and present. And now there is a new blue. In 2009, while conducting experiments into rare earth elements, scientists at Oregon State University serendipitously discovered a vivid blue pigment. The lead chemist, Mas Subramanian, realised this accident was an unusual breakthrough. The compound was named ‘YInMn Blue’ after its elements: yttrium, indium and manganese. In an interview Subramanian explained how YInMn Blue ‘comes with some additional advantages in terms of the durability and stability of the pigment’. Due to its chemical structure the pigment is opaque and doesn’t discolour easily, compared to cobalt or Prussian blue, which can fade over time.
This exciting discovery – now available – is the first blue since cobalt blue was discovered in 1802. It will be interesting to see what artists do with it. The significance and meanings of the colour have shifted over centuries of art history. It is the hue of Hokusai’s great wave, Van Gogh’s starry night sky and Matisse’s cut-out nudes. It is the colour of the suit worn by Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy and the shade of the dresses of Degas’ dancers. In Theory of Colours, written in 1810, Goethe expressed of blue: ‘It is powerful… a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose… we love to contemplate blue – not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.’ Blue is the colour of the limitless horizon, the sky and sea, suggesting tranquillity or calm, with its soulful nature reported to lower blood pressure and improve creativity. Alternatively, in line with Goethe’s opinion on the colour as contradictory, it is also associated with sadness – the notion of ‘feeling blue’. Think of Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’ in the early 1900s, in which he chose the colour to signify his own internal misery and despair, and intensify the hopelessness of the figures he depicted.
HEAVENLY HUES The early significance of blue as a celestial colour was determined by the rarity of ultramarine, found in European medieval and Renaissance art. All the ultramarine came from one set of mines in a valley in Afghanistan, collectively called Sar-e-Sang (the Place of the Stone).
Due to its lack of earthiness, this blue was seen as having mythical properties. It became a holy colour from the 12th century, controlled by the church and subsequently used in stained glass, frescoes and other religious paintings. Giotto used »
the blue ceiling of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, completed in 1305, to represent heaven: the colour of paradise and the divine. In the Wilton Diptych, a small, portable altarpiece made in the Middle Ages (between 1395 and 1399), the striking ultramarine symbolised the otherworld of the Virgin’s realm. Ultramarine was the only paint deemed worthy for the Virgin Mary’s holy robe, the bright blue drapery symbolic of her role as the Queen of Heaven.
In 1911 in Munich, artists Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke and Gabriele Münter founded a group called Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). The rider represented the freedom felt by the contemporary artist, with the colour blue signifying spiritualism and supreme beauty. In Marc’s painting of the same year, The Large Blue Horses, the simple curved outline of the horses is mirrored by the undulating hills in the background, signifying a sense of harmony and peace, uniting the animals and the natural world. During his Blaue Reiter period, Kandinsky’s work became more abstract and expressionist; the colour blue remained important throughout his oeuvre, and he wrote that the deeper the blue, ‘the more it awakens human desire for the eternal’.
Clockwise from below left: immersed in colour: one of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas series, 1914–17; In Blue, 1925, by Kandinsky; Giotto’s frescoes in Scrovegni Chapel
ALL THE EYE CAN SEE In Maggie Nelson’s 2009 book Bluets – a set of meditations on blue – she talks of being ‘introduced to a man who had one of his front teeth replaced with lapis lazuli, solely because he loved the »
Right: brushstrokes and bold blue: Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night
stone, and to another who worships blue so devoutly that he refuses to eat blue food and grows only blue and white flowers in his garden’.
An artist comparably devoted to the colour was Yves Klein, who was so obsessed with blue that he invented and patented his own shade of ultramarine, which he named ‘International Klein Blue’ (IKB). He had been frustrated by the way the colour lost its lustre over time, and his pigment was created using Rhodopas, a synthetic resin that is used to bind ultramarine. He used IKB to create monochrome paintings, or covered objects with it, even inviting life models to roll in the paint and leave their bodily imprints on unstretched swathes of canvas. To announce the opening of his 1957 exhibition at Galerie Iris Clert in Paris, he launched 1,001 blue helium balloons into the sky in front of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church.
IKB wasn’t produced commercially and was Klein’s exclusive property, but he intended his art to be enjoyed by the public. In 1993 Derek Jarman took a single frame of IKB and used it as the static backdrop for his 79-minute film Blue. The film’s poetic, diaristic voice-over is used to narrate Jarman’s experiences living with AIDS-related illnesses, told through a character he calls Blue. Jarman su ered from partial blindness through his illness and, as with all sight-a ected people, his blindness was interrupted by blue light. Before his death, one of his final excursions was to Monet’s garden at Giverny, perhaps feeling a bond with the artist. Monet, too, had su ered from blindness, remarking that he saw ‘nothing but blue’ after an eye operation. If our ability when so a icted is to see only one colour, then perhaps it is a good thing that that shade is, as the French call it, the bleu céleste. Over centuries, blue has been configured as otherworldly and transcendental. In Klein’s words, when writing on its perfect intensity: ‘Blue has no dimensions. It is beyond.’
SEE
Dive A film of Scottish Ballet’s new work, inspired by Yves Klein and his famous shade of blue. Screening now, if you are a member (which is free); scottishballet.co.uk Naturally Brilliant Colour, exploring the origins of colour and vision, with a focus on botanical art. Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew, London, until 26 September; kew.org On Colour An exhibition devoted to colour theory. Compton Verney Art Gallery, Warwickshire, 3 July–3 October; comptonverney. org.uk
OUR EXPERT’S STORY
Alexandra Epps
Arts Society Accredited Lecturer
• Alexandra’s background is in design; she practised as a graphic designer, running her own design consultancy for many years • She is a guide and lecturer at Tate Modern and Tate Britain and is a guide to the City of London, o ering walks and talks based on aspects of the arts • Two of Alexandra’s lectures explore colour within the history of art: Red, White and Blue and As Good as Gold
