Theme Thursday Blue

Blue is not a favorite color of mine; I seldom wear it, don't care for blue rooms and find it makes me, well, blue.  On the other hand, blue is the color of the ocean , it's the color of the sky, all of which I adore.

 A perfect blue. Yves Klein (1928-1962), Blue Monochrome, 1961, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. Monochrome painting was defined by Yves Klein as an "open window to freedom as the possibility of being immersed in the immeasurable existence of color." He synthesized his own blue, International Klein Blue and used this pigment in order to evoke his boundlessness vision of  the  world, being blue the color of infinity.

                                                  from Pigments Through the Ages

Theme Thursday's color memes have taught me a great deal.  In school, I studied Color Theory and Art History but the research I do for the memes is teaching me Color History thanks to the historical, religious and cultural significances. 

Blue is a primary color.  There are three:  red, yellow, blue.  Blue was not, however, the first color "perceived by man".  Red was. 

Ancient Greece had no word for blue.  According to Wikipedia, 

The modern English word blue comes from the Middle English word bleu or blwe which came from an Old French word  bleu of Germanic origin. In Germany, to be blue (blau sein) is to be drunk.  Drinking produces urine which was used to dye cloth blue with wood or indigo.

According to Pigments Through the Ages,  the first blue was made from a mineral called azurite. The Egyptians manufactured Egyptian blue but the process was lost. During the Middle Ages, blue came from azurite and ultramarine, an expensive mineral found in Afghanistan. During the 15th century, smalt was created by finely grinding up blue glass. Smalt was used for painting.The first pigment made by modern chemistry was a blue, Prussian blue, followed by cobalt blue and cerulean. 

Blue is the color of fidelity which is why brides are always encouraged to wear "something blue".  The mineral lapis lazuli possesses life giving powers according to ancient Egyptian beliefs.  Blue colored hippos were made to represent the life giving properties of the river Nile. 

The color blue is significant in modern art.  Pablo Picasso's Blue Period refers to a series of paintings in which the color blue dominates and which he painted between 1901 and 1904. The blue period is a marvelous expression of poetic subtlety and personal melancholy and contributes to the transition of Picasso's style from classicism to abstract art. 
from Pablo Picasso Blue Period

Life by Picasso

 1910                                                                        

                                                                                                           

Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc published an Almanac in 1912 named "Blauer Reiter" (Blue Rider). The Publication was preceded by two expositions of the famous group of artists based Munich with the same name. Both painters loved the color blue and horses. Franz Marc’s blue horses became quite famous. In the Romantic times the Blue Flower mirrored Man himself as part of Nature.  Franz Marc
reached far beyond this concept in Blue Horses

    The Large Blue Horses by Franz Marc 1912

  

In the Blue by Wasily Kandinsky 1925

Russian painter W. Kandinsky wrote in his famous book "On the Spiritual in Art" in 1910:
"The inclination of blue to depth is so strong that its inner appeal is stronger when its shade is deeper. The darker the shade of the blue color, the stronger is its call into the Infinite, the stronger is the yearning for Purity and finally for the Transcendental."

                      

from Pigments through the Ages

                                                        

For more information on the meanings and uses of the color blue, visit the links provided in this post.  My favorite is "Pigments through the Ages".