The Meaning of the Colour Blue
Introduction: The History of Blue
Blue is one of three primary colours in both the modern additive colour model (RGB) and the traditional subtractive model (RYB). On the spectrum of visible light, blue lies firmly between violet and cyan. Both the sky and the deep sea appear blue as an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering, which we’ve discussed in the blog post about green, where the effect gives rise to the illusion of green eyes. The optical effect explaining blue eyes is called the Tyndall effect. There’s one more important optical effect associated with blue and that’s aerial perspective, also called atmospheric perspective. It’s the effect the atmosphere has on an object viewed from a distance. This is the reason mountainous and hilly landscapes often have this air of blue around them. A classic example of this is the atmosphere around Mount Fuji, which can give the lonely mountain a blue aura.
Blue is a popular colour and has a long history of use in both art and decoration. In Europe and the United States, blue is the colour that both women and men are most likely to choose as their favourite, with some recent surveys showing the same results across other countries like Malaysia, China and Indonesia. The colour is associated with harmony, confidence, knowledge, intelligence, calmness, distance, imagination, but also cold and sadness. We’ve covered a bit of blue’s use and meaning in both the text about green and about cyan. E.g. how some languages don’t make a linguistic distinction between green and blue.
The English word for blue comes from the old French term, which in turn can be traced back to Old High German ‘blao’, meaning “shimmering, lustrous”. Another term for blue, specifically used in heraldry, is azure, which originates from the Spanish word “azul” derived from hispanic arabic, which in turn gets its name from the blue stone called lapis lazuli. Some languages like Russian, Mongolian and Irish don’t have a single word for blue but instead use different words for light blue and dark blue. Linguistic research indicates that languages do not begin by having a word for the colour blue. Colour names typically develop individually in natural languages, often beginning with dark and light (black and white), followed by red. Blue is only added much later, usually as the last main category of colour. This is believed to be around the time when colour pigments of blue can be reliably manufactured in the culture using that language.
The precious and blue stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament, and later during the Renaissance in Europe, was used to make ultramarine, the most expensive pigment at the time. In China, during the 8th century, artists used cobalt blue to colour porcelain. For clothing, Europeans used a vegetable dye from woad for a blueish look, until, eventually, indigo was imported from America, a dye made from the leaves of the indigofera genus. Some mushrooms can give true blue hues, like Sarcodon squamosus found in Scandinavia. In the 19th century, synthetic blue dyes and pigments gradually replaced organic dyes and mineral pigments. Dark blue became a common colour for military uniforms and later in the late 20th century, also business suits. The colour’s association with harmony and peace has also made it the primary colour of flags like the UN and the EU.
A term for blue was pretty rare in many forms of ancient art and decoration, even in literature. The ancient Greek poets described the sea as green, brown or even “the colour of wine”. Blue is not found in cave paintings and was pretty late to be adopted for fabric dyeing. The difficulty of making blue dyes and pigments made the rarity of blue more valuable, and the colour has played an important role in cultures across the globe.
As mentioned earlier, blue pigments were made from minerals like lapis lazuli or azurite, but required large amounts of the minerals to produce. The ancient Egyptians used calcium copper sulfite to make a blue ceramic glaze known as Egyptian blue. This pigment was eventually introduced to the Greeks, but perhaps because of its rarity, it was not one of the four primary colours used in painting as described by Pliny the Elder. Instead, the Greeks used red, yellow, black and white as their foundation of primary colours. The colour blue was associated with mourning in Roman culture, and also with the colour of barbarians. Germanic and Celtic tribes reportedly dyed both face and hair with blue colour to instil fear in their enemy. Despite these associations, the Romans used indigo and Egyptian blue, e.g in their frescos, and the Romans had multiple words for different hues of blue. The use of blue survived well into the Byzantine Empire and became heavily associated with the Christian culture there. In Moorish Spain and other parts of the Islamic world, blue was the colour worn by local Christians and Jews, as Muslims were only allowed to wear white and green. Blue was believed by the Muslims to be secondary to green, which was believed to be the favourite colour of the religion’s founder.
While blue played a minor role in the early Middle Ages of Europe, the colour would receive a religious revival when, in Paris, the Abbe Suger rebuilt a former medieval abbey church into a cathedral. Suger believed that light was the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit and had stained glass windows coloured with cobalt installed in the church. Combined with the light from red glass, the church was filled with a bluish violet light. This made the church a spectacle of the Christian world, and the colour became widely known as the “bleu de Saint-Denis”. Several other Parisian churches and cathedrals had similar blue-stained windows installed afterwards. The colour of blue as a colour of the church was further cemented when the Roman Catholic Church dictated that painters were to paint the Virgin Mary with blue as a symbol of holiness, humility and virtue. Blue had started as a relatively obscure colour, but by the end of the Middle Ages, it had become a royal colour, and its rarity made it a prized colour. It became a popular colour in coats of arms across Europe, perhaps most famously the azure shield of the French kings, ornate with the golden fleur-de-lis.
During the Renaissance, the blue pigment known as ultramarine became the most expensive and prestigious colour, and its price overtook that of gold. Wealthy art patrons would commission work with the most expensive blue colours. Richard Sackville commissioned a portrait of himself by Isaac Oliver, containing no less than three different blues, including the elegant and expensive ultramarine for his stockings in the portrait. Around the same time, and with trade in the east, the English and Dutch began importing expensive pottery from China, whose white porcelain was decorated with patterns of cobalt blue, which the Chinese imported from Persia. This style of pottery eventually came to be adapted by European craftsmen in both the Netherlands and England.
In the early 19th century, the English nobleman and arbiter of British men’s fashion
Beau Brummel created the ancestor of the modern blue business suit. Around the same time across the Atlantic, Latvian-American tailor Jacob W. Davis used metal rivets to strengthen blue denim work clothing in California, creating the first blue jeans, which were later funded by Levi Strauss and spread across the globe. Around this time, blue was becoming more common, and being more readily available, it wouldn’t take long until various artists and collectives would pick up on the emotional power of the colour.
In Culture
Pablo Picasso, Pavel Kuznetsov and the Blue Rose art group, along with Kandinsky and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) school, were all very fond of the colour and would use it extensively in their paintings. They used it to express a depth of feelings, and would use it both as a gloomy and depressive atmosphere, but also as a magical and mystical colour. In the 20th century, painters of the abstract expressionist movement used colour to inspire ideas and emotions as well. Blue is also heavily associated with authority.
Both military and police have throughout history made frequent use of the colour in uniforms and symbolism. Several hues of blue are named after their military use, like Navy blue, used by the British navy in their uniforms and Prussian blue, as the colour of the Prussian military uniforms. Today, modern police in several countries make use of a variety of blue colours to instil authority, balance and calm.
The colour blue is also associated with gender, representing male, whereas pink symbolises female. Beginning as a trend in the mid-19th century, primarily applied to clothing, the two colours became associated with gender and still live on today. In gender reveal parties in the US, the two colours are used to represent and reveal the gender of the soon-to-be-born. Sometimes restrooms also make use of the colour to signify ladies' or gentlemen's restrooms. A notable example of the contrary is the association in Christianity where the colour is most associated with the Virgin Mary.
Blue in a religious context is not only important to Christians but also plays an important role in many other religions. Like Judaism, where the Israelites were commanded in the Torah to put fringes on the corners of their garments and to weave a thread of blue into these fringes. According to several rabbinic sages, blue is the colour of God’s glory, and staring at the colour aids in meditation, bringing a glimpse of purity and the likeness of the Throne of God. In many other cultural contexts, blue is associated with peace, truth, wisdom and protection. It’s believed to help with healing, psychic abilities and help achieve harmony and understanding. Famous talismans made to protect from evil, using the colour blue as part of their symbolism, are the nazar amulet as well as the hand-shaped amulet called hamsa. The association with peace has been touched upon briefly earlier.
Blue is a common colour found in national flags; my own home country uses it. As the colour of harmony, it was chosen as the colour for the flags of the UN, the EU and NATO, all symbolising the working together of the different nations. In politics, the colour blue is often used to denote conservative parties, contrasted with the red associated with left-wing parties. This includes countries like the UK, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Israel and more. In the US, however, the conservative Republican Party is associated with the colour red. Across cultures, blue has been an important colour and continues to be incredibly popular today.
The colour blue is associated with a lot of different things. The most notable are its association with peace, tranquillity, harmony, and protection and authority. Self-titled peacekeepers and guardians of the world dress themselves in blue uniforms and wave their blue peace flags as a symbol of understanding. Not all are positive associations, however. Blue is also associated with depression, “having the blues”, and just like the blue, deep ocean, the depth of emotions the colour holds is nearly endless. There’s something both liberating and suffocating about the rich colour, and in nature, it’s often a strong signal colour, found commonly in poisonous foods, making it a very unappetizing colour to humans. The calm and confident nature of the colour reinforces its authority, and the openness and harmonious hues it offers allow it to boost productivity and be mentally stimulating. It’s a colour with a rich history and is found in the palette of most artists, myself included.
In My Work
I’ve already confessed my love to cyan, and it’s true that the colour gets some of its hues from blue. When it comes to blues, I am well-versed and familiar with them. Perhaps more so than cyan and its brightness. I’ve always liked darker and richer blues more than light blues, until I saw cyan in the dark. To me, a dark blue is almost a black, and it’s a black with just a little something more. It’s almost more encompassing. Like the depths of an ocean is the same dark as a moonless night, but yet a thicker and fuller atmosphere. There’s a cold to blues which I also like, it reminds me of home.
When asked what colour people would describe me as, the most common answer I got was dark blue. I don’t know if that’s still the case or if people would describe me with another colour. To me, there’s a mystical and mysterious nature to blue, and it has many of the same qualities as black in its darker shades. That is, it makes an excellent background. It’s filled with potential, and it brings forth the other light colour it interacts with. It is a harmonious colour, and a colour whose depths allow it to express a large variety of emotions and ideas.
While a cold and depressive colour to some, for me, depression has always been colourless. It’s black and white rather than blue. Blue is a feeling of melancholy and definitely can have some sadness to it, but it doesn’t have the apathetic nature of depression, in my opinion. It’s more like a profound loss or an ache, a pining for something which was. There is a calm to it; it’s not the stage of grief that has you tearing out your hair or crying endlessly. It’s almost like being frozen in ice, where you’re enveloped by the blue, and it’s a calm, but a calm which burns like fire. Perhaps it’s the later stages, and perhaps it’s part of the healing journey.
The calming effect of blue is not only used to instil tranquillity in the viewer but also to convey an ambience of confidence and cool. The stillness of blue is associated with the darker hues, as moving water becomes lighter in colour. I love using blues; they express a depth that adds mystery and openness to paintings while clearly defining layers and outlining ideas.
There’s a multitude of different things blue can express, and it’s aided by the depth of its hues. It’s often associated with calm, confidence and serenity. The stability of the colour can be both authoritarian and impose these feelings in an assertive but non-aggressive way. The melancholy of blue is also of a stable and strong nature, and because of this, blue is a powerful emotional colour. It invokes feelings of oceans and their depth, but also of mountains and their peaks. It’s a very natural and earthly colour, but also has a heavenly quality.
The magnitude of blue in the moment reminds us of what we hold sacred, and it celebrates the legends we revere. It helps us realise the origins of the magic in the moment, and its path and nature are always the same: ever-changing.
