"What
is blue ? Blue is the invisible becoming visible." -Yves Klein
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Who is blue ?
|
The Egyptians saw life
in the deep blue of the water and the divine in the immeasurable
blue of the sky.
Blue : color of the water, color of the depth, personifying the female principle .. Blue : Color of the sky, in former times the sky-blue was associated to the male principle. Color of all Gods and symbol of the far, the divine, the spiritual Still today blue is considered as the color of loyalty, because only from far away when there is the chance for unfaithfulness, you can proof loyalty. Blue flowers, like forget-me-not or violets are symbols for loyalty Blue
: color of the unlimited dimensions. To
think on the color blue The
color blue is considered as a color of mentality and makes you feel
positive. Feeling "blue" - "blue Monday" In contrast with the other colors like purple, you could dye blue easily. The most important dye-stuffs were Indigo which came from India and a local material called "Färberwaid". For the production of this special leaves mixed with human urine were fermented in buckets. To intensify the process alcohol had to be added. As alcohol was very expensive at that time, the dyers drank it and so the alcohol then was enriched in the urine. The clothes had to be kept in the bucks for about 12 hours which was mostly done on Sundays. Then they were hung up on a string to the get the blue color developed. On Monday, when the dyers lay drunk beside the clothes and waited for the result, everybody knew that the dying process was carried out, die dyers were "blue". Therefore in the German language the word "blue" means also "drunken". Also the "blue Monday" has his origin from this process (Thomas Seilnacht) From "devil's color" to "king of dyeing stuff" In 1498 Vasco de Gama brought the Indian Indigo across the sea to Europe. First the dying with Indigo was prohibited by death punishment, as it was a menace to the livelihood of the farmers. In 1654 the German emperor pronounced Indigo as the "devil's color". At the end of the 17th century prince Friedrich Wilhelm introduced the Prussian-Blue dyed uniforms as a support of the farmers. This blue looked very tidy and respectable. During the First World War the color blue disappeared from the Prussian uniforms and was replaced by camouflage colors. At last the Indigo was legalized due to its better dyeing qualities in the year 1737. The "devil's color" had turned into the "king's color". (Thomas Seilnacht) The "Blue Flower" in the Romanticism "The Blue Flower" is a popular motif in the poetry of the Romanticism. In the novel of Novalis, "Henry of Ofterdingen", which was written in 1802, the hero dreams about a blue flower, which fills him with yearning .. "A kind of sweet slumber seized him, in which he dreamed about indescribable incidents and from which he was woken up by another inspiration. He found himself on a wide lawn, at the edge on a spring .. Dark rocks with colored veins raised far away, the daylight, by which he was surrounded, was lighter and softer than usual, the sky was black-blue and absolutely pure. But what attracted him with full power was a tall light blue flower, growing beside the spring and touching him with its shiny leaves. Around it grew innumerable flowers in all colors and their delicious scent filled the air. He did not notice anything else than the blue flower and watched it for a long time with tenderness. At last he wanted to get closer to it, when suddenly it started to move and to change: the leaves became more shiny and snuggled up to the growing stalk, the flower inclined towards him and the blossoms showed a blue collar around a soft face." Stimulated and exited by this dream Henry set out for finding the spring of his yearning. Some day during his travels when standing on a hill he looks towards his destination and towards his home at the same time. At this moment he gets the feeling that he rather approaches to his home than to leave it. Thus the Blue Flower is a symbol for start as well as for fulfillment of longings but as well a symbol of finding the own personal luck and sense of life. The simultaneous view towards forward and back makes a spiritual reflection about the past in view of the future possible. In Augsburg Henry meets Mathilde and by watching her face he finds an association to his dream. Her face remembers him of the face in the flower. The association between the symbolism of the blue flower and of Mathilde's face can also be seen as the longing for unity with nature. At last Mathilde dies, but Henry keeps his love and thus his longings. The poetic symbolism of the color blue is noticed intuitive by readers and can also be understood by means of the modern realization of the psychology of colors. Thinking on the color causes a yearning, dreamy feeling and produces safety and calm at the same time". (Thomas Seilnacht) Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and the "Blue Rider" (Blaue Reiter) In 1920 the expressionistic painter Wassily Kandinsky wrote in his famous book "About the spiritual in art: "The tendency of the blue color for becoming absorbed is so strong, that it becomes more intensive especially in deep shades ... The deeper the blue becomes, the more it attracts the infinity for men, the more it awakes the longing for the pure and at last for the magic" (Kandinsky, S. 92 - giving the list of his words) In the year 1912 the painters Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky published an encyclopedia, which they called "The Blue Rider". Both painters liked the color blue and horses. The "Blue Horses" painted by Franz Marc became very famous. In the "Blue Flower" of the Romanticism man could recognize his own face in nature. With his "Blue Horses" Marc did a further step: "We won't go on painting the woods or horses as we like them, but as they really are, as the woods or the horses feel themselves, their pure nature, which lives behind the light, which is seen only by us ... From now on we must learn to associate animals and plants to ourselves and show our relationship to them in our art." (Marc 1912/13, in Partsch 1993) With his Blue Horses and the other portrayals of animals Marc gave back the souls to the creatures of nature like they had before in the cave paintings. In the "Dreaming Horse" of 1913 Marc referred to the vicinity of the color blue to dreams. There it was the horses, which had longings. He himself had an intensive relationship to the animals. (Thomas Seilnacht) I never get tired of the blue sky. - Vincent van Gogh The color Blue is preferred by passive people, who wish to be left in peace, who do not wish to get into arguments, who are tolerant of others who, while thinking differently, also prefer peace ... - Christopher Hills It was so simple to paint things as I saw them; to put without special calculation a red close to a blue. - Paul Gauguin There are moments on most days when I feel a deep and sincere gratitude, when I sit at the open window and there is a blue sky or moving clouds. - Käthe Kollwitz I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, and simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes. - Yves Saint Laurent A majority of introverted personalities favor the color [blue], the color of circumspection, for it is allied with conscious control of emotions. ... blue is the color of deliberation and introspection, of conservatism and acceptance of obligations. Those who favor it have reflective minds and honest intentions, but sometimes use reason for selfish and self-justified purposes. - Faber Birren If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive ... - Eleonora Duse At a few hundred kilometers altitude, the Earth fills half your sky, and the band of blue that stretches from Mindanao to Bombay, which your eye encompasses in a single glance, can break your heart with its beauty. Home you think. Home. This is my world. This is where I come from. Everyone I know, everyone I ever heard of, grew up down there, under that relentless and exquisite blue. - Carl Sagan My only sketch, profile, of Heaven is a large blue sky, and larger than the biggest I have seen in June -- and in it are my friends -- every one of them. - Emily Dickinson Eyes too expressive to be blue, too lovely to be grey. - Matthew Arnold I will concentrate on the beauty of one blue hill in the distance, and for me, that moment will be eternity. - Alice Walker I
have a lot of blue in my aura and my interpretation of this color
does not always jibe with that of a person whose aura does not contain
it and who therefore interprets it objectively. - Edgar Cayce |
