Blue
"Blue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. Once considered a hot color, it is now icy cool. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, but most Americans and Europeans now pick it as their favorite color. In this history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastoureau traces the changing meanings of blue from its rare appearances in prehistoric art to its international ubiquity today in blue jeans and Gauloises cigarette packs." "Pastoureau investigates how the ever-changing role of blue in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, heraldry, clothing, paintings, and popular culture. Beginning with the almost total absence of blue from ancient Western art and language, the story moves to medieval Europe. As people began to associate blue with the Virgin Mary, the color became a powerful element in church decoration and symbolism, despite the resistance of chromophobic prelates. Blue gained new favor as a royal color in the twelfth century and became a formidable political and military force through the French Revolution. As blue triumphed in the modern era, new shades were created and blue became the color of romance, the Romantics, and the blues.
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What Hacker News says
- A beautiful book by Michel Pastoureau, Blue: The History of a Color (2001), the same content as the article in book form.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-History-Color-Michel-Pastoureau/...
- If you're interested in ancient blue, the book Blue: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau is very enjoyable. I also enjoyed his Red history book.
And I've just noticed that he went on to write histories of Yellow, Green, White, and Black which I shall pop on my festive wishlist, thank you very much!
- Try "Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Colour" by Phillip Ball. [0]. If you're just interested in the colour blue there's also "Blue: The History of a Color" by Michel Pastoureau [1]. The Pastoureau book is more of an overview of art history than a discussion of the history underlying the discovery of the pigment itself.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Earth-Art-Invention-Color/dp/0...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Blue-History-Color-Michel-Pastoureau/...
- Do you know the book "Blue: The History of a Color" by Michel Pastoureau? As far as I know it's the more complete on the topic.
- > Michel Pastoureau’s book on blue begins by highlighting the neglect this colour faced among the ancient Greeks and Romans, who rarely wrote about it or used it. He even explores the intriguing question of whether ancient peoples could perceive blue at all!
The first synthetic pigment was calcium copper silicate or Egyptian Blue [1], so called because the Egyptians manufactured it from at least the fourth millennium BC; from the Egyptians, the rest of the Mediterranean learned to make and use this artificial pigment, so that it is widely attested in art from the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Greeks (if distinguishable from the Mycenaeans), Romans, and so forth up until the middle ages. Given that Egyptian Blue is a synthetic pigment that must be manufactured by human skill and ingenuity, it boggles the mind that people keep falling for this idea that ancient peoples could not perceive blue. I have no idea how someone could write a book suggesting that ancient people did not write about (Plato certainly did) or use a color that they in fact synthesized, manufactured, and used in art. The ancient Greek word for the color is κυανοῦς, the Latin caeruleus (but of the eyes, caesius).
