COLOUR JOURNEYS (CONT) .
A deep blue with underlying red tones, Q3141S Hint of Shadow can make a room feel warm, as can P8182S Victorian Eclectic 13 which can sometimes be referred to as Mediterranean blue. “So we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.” Goethe (1810) Traditionally, blues are seen as cool colours but a carefully considered desaturated colour like M3271Z Blue Dolphin can be restful. Brighter blues such as Q3155U Star Sapphire are captivating.
There have been other blues but none that had the same vividness as Lapis Lazuli. Cobalt blue was toxic to mine and Indigo or Woad blue could not reach the same depths as the expensive Ultramarine. Eventually synthetic pigments were created and became easily available. Blues take the formof many shades and colours. Dark blues , as seen in N6091F Aftershow , are sophisticated, suggest depth and seriousness and are often used by corporate companies. Deep sludgy hues such as N7160P Holmes Grey and M7171T can add elegance into an interior without being overpowering.
Blue Most studies on colour tend to involve red and blue. Blue sits at the opposite end of the spectrum to red and where red is warming and energising blue is cool and calming. It is the colour of the sea and sky, both vast and open. While the colour blue is seen to have tranquil effects, blue light can be highly stimulating. sea, sky, openness, tranquil
Midnight Navy ® P5062M
Blue is the world’s favourite colour despite it’s long associations with depression, ‘feeling blue’ is a term used to describe sadness. Themusic genre ‘The Blues’ comes from former slaves in America singing lyrical stories of the woes of living in a harsh world. Stories of betrayal, unrequited love, brutal prisons, gambling. This music genre adopted a bluemotif and has been associated withmany great artists such as Miles Davies, Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone to name a few. Studies have found that company branding and logos in blue are seen to be themost honest and trustworthy.
Historically many western cultures did not pay special attention to the colour blue or even have a specific term for the colour but Ancient Egyptians thought the colour could dispel evil and encourage prosperity, so beads in blue were sought after. The Virgin Mary was originally portrayed wearing dark colours, it wasn’t until the 12th century that she began to be painted in blue. Ultramarine Blue was the pigment most likely to be used to portray the Virgin Mary and was so expensive that negotiations about howmuch was used often took place before painting began. In 1521, Albrecht Dürer one of the fewGermans artists to use
ultramarine, (the Italians were the biggest consumers), purchased some in Antwerp at one hundred times the
cost of some earth pigments. Ultramarine comes fromLapis Lazuli a mineral stone that was
Peek a Boo Blue ® N7273Z
Runaway ® N71Z1R
mined in Afghanistan. The journey to transport the stone fromhigh in the mountains involved a donkey or camel trek along The Silk Road trade route and a sea journey to Venice before distribution through Europe. In order to create the brilliant blue colour, themineral had to be finely ground to a powder,
impurities extracted and then mixed with linseed oil ; a lengthy and time consuming process.
M3271Z Blue Dolphin
P9660H
Q3155U Star Sapphire
L8500R 50s Sketchbook 12
L4471M Sail Away
N6091E Aftershow
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