Blue

Royal symbol : Blue isn’t very common in nature. The pigment required to make blue dyes were rare and expensive. So in the west, blue became synonymous with wealth. In France, the Capetian dynasty made it the color royal but later the republican adopted it.

Artistical colour : Picasso, Matisse and Klein, great 20^th-century artists in whose work blue was a vital element.

Picasso and the Blue Period (1901 to 1904): Picasso is one of the most prolific artist of the 20^th-century. He came in 1900 in France at Paris and recontre Monet, Renoir, Rodin, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso’s painting had been spontaneous and versatil, now it became sombre and repetitive.

Matisse’s blue like “energetically striking a gong” : Why “Matisse’s blue”? Following his visit to Tahiti in 1930, Matisse uses blue more systematicaly. Towards the end of his life, blue became the only colour used in, for example Blue Nudes (1952). This use of blue corresponded with his maturity.

Yves Klein “a deep nothing then a blue profundity...” : Klein is friend with Armand and cofondateur du “Nouveau Réalisme”. But the blue is his symbolic stamp and he went down in art history thanks to his intense monochomes. His attraction to this colour derived from an existencial attitude because Yves Klein saids “The blue sky is my first oeuvre d’art”. A visit to Assise in Italy, where’s Giotto’s skies rendered him impressionné convinced himto pursue his research into color and in 1960, he patented his International Klein Blue (IKN).

                                          But blue is an emblem in music, style, jewerellery, design...

Blues for ever : At the start ofthe 17^th-century the first african slaves in the New World. The Europeans deprived them of everything execpt their music sometimes tolerated in the fields or church. And slaves gradually abandoned the white man’s hymns; that was the birh of Negro spirituals and gospel. The blues was to take it from inspiration; and in 1880, a young musician William Christopher composed the first blues Mr Crump.

Tendance : dresses, swimming wear, accessories flaunt it often. Not to mention demin, way up from manual labour as fahionable in every possible style. From California, where one, Oscar Levi Strauss invented them in 1853 for miners and gold prospectors to work. In the fiveties and sixties, young people turned them into symbol of emancipation and independance but later all people wearing jeans.

Around and about the Sapphires : In jewellery and watchmaking blue is classical, sapphires and lapis lazuli have always been considerate precious stones.

Zen : Blue is seen as a cold color embodying calm and serenity. It symbolises peace, so is used for the UN’s flag and this army’s berets. But evokes freshness


Pauline and Xiaho