The Color Blue Research Paper
The color blue is one of the most popular colors of modern times, however, it hasn’t always been like that, many civilizations of the past didn’t regard it as a color but more a shade of a different more common color, such as black. A recent study has shown that the color blue is usually the color a society deems last, due to its uniqueness and rarity. However, in the surprisingly brief six-thousand-year period that humans have interacted with the pigment, many societal views and use for the color have changed.
The color blue was first recognized by the ancient Egyptians six thousand years ago, they produced a unique and beautiful shade called Azurite, they obtained this from a mineral mined in Afghanistan called Lapis Lazuli, where they used different chemical processes to create different shades. Up until this time, no one had described the color but now they even had a word to describe it, for quite some time they were also the only ones to obtain this color. They valued this as a precious resource, it was often used for the tombs of the Pharaohs, ceramics, and statues. This color was popular due to its rarity and was associated with those of the upper class. People then started to experiment with the shade and made Ultramarine perhaps one of the most expensive colors, It was not until the 14th-century Italian traders brought the color back to Europe that the rest of the world could see it, the interesting shade was one of the most expensive colors at the time as it was worth as much as gold. Not only until technology advanced, was priced lower and available to your average consumer.
Because of the colors, newfound value many artists started putting deep thought and meaning into more complex art, this was often times used for religious paintings in the middle ages, as it represented the sky and the heavens. This combined with the fact that blue has a natural calming effect on the human body, because of its longer light waves, made paintings by Johannes Vermeer such as A Girl with a Pearl Earring, so impactful. The color blue also goes on to represent authority and compassion, even the virgin Mary was depicted having a blue robe, that color would later be known as Navy blue and is currently adopted as a color for the Marine in the military because of the Virgin Mary’s association with trust. In a more recent time, period artists like Picasso have used blue famously to represent a human emotion rather than a concept.
Until this era this extravagant color was only used in paintings and high-value items, that is until indigo came along. You see, the color blue had always been hard to obtain, because of this it was an expensive color for art. The textile industry is much different you need less dye to get an impressive result and you could produce this dye from an extremely abundant plant, this allowed people of varied backgrounds to enjoy the soothing color, it was such a big part of the textile industry that at one point tensions between the US and Europe grew solely from demand for the pigment.
The color blue is truly a complex and beautiful color, it is valued by society because of its soothing, or calming nature, for the longest time it remained one of the hardest colors to obtain, but the everlasting beauty and rarity helps artists convey feelings differently.
