Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.
Blue: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Blue
The first blue pigment ever created by human hands appeared in the third millennium BC, a discovery that predates the invention of the wheel in many regions. Egyptian blue, produced by heating pulverized sand, copper, and natron, was the first artificial colorant in history. This vibrant substance was not merely decorative; it was placed in tomb paintings and on funereal objects to protect the dead in their afterlife. While ancient cultures like the Indus Valley Civilization valued lapis lazuli for beads and ornaments as early as 7570 BC, true blue pigments were rare and difficult to manufacture. The Greeks described the sea as green, brown, or the color of wine, and blue was absent from the four primary colors of Greek painting. For the Romans, blue was the color of mourning and barbarians, and it was not used for dyeing fabric until long after red, ochre, pink, and purple had become common. The rarity of blue pigment made it incredibly valuable, and its creation marked a turning point in human history where the color shifted from a natural phenomenon to a manufactured commodity.
The Royal and Divine
Between 1130 and 1140 in Paris, the Abbe Suger rebuilt the Saint Denis Basilica, installing stained glass windows colored with cobalt that transformed the church into a bluish violet marvel. This architectural innovation changed the role of blue in Europe, elevating it from a color of mourning to the royal color of kings. In the 12th century, the Roman Catholic Church dictated that painters must dress the Virgin Mary in blue, associating the hue with holiness, humility, and virtue. Ultramarine, derived from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan for over three thousand years, became the most expensive pigment of the Renaissance, often costing more than gold. Wealthy patrons commissioned works with the finest blues possible, and in Italian Renaissance art, ultramarine was frequently reserved for the robes of the Virgin Mary. By the 14th century, an industry for fine blue and white pottery began in Jingdezhen, China, using cobalt blue imported from Persia. This style was later adapted by Dutch craftsmen in Delft and English craftsmen in Staffordshire, spreading the blue and white aesthetic across the globe.
The Chemical Revolution
In 1709, a German druggist named Johann Jacob Diesbach discovered Prussian blue, a pigment that arose from experiments involving heating dried blood with iron sulphides. Initially called Berliner Blau, this new blue became immensely popular for the manufacture of wallpaper and was used by French painters like Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Lancret. By 1710, it was being used by the French painter Antoine Watteau, and later his successor Nicolas Lancret. The discovery of Prussian blue in the 1820s also led to its import into Japan, where it was called bero-ai or Berlin blue. It became popular because it did not fade like traditional Japanese blue pigment, ai-gami, made from the dayflower. Prussian blue was used by both Hokusai, in his wave paintings, and Hiroshige. In 1799, a French chemist named Louis Jacques Thénard made a synthetic cobalt blue pigment which became immensely popular with painters. The race to create artificial ultramarine continued, with the prize won in 1826 by Jean Baptiste Guimet, who refused to reveal the formula, until Christian Gmelin published the process in 1828. This began a new industry that eventually almost completely replaced the natural product. In 1878, German chemists synthesized indigo, a product that rapidly replaced natural indigo, wiping out vast farms growing indigo and becoming the blue of blue jeans.
When was the first blue pigment created by human hands?
The first blue pigment ever created by human hands appeared in the third millennium BC. Egyptian blue was produced by heating pulverized sand, copper, and natron to create the first artificial colorant in history.
Who invented Prussian blue and when was it discovered?
A German druggist named Johann Jacob Diesbach discovered Prussian blue in 1709. This pigment arose from experiments involving heating dried blood with iron sulphides and was initially called Berliner Blau.
Why do blue eyes appear blue if they contain no blue pigment?
Blue eyes appear blue due to an optical effect called Tyndall scattering within the stroma of the iris. The irises of people with blue eyes contain less dark melanin than those with brown eyes, which reflects short-wavelength blue light to the viewer.
Who invented the high-brightness blue LED and when was it demonstrated?
Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation demonstrated high-brightness blue LEDs in 1993. Nakamura was awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for this invention and shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano.
When did Prussian blue become the color of Prussian military uniforms?
The Prince-Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I of Prussia, chose Prussian blue as the new color of Prussian military uniforms in the 17th century. This uniform was worn by the German army until World War I.
Which countries have the highest percentage of people with blue eyes?
Blue eyes are most common in Ireland, the Baltic Sea area, and Northern Europe. In Estonia, 99% of people have blue eyes, while in the United States, 16.6% of the total population had blue eyes as of 2006.
Blue eyes do not actually contain any blue pigment; the color is caused by an effect called Tyndall scattering. Eye color is determined by the pigmentation of the iris and the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma. In humans, the pigmentation of the iris varies from light brown to black, and the appearance of blue eyes results from the Tyndall scattering of light in the stroma, an optical effect similar to what accounts for the blueness of the sky. The irises of the eyes of people with blue eyes contain less dark melanin than those of people with brown eyes, which means they absorb less short-wavelength blue light, which is instead reflected out to the viewer. Blue eyes are most common in Ireland, the Baltic Sea area, and Northern Europe, and are also found in Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe. In Estonia, 99% of people have blue eyes. In the United States, as of 2006, 1 out of every 6 people, or 16.6% of the total population, have blue eyes. The sea is seen as blue for largely the same reason: the water absorbs the longer wavelengths of red and reflects and scatters the blue, which comes to the eye of the viewer. The deeper the observer goes, the darker the blue becomes.
The Blue Revolution
In 1993, high-brightness blue LEDs were demonstrated by Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation, a breakthrough that revolutionized lighting technology. Nakamura was awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention, and in 2014, Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki, and Hiroshi Amano were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of an efficient blue LED. Lasers emitting in the blue region of the spectrum became widely available to the public in 2010 with the release of inexpensive high-powered 445, 447 nm laser diode technology. Previously, the blue wavelengths were accessible only through DPSS which are comparatively expensive and inefficient, but still widely used by scientists for applications including optogenetics, Raman spectroscopy, and particle image velocimetry. Blue gas lasers are also still commonly used for holography, DNA sequencing, optical pumping, among other scientific and medical applications. The invention of the blue LED has fundamentally changed how the world is lit, enabling the creation of white light from blue LEDs and phosphors, and has become a cornerstone of modern energy-efficient lighting.
The Color of Power
In the 17th century, the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I of Prussia, chose Prussian blue as the new color of Prussian military uniforms because it was made with Woad, a local crop, rather than Indigo, which was produced by the colonies of Brandenburg's rival, England. It was worn by the German army until World War I, with the exception of the soldiers of Bavaria, who wore sky-blue. In 1748, the Royal Navy adopted a dark shade of blue for the uniform of officers, first known as marine blue, now known as navy blue. The militia organized by George Washington selected blue and buff, the colors of the British Whig Party. Blue continued to be the color of the field uniform of the US Army until 1902, and is still the color of the dress uniform. In the 19th century, police in the United Kingdom, including the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, also adopted a navy blue uniform. Similar traditions were embraced in France and Austria. It was also adopted at about the same time for the uniforms of the officers of the New York City Police Department. Blue is used to represent males, beginning as a trend the mid-19th century and applying primarily to clothing, with gendered associations with blue becoming more widespread from the 1950s. The color became associated with males after World War II.
The Global Palette
Blue is the color that both men and women are most likely to choose as their favorite, with at least one recent survey showing the same across several other countries, including China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Past surveys in the US and Europe have found that blue is the color most commonly associated with harmony, confidence, masculinity, knowledge, intelligence, calmness, distance, infinity, the imagination, cold, and sadness. Unlike red or green, blue was not strongly associated with any particular country, religion, or political movement. As the color of harmony, it was chosen as the color for the flags of the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO. In politics, blue is often used as the color of conservative parties, contrasting with the red associated with left-wing parties. Some conservative parties that use the color blue include the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Australia, Liberal Party of Brazil, and Likud of Israel. However, in some countries, blue is not associated with the main conservative party. In the United States, the liberal Democratic Party is associated with blue, while the conservative Republican Party is associated with red. US states which have been won by the Democratic Party in four consecutive presidential elections are termed blue states, while those that have been won by the Republican Party are termed red states. South Korea also uses this color model, with the Democratic Party on the left using blue and the People Power Party on the right using red.